French Sketches: Monaco, Onassis, and Prince Rainier
This French Sketch is up and available at Kindle, Kobo, Nook, iPad, Smashwords and other ebook retailers for $.99. This is the third in the series.
In 1950, twenty-seven-year-old Prince Rainier succeeded his
grandfather as sovereign prince of the little principality of Monaco on the
French Riviera. The city-state’s principal attractions were the renowned casino
at Monte Carlo and the beautiful belle époque Hotel de Paris. Unfortunately,
the Russian nobility and English aristocrats who had lost fortunes at the
casino were long gone. Into these impecunious circumstances sailed
international tanker tycoon Aristotle Onassis who bought majority control of
SBM, the holding company that owned the casino and hotel.
Onassis had new money and old ideas about how to make Monaco
prosperous again. He wanted to cater to a small audience of the very wealthy. In
contrast, Prince Rainier wanted to develop a modern and larger market of
well-to-do tax exiles, high income people attracted to favorable tax rates and
beautiful Riviera weather. A power struggle between the two visions evolved
over the next fifteen years until in the mid-1960s Rainier vanquished Onassis
with the help of Charles de Gaulle, president of France.
Along the way Rainier married movie star Grace Kelly in the
greatest fairytale wedding of the twentieth century. In a more roguish manner,
Onassis embarked on high profile affairs with opera diva Maria Callas, Lee
Radziwill, and Jackie Kennedy, often using his luxurious yacht Christina O
as a floating rendezvous for assignation, a perfect symbol for the lust, greed,
and status seeking behind these tabloid romances.
