CHINESE RESTAURANT HUMOR

From a click bait site called Daily Choice...

 

MY FAVORITE MISTAKE : SHERYL CROW

NINA and FREDERIK - DANISH FOLK SINGERS and "SOCIETY KIDS DABBLING IN MUSIC" WHO BECAME "OVERNIGHT SENSATIONS"

Danish, and a series of records and albums that did well in Europe during the early 1960's especially, they were compared to the American folk singing trio Peter, Paul, and Mary, and despite first thought of as dabblers, became overnight sensations.

Nina was still married to her first husband Hugo Wessel, a man of leisure, who she had first dated while in college at USC in America, while he also attended college in Southern California, when she started singing with old family friend Frederik. After making such music together, and staring in two films, everyone wondered if they would marry. She quietly divorced Hugo and married Frederik, thereafter having three children with him in the early 1960's.

ILLUMINATION

 

IS THERE A WAY TO AFFAIR PROOF YOUR MARRIAGE : QUESTIONS FOR MISSY

QUESTION FOR MISSY

Missy,

I take marriage seriously being a Catholic and I don't want to marry someone who will cheat on me.  So, you seem to know a lot about cheaters.  Is there a way to affair proof your marriage?

Bennie

Minnesota

ANSWER FROM MISSY 

Do you mean to affair proof YOURSELF or the person you marry?

Actually, I don't think there is. Other than you spend every last minute with your partner.

However, there are some things that might help you avoid having an affair or being "cheated."

1) Marrying someone who is also of the same religion and serious about it. Generally this means having traditional attitudes about the roles of husband and wife and that marriage can include long term suffering and is forever. This sometimes translates into staying together despite affairs. Please note that to me an affair may or may not evolve into becoming or having a Mistress. An affair can be five minutes, a few weeks, or last many years, but may not evolve into a special relationship. Something we do here is work on defining Mistress. The overuse of the term in the media is that any woman who had an affair, even a brief one, with a celebrity is now called a Mistress. A weekend with a celebrity doesn't even make one a girlfriend.

2) Having work that does not require you to travel or attend conventions without your partner or taking your partner with you wherever you go. Being on the road doesn't just mean meeting new people. It can be lonely and stressful. Going home after work each day to your spouse means you usually know where the other person is.

Keeping track of your partner can also feel or be controlling or confining. It can imply a lack of trust. The spouse may just get to the point where they want to get away from you.

Work place affairs are common. 

3) Being sure you both always wear your wedding bands. Interested people always look to see if someone is wearing rings. 

4) Not using alcohol or drugs. Both lower your resistance to finding others attractive, giving in to your sexual nature or adventure, and not practicing Safer Sex.

5) Not taking each other for granted. Scheduling quality alone time and still going out on "dates." Leaving the children with a trustworthy caregiver and taking vacations together.

6) Keeping the conversation going. Discussing the things you want out of the partnership, perhaps having pre-marital counseling, so that you are in agreement about important things like having children. Checking in with each other often.

7) Knowing the difference between honesty and honesty till it hurts. Don't be mean or insensitive. Also, every person has and should have privacy.

8) Having enough money. Enough can be a changing amount.

9) Allowing each other personal time, private time, friendships that don't necessarily include each other.

Not expecting to be each other's everything.

10) Not being manipulative, abusive, or jealous.

11) Getting married later in life.

Basically I'm saying to avoid those things that are notorious for causing couples to fall out as well as temptation.  

However, it seems to me affairs happen anyway. People who never thought they would sometimes do. 

Missy

MONEY BAGS

 

NINA VAN PALLANDT : THE TWIST AND TURNS OF A MARRIAGE IN FREE FALL

Notes and Excerpts by Missy:

By January 1967, when Nina was thinking that the separations had been good and was having renewed hope about her marriage with Frederik, the children announced that they had spent time with Dorothy, who was Frederik's new woman... It became clear that both husband and wife were having their own lives.

Excerpt Page 181 :

After a dinner party.... "He suddenly sat on the bed and said, "Dorothy and I are expecting a baby.  Our marriage is finished.  It was only an extension of our childhood anyway, and only our work has held us together.  We'll fulfill the contracts we have, and that's the end."

What could I say?  I, too, had contemplated leaving but had come to a different conclusion. I had long known of his girl friends, but had come to terms with that.  I knew what we had together was unique and giving life together was very much a part of it.  Now, with this, part of that uniqueness had been sullied and it all seemed meaningless.  I was numb.

I cried and raged...

