The very private D'Oyly family were overall very good to their trusted staff but had little to say to the press. They preferred that those who stayed at The Savoy popularize it. The hotel was the stage for much drama and many affairs. The family ran their hotel from the 1880's, when it opened, until the 1980s, resisting conformity as hotels became more standardized. They liked who they liked and so they made some accommodation for the artists they enjoyed who couldn't afford what the rich could.
The book opens with a subject of interest here, the subject of Marguarite Alibert in January 2019 when "Parisian courtesan Marguerite Fahmy, who had married Prince Ali Kamel Fahmy, a playboy a decade younger than she, shot him and went on trial for murder. The couple had made a spectacle of themselves at clubs around town because of their loud arguments and perpetrating domestic violence on each other in public. On a hot July night, wearing a white satin and beaded cocktail gown designed for her by Coco Chanel, Marguerite shot Ali three times with a Browing semi-automatic. (Pages2- 3) She shot him in the head, neck, and back. He died. The trial revealed some sordid details to the public who followed it with great interest. Her lawyer called Marguerite's husband, Ali,'a monster of Eastern depravity and decadence, whose sexual tastes were indicative of an amoral sadism' and called her a "Helpless European wife." (Page 5) She turned up in court sparkling, wearing her finest jewelry, and was acquitted. She lived into old age at Place Vendome, opposite the Ritz in Paris.
Apparently the publicity that the trial engendered made the Savoy more popular than ever.
New Money and the Greek shipping tycoons Cosas Lemos, Aristotle Onassis, and Stavros Niarchos are also mentioned in the book. The men were competing and while the other two men stayed elsewhere when in London Onassis stayed at the Savoy.
According to the author, Olivia Williams, Onassis was often there smoking cigars with his friend Winston Churchill whose son, Randolph who often sailed with Onassis on the Christina, had introduced his father to....
"... an incident on board in 1963, in which Randolph 'erupted like Stromboli shouting abuse at his aged father. Randolph accused him of having connived with his first wife, Pamela, to whom Winston was very close, to conceal her affair with Averell Harriman 48th Governor of New York.' Onassis and Churchill became so close, however, that society was stunned within Churchill invited him to become a member of The Other Club at the Savoy. (Page 253)
Stavos Niarchos was possibly able to have a say about how the hotel was run. Pamela Churchill had accepted Randolph's proposal of marriage, though he had been on a 'proposal binge' on their first date and had married him and became pregnant on her wedding night, thus producing an heir. Randolph cold not stop his drinking or womanizing and soon he and Pamela were having affairs. (Page 255)
Pamela, leaving Randolph had gone off to Claridges, another famous hotel, where she found herself attracted to William Paley, the owner of the CBS television network, and then also Edward Murrow, a popular news anchor in the United States. However, she set her signs on Niarchos, who was married. Onassis considered Niarchos an enemy and tried to befriend Randolph to side against him and Pamela. But Onassis and Niarchos had something in common and that is that they had married sisters and Onassis'' first wife, Athina, divorced from him, married Niarchos
If it interests you, check into the archives to summon up posts on the following subjects which intertwine with the people mentioned in this book.
MARGUERITE ALIBERT - SEX WORKER, COURTESAN, MISTRESS, WIFE - HER MEN and the PRINCE OF WALES : HIS LOVE LETTERS MAY HAVE SHIELDED HER FROM THE LAW in January 2019
MARIA CALLAS OPERA DIVA and MISTRESS OF ARI ONASSIS : MISTRESS OF THE MONTH August 2010
NICKY T. : THE OBSCURE BELGIAN ESCORT and MISTRESS WHO BROKE ATHINA ONASSIS ELEVEN YEAR MARRIAGE and "GABY" LANDHAGE the MISTRESS WHO MARRIED ATHINA'S FATHER and RAISED HER May 2020
PAMELA CHURCHILL:
PAMELA DIGBY CHURCHILL HARRIMAN - DUMPY DEBUTANTE TO AMBASSADOR TO FRANCE: March 2019 and April 2019
Missy
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