Famous even in Albania
Taki
ARI — THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ARISTOTLE SOCRATES ONASSIS by Peter Evans Cape, £12.95 In the course of pursuing the good life, and subsequently having to spend an in- ordinate amount of time in airports, I have dipped into several biographies of that charming, beguiling, and likeable scoun- drel Aristotle Socrates Onassis. Peter Evans's opus on the Turkish-born, Greek- speaking Argentine national is better than the dozen-odd biographies of the tycoon that have appeared up to now, if not by much.
A story that surprised me was one that had Onassis being buggered regularly by a Turkish officer while in his teens. (How dare you, Evans, our greatest shipowner used by the wily Turk?) The other was again about sex. According to the author Onassis liked to beat women. 0y, veil! I can see An tying up Jackie and whipping her with a Gucci whip. Her gag is a Hermes scarf, and, well, I had better not go on. I knew Onassis quite well, and he certainly was a charmer, as well as a user. He used to sit at the first table on the right in El Morocco and read the old Herald Tribune. Needless to say, he was the focus of attention, as very few men actually go into a place like El Morocco in order to read. Whenever he'd see me with a pretty girl, he'd invite me to join him. More often than not, we'd spend the whole night doing what Greeks love to do. Talk. He was a lonely man, hard to get to know, but very similar to most of my countrymen who have not had a western education. Always playing his cards close to his chest.
When Onassis had company, however, one could not get near him. Especially if that company was what the ghastly social climbers of today refer to as 'A-list'. He could also be rude and cruel. Once, at a dinner table, Maria Callas was asked by her friend Maggie van Zuylen how often Ari made love to her. Never, was the answer. Onassis, sitting a few seats away, heard her, cursed her in Greek, and finished by telling her, 'Me esena pote, me alles poly.' (With you never, with others a lot.) When Callas realised I had overheard and understood, she begged him to stop. But he went on. So I had to leave instead, which made two Greeks miserable that night.
But back to the book. It traces Onassis from womb to tomb, as they say. Middle- class upbringing in Asia Minor, the sacking of his hometown of Smyrna by the Turkish armies, his flight to Greece and Argentina, his initial successful ventures selling Greek tobacco, the acquisition of his first ship, his shrewdness, hustle, and cutting of corners, as well as his thirst for money and power. His conquest of beautiful women is chroni- cled, as is his strange cynicism and total lack of ideology. (While Greeks fought a desperate battle against the combined armies of Italy and Germany in the winter of 1941, he was living it up in Buenos Aires and New York City.) His takeover of the SBM (Monte Carlo Casino) made him known among the rich. His relationship with Callas made him a household word. His marriage to Jackie Kennedy made him famous even in Alba- nia. It also signalled the beginning of the end for him.
Jackie does not come across well in this book. There are stories about her shopping sprees, and a sense of why she became, in Onassis's opinion, 'coldhearted and shal- low'. Teddy Kennedy fares even worse (he spoke about Jackie's share of the Onassis loot to Christina Onassis while they were leaving the cemetery). All in all, Ari is a book we could do without. Prurient in- terest is aroused but not satisfied. But in an age of mass communications, which favours celebrity rather than thought, and trendy subjects rather than serious ones, I suppose it is a workmanlike and better than average effort. And definitely airport reading.
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