Note: The Nina and Frederik singing duo continued to entertain.

 Excerpt page 183 :

At home the children never saw any strife or disharmony, but I know they sensed the tension....  Frederik didn't want a divorce.  I was his wife and would be the only one he'd have in this life. The soul relationship be had with Dorothy, he said, needed no marriage certificate.

He was torn between two worlds. When he was here he wanted to be elsewhere; when elsewhere he wanted to be here.  Deep down I don't think he wanted to be anywhere. Then the phone rang. Dorothy had had a daughter.  We both cried for each other, for ourselves, and for her, too...

Notes : Back on the tour, it became clear that for all this, Frederik planed to spent his time with Dorothy and his friends, sailing.  Nina wrote that the only thing that kept her going was her love for children.  But they discussed having his new family move in.  If that had happened Nina and Dorothy would have more openly been sharing a man. Finally Nina accepted that the relationship she had with her husband was that of siblings.  What came next was negotiating a friendship with Clifford's new wife.

Excerpt page 196:

Clifford and Edith came to one of the few parties I had that summer. (Edith had become writer Clifford Irving's his fourth wife in 1967.) I'd gone to see her the year before at their home because I wanted to tell her I felt the island was too small for old grudges.  Could we not make peace between us?  I didn't stay long, but it was a friendly meeting, and when she took me downstairs to the door, she asked me to dinner a few days later. I went, and it was a pleasant evening which was repeated not too long afterwards.  A couple weeks later, Edith and Clifford came to my annual Full Moon party, it looked as though we'd managed to resolve our problems.

But now, a year later at my house, Clifford had too much to drink and, with pointed remarks and hints, undid all Edith and I had managed to establish. The evening came to an end without incident, but a day or so later, Edith appeared and asked if we could talk.

She told me she was sick of his running around, and I oud have him if I wanted him.  I assured her we were not seeing each other and that, furthermore, I had no intention of seeing him, adding that I was rather enjoying my newfound freedom.  I was not divorced, only separated, had children and a career, I told her, and had no intention of breaking up her marriage, or for the present, my own. She seemed so upset that I finally asked her why she didn't just leave him She answered that she could not walk out on him and the children unless she knew he would be happy with me.  

Notes: It was 1969 and Nina did not see Clifford or the Irvings for the rest of the year.  Having fulfilled the contracts, Nina launched a solo career by September 1970 beginning in London.

Excerpt page 196:

January 1971, Clifford called from Ibiza and said he'd be coming to London en route to New York and would like to say hello. He arrive in early February and spent the afternoon chatting in my kitchen. It was good to see him again. At dinner that evening, we brought each other up to date on our doings. I told him with excitement how well things were going for me. He told me about his marriage, which was still limping along, about his suspicion of Edith having found a German boyfriend and their having discussed divorce.  He still wanted to marry me, but I looked him straight in the eye and laughingly asked if we hadn't both had enough of that.

The next day at lunch Clifford asked me if had a few days free to go to the Bahamas with him.  I rarely did things in the spur of the moment, but I suddenly head myself say "Yes."  .....

I joined Clifford in New York a few days later, and he asked me if I'd like to go to Mexico instead. He knew a small town south of Mexico city where he'd spent some time and wanted to show it to me, and I'd never been to Mexico, anyway, so ---- why not?

Notes:  What's especially important about this passage is that Clifford Irving was busy fooling his publisher that he had the cooperation of the secretive recluse, millionaire Howard Hughes, of aircraft pioneer fame, to write his autobiography.  This ruse, that involved Clifford's wife Edith cashing checks made out to Hughes in Switzerland. ended badly, when the publishing house finally was contacted by Hughes himself. It turned into a major legal problem for Clifford Irving. But he did write a book about the whole adventure.

Excerpt Continued:

We took off for Mexico the next day, changed lanes in New Orleans and arrived late Thursday afternoon in Mexico City... It was during the drive from the airport to our hotel that Clifford suddenly turned to me and said in a low voice that he was going to write the autobiography of Howard Hughes, that it was a great secret and he couldn't reveal more.  He added that he might possibly have to meet Hughes while we were there but I was not to talk about this project.  Nothing more was mentioned and we chatted happily about the sights gliding by outside..... 

Notes: The couple took a small plane to Oaxaca at dawn, a small town and stayed in a bungalow...

Excerpt page 201:

Clifford said "I'm not really meeting Hughes, you know... but I am writing his autobiography....  he could have said biography "Oh I'm writing it as if he were telling the story."

Notes: That is the role of a co-author or ghost writer and is a tradition, though sometimes a person with a story manages to get the work published without a mention that another person was writing an "as told to." This in itself was not wrong or illegal, it was the fact that Irving had never met Hughes, never had his cooperation, and had been conducting an elaborate ruse.

Eventually Nina was called to testify in court. 

***

Notes: Nina wrote that Clifford had told her on the island that he was writing the book and it was an open secret, he also showed her the completed manuscript. She began to get the feeling that he was up to something....   She said she did not want him to give her the details.

Nina thus claimed that she was not told outright that the book on Hughes was a hoax.  Despite all the changes, her relationship with Clifford fizzed out, though they had friendly occasional friendly interactions over the years. Nina claimed that she began to learn that she was sought in connection with the legal case. It was their trip to Mexico that she was questioned about and so, she came to public notice in the United States as a result.

Some people speculated that her denials had everything to do with her career.

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NINA BECOMES KNOWN IN THE UNITED STATES

February 11, 1972 Life Magazine Cover

The very beginning of Nina's memoir, which was published in 1973  by Walker and Company publishing in New York, begins with this statement.  

Excerpt page 9:

"I was famous but felt like a freak and was damn well going to show them that I wasn't  No one in America knew me but for being "The Danish Singer in the Hughes Affair." While in New York in February fer the Grand Jury hearings there'd been dozens of offers for cabarets and television and I don't know what else."

(Note; her manager in Europe, John Marshall, had gotten Nina three weeks at the St Regis Hotel "Maisonette", which was a small and elegant room, for a debut in the United States, but the St. Regis became "Press besieged."  She was separated from her husband Frederik at the time and also had a housekeeper and nanny with their children in London.  Her mother, who was in Copenhagen, then brought the children to New York with her.  The three weeks at the St. Regis was a successful run of the show.)

Half way through the book she finally gets to the chapter Ibiza where she mentions Clifford Irving once more.  No doubt the scandal did bring her name into the spotlight, for many in America, for the first time.  Nina Van Pallandt did do some television and other work as a result of the interest in her.

Here's her film information from IMDb IMDB - NINA VAN PALLANDT

ACE DIAMONDS

 

THE CLIFFORD - EDITH - NINA TRIAD : NO ONE WAY TO LOVE

Notes and excerpts by Missy.

After her initial time with new lover, Clifford Irving, on Ibiza, when her husband Frederik showed up at least three weeks early and she confessed that she love him but was in love with Clifford, Nina  tried on reality and believe that the love affair was over. She wrote in her memoir that her husband's hurt and anger gave her hope for their marriage.

Excerpt: page 167:

As the evening wore on, the cold, hard realities of the whole thing slipped into perspective. Was this not another Ibiza fantasy of no tomorrow (I'd heard of so many)? With two babies, a complex but surely very special relationship with Frederik, and our families who loved us all, could I really jeopardize all this because of this feeling for a man who was, after all, a stranger  -- not so much anymore to me, of course, but to everything my life had been up to that point?  I couldn't -- I was suddenly sure I couldn't.

Frederik's fury gradually subsided. Later, he told me that at the time he was not so angry at my confusion as with my choice.  Clifford, to his thinking, was worth no more than a dalliance, if anything.

Three days later, Clifford and I met and we had very little to say to each other. It was over -- it had to be. That afternoon, Frederik agreed that I should go to Copenhagen for a week... When I returned to Ibiza eight days later, things were all right, as I had determined they would be. I saw Clifford several times again that summer of '64 at parties and around the island, but we hardly spoke to each other.  It was as though we'd both turned off a switch...\

Notes:

Nina and Frederik return to London and then their touring schedule... their routines with their children...  They returned to Ibiza where their rented farmhouse was undergoing some refurbishing.  The place was falling apart, really, almost comedic, if not tragic, as one thing after another needed repair. Yet it was also there they had domesticity.  Frederik was spending most of his time in town while she tended to the children, and Nina was not comfortable with the friends he was bringing to the house.  To Nina her husband seemed strange and remote. In 1965 they traveled to New Zealand and Australia to work. When Frederik would return to the Island and home she felt there had been a communication breakdown. Her third pregnancy had left her feeling unwell and the delivery was a nightmare, unlike her first and second born. the emergency was such that Nina could have died... By 1966 when the duo were in London to sing at Albert Hall, Nina was depressed.  As entertainers their careers were doing well but summers were spent separated.

Then Nina and Clifford had no contact for two years after their parting.  She got a letter from him finally saying he'd heard she'd been ill.  He had divorced Fay, the wife he had been living with when they met, and was living on and off with a German woman named Edith, whom he had known for some time. Edith would become Clifford's next wife.

Excerpts pages 177-178:

We ran into each other at the beach one day, and he asked me to come by his studio for a glass of wine.  A day or so later, I did.  I hadn't heard much from Frederik that summer. He was still off sailing with friends. Our relationship was disintegrating rapidly, and although we loved each other, it was as if we were constantly getting our wires crossed.  I suppose I had my rigid ideas of what marriage should be, and I'd come to realize that basically Frederik didn't want to be married at all...

Clifford and I, trying to recapture a happier time, were soon woven into the spell of the island and began seeing each other again, just the two of us alone. During the afternoons we could steal, we swam off the rocks below his studio, drank wine on his terrace or in the clutter of his paper-strewn workroom, listened to music, talked or argued, and pretended that time didn't exist - no past -- no future, a very common phenomenon in Ibiza  That summer, we were lovers.

Notes: 

At the end of July Nina was back to work but Frederik told her that he had met a girl during the summer, and the husband and wife realized they were friends

More in a future post!

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All Rights Reserved including International and Internet Rights

NINA and FREDERIK JAMAICA FAREWELL

WHAT COULD HE BE THINKING?

 

NINA and CLIFFORD - HOW IT BEGAN

IBIZA... the Spanish island...  In her memoir, which I thought of as quite intelligent and descriptive, Nina Van Pallandt's descriptions of the island in the Mediterranean in the very early 1960's when she and her husband, Frederik Van Pallandt, bought property there, made me want to go back in time and move there. It's off the beaten path for two entertainers who have traveled for their singing careers, rather rural, and one imagines them settling into a safe and quiet place to raise their children, a respite when they aren't all traveling internationally. It was the end of 1963 when they moved there and the married couple had a toddler and an infant. Another baby would soon be on the way.

page 163 except:

A few weeks after I arrived I was invited on my first outing to explore some caves in the north of the island and later, on the beach, found myself sitting next to an attractive American who had earlier been introduced as a writer, Clifford Irving.  My first impression was that, in size, her reminded me of the football players I'd known at the University of Southern California.  And, I can't ever recall having see a bigger pair of feet!  Clifford, I found, was separated from his third wife, Fay, and with his son in great need of a playmate, asked if I'd bring Nicolas over the next day.  I agreed.  the next afternoon we drove to his house near Santa Eulalia, but he wasn't there, so  page 164 I left the two boys to get acquainted under the care of the housekeeper.

My return trip at dusk, however, produced Clifford, a short chat over a glass of wine on his terrace, and an invitation for dinner the next evening.

We met at Sandy's, one of the island's few bars. Its proprietor had an incredible memory for names and stories and is one of the most amusing, well read people I know.....

We had drinks, chatting with people we knew there, then Clifford suggested we go into Ibiza Town for dinner. In those days, there were few restaurants in Ibiza, and because the only sources of food were island produce and livestock, plus ea-food, of course, the menu offerings and combinations were fairy limited....

page 165 - 166 excerpt:

We are, drank wine and talked and talked and talked. Clifford was the first man in years who had paid me a compliment, not the show-business me but just to me and that certainly registered. Much later, we discussed and laughed over that first date.  Nothing was really said - only polite, amusing conversation, but we were both very much aware of each other.

We later went for a stroll on the pier, and Clifford regaled me with stories of the Ibiza he had nown, having first arrived there in 1953. ...

We talked and talked a bit more, then parted.  It had been a beautiful, timeless, suspended-in-space evening, one of the nicest I'd spent in years, but as I drove home, I found myself disturbed.

In the days that followed, we saw each other as often as possible: at the beach with our children, and sometimes on our own, at parties given by mutual friends, at dinner a few times and at his studio in Old Town.  It was there over late night bottles of wine by candlelight that the conversation changed from the lighthearted and superficial to things philosophical and personal, and failures and dreams gone by.  it was if all that had been damned up inside me for years and was suddenly gushing forth like a spring stream swollen by the melting snows.  We were unknown entities to each other and, in slowly discovering each other, discovered, ourselves as well, Perhaps I should speak only for myself.

There was something in Clifford that I had never before found in the very few men who had become important in my life. I think it was a blend of the curiosity - American qualities of openness, warmth, and courtesy, of strength and basic optimisms about life which are, perhaps, particularly attractive and intriguing to European women. Clifford gave me an extraordinary feeling of being protected - ironic, I know in retrospect - and yet, that's what I felt.

It was all such a revelation  I fell in love. Whether I'd fallen in love with love or was really in love, I didn't know and was greatly upset that things were getting totally beyond my control  I felt no guilt, rather a confused sensation of "What am I doing? What's going on?"

With Clifford I discovered and experienced Ibiza in all it's magic 0 that was his fit to me.  Our live remained on the airy-fairy level f a glance, a touch, an outstretched hand, a kiss... no more, for ear of breaking the spell. Somehow I'd transferred to him the dream of the island I'd had for Frederik and me.

Two weeks later it was us three  - we were at the beach with the children.  Glancing up, I spotted Frederik stalking down the sands searching for me. He wasn't due for at least three more weeks...  He'd left the boat in Southhampton and taken a plane.  In one flash, as on a giant panoramic screen, the present was frozen crystal clear and completely in focus... I couldn't take my sunglasses off as I greeted him... He knew something was wrong, and I told him. It was nothing I had wanted or willed. I loved him. I was in love with Clifford...

Frederik was enraged and at the same time hurt, and his violent reaction surprised me...

(to be continued)

Missy here!  Stay with me as we continue to get to know the Nina and Clifford of the early 1960's!

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All Rights Reserved including International and Internet Rights

NINA BARONESS VAN PALLANDT : ACTRESS and SINGER and MARRIED MISTRESS OF AUTHOR CLIFFORD MICHAEL IRVING, AUTHOR and PERPETRATOR OF THE HOAX

The ideas, inspiration, and information that leads me to find and elect someone into the Mistress Manifesto Pantheon come in various ways. This month's Mistress of the Month is someone I heard about through listening to a an audiobook, never thinking the author, Clifford Michael Irving (Aka Clifford Irving), would go on about his personal life that included a  mistress in a book about he almost got away with hoaxing a "authorized biography" of the reclusive Howard Hughes, then one of the richest men in the Western world. As it turns out Nina van Pallandt, with whom he had a long affair that was often dependent on his and her ability to travel and meet up, is important to the story because Irving was busy writing the book during a time when they were having an on and off-again affair. He says he told her truthfully that he was pulling off a hoax and then she lied that she did not know after he got caught. She is accused of using the focus upon her once the hoax was exposed and the legal prosecution began to benefit her career... 

I watched a film that came out in 2006 called Hoax, staring Richard Gere as the author Clifford Irving. I found it unexpectedly enjoyable and interesting in that it was not just about how he and a partner fooled a publishing house that was quite careful and questioning but because the caper was almost unbelievable and in parts humorous. Then I listened to the audio book. Then I found a copy of Nina's own memoir - autobiography.

NINA BARONESS VAN PALLANDT

born Nina Magdelena Moller

(1932- present)

Nina Moller was born into an aristocratic Danish family, that was well connected but endured privations during the World War II era, especially when the Germans occupied her country and one had to be frugal and practical. Her father had died suddenly when she was four, in 1936, leaving her mother as a widow with children to raise on her own. In response to his death, her mother moved the family to live in the hills above Monaco; they were people of the upper class who could be called International. Her mother remarried in 1946 to one of the many suitors who had pursued her, a man who further elevated the family in wealth and prestige. They lived on a beach-side estate with gardens. Young Nina lived a life of opportunity and advantage but at a time when women of her class were educated to be "well-rounded" before they married. Her stepfather spoiled her and her siblings. She was confirmed into the Lutheran faith at 14, but did not see that as spiritual attainment. At eighteen she was going to formal balls in the country, though she had only two gowns to wear to these dances as well as shoes two sizes too big. She had studied ballet for six years but by the age of twelve she was already five foot seven inches, a bit tall. She had been raised to be a lady, a society lady and the question hung in the air, what she might do. Though the war had threatened that lifestyle, she had expectations.

It was usual for Danish girls of her class to study in England at Cambridge or Oxford. She became the first Danish student to attend University of Southern California (USC) which she did for her freshman and sophomore years beginning in 1951 when she was 19 1/2 years old. Her family's various changes of residence and her own adventures, as well as having been raised also by nannies, had given her the chance to learn English and French as well as her native Danish. Her mother thought at least in America she could learn "American." She imagined herself working as a translator or teaching language but while in California a friend who was in theater urged her to consider a career in entertainment - Hollywood -and got her an audition with an agent that went nowhere. She loved USC. She loved that an American college education included classes in dance and theater. While at USC she Americanized her wardrobe and her sensibility. Imagine men who would be insulted if a date tried to contribute to the cost of it!

She was taken into a sorority at USC, Pi Beta Phi, and lived with room mates. She was in America on a student Visa. During her student years in America she also worked as a nanny in Santa Barbara. She yearned for independence and saved her money to travel in America and go to New York City. She dated as college girls did in the early 1950's, and that included a Danish student who was in Southern California attending Occidental, Hugo Wessel. 

At 18, while in Copenhagen, she had been part of the society swirl of balls and and other entertainments Upon her return from the United States, Nina felt that that scene (implied a kind of informal presentation to society with intentions of finding a marital partner) was over for her. Rather than continue her studies and go into teaching she looked up her old voice teacher, and continued to train for the opera. The problem was her then-shyness about performing.

At 2, a small inheritance enabled her to move to Paris and attend classes at L'Alliance Francaise as well as Sorbonne. She was shocked to learn how much the Parisians hated Americans and that young women from Scandinavia were all thought to be easy and called "Baby Factories." There in Paris she fell in love with a man named Charles, who was half Polish, half French and Catholic. She was crazy about him and dated, going to formal dinners and balls that were favored by the jet set while she lived humbly in a hotel. Her love for Charles was unrequited as she realized when she saw that he was back in circulation without her. 

Then Hugo Wessel came back into her life and asked her to marry him. He was another heir with no plan for a career, "a true gentleman of leisure." Nina and Hugo married and moved to Santiago, Chile but the couple grew rapidly apart. Nina moved on. 

Her mother and the Baroness Van Pallandt were old friends and the Van Pallandts had owned a business that her father had directed. Her future husband. Frederik Van Pallandt, who would give her the name and title she was known by, also spend his summers between college years with her family. He was a year younger than she and, as he came from a Diplomatic family, and had gone to schools in Washington D.C, England and Switzerland and had lived in India and Trinidad. Frederik was worldly and he was also into the study of Sufism - and some say - that he experimented with drug-taking.  Frederik also had private tutors in Holland and gone to McGill in Montreal, as well as the New School in New York City. Frederik did not have to worry about money. Such were Nina's beaus.

In April 1957, Nina and Frederik began folk singing together and appeared on "Copenhagen at Night", a television show, which propelled them into being overnight sensations. They were thought of as society kids dabbling in music but were mobbed by fans. Nina was still married to Hugo and gave it one more try, but it was not wholehearted. She and Frederick were first in a film called "The Richest Girl In The World." They would soon make a second film called "Melody of Love." As their fame as an entertainment couple grew, people wondered if they would marry. Perhaps they thought they might as well. Having known each other for so many years and growing to love one another, Nina quietly divorced Hugo and married Frederik.

So, Nina had experienced love and marriage in various ways. She took life as it came. She'd married a man who had also had an American experience maybe because he had asked her and young people in her set thought marriage was the inevitable step, only to learn by living with him that they were not compatible. She had fallen crazy in love with a man who had moved on from her.  Then she had married the family friend she was comfortable with and compatible with and had three children with him.

In her book entitled "Nina", Nina Van Pallandt reports having her babies one after another, as the natural way life progresses too. She and Frederik took the babies, along with a nanny, with them on their travels that their entertainment career required which, over the years, was all over Europe, New Zealand and Australia, and then some. They debuted in the United States on the Ed Sullivan show but that was the first and last time they appeared in the States. They were not motivated to try and conquer America. Nina birthed a son in 1961, a daughter n 1963, and another daughter in 1965... By then their marriage was coming apart.

By early 1962, with two babies, they took a 180 day gig in England, which was the longest they could stay in one place. Their accommodations were not always posh and they didn't enjoy living in cramped conditions with Frederik's parents in Geneva during their off time, either.  What they needed and longed for was a place to put down roots where they could have privacy and away from the lifestyle of being on the road as singers and raise their family. That place would prove to be the Spanish Mediterranean island of Ibiza, an air flight from Barcelona.

It was on that island that Nina would meet Clifford Irving.

Now...

To recap on a story you may not have heard about before, back in the very early 1970's author Gifford Irving already had a string of books published and a good relationship with his publishing house. However, sometimes a winning streak ends.

Almost on a whim, he decided the way to have a major literary success was to write an autobiography instead of a novel, and not just about anyone but about the reclusive eccentric genius Howard Hughes. He yearned for the recognition and the money. First he had to prove that he had a Hughes connection and was working on getting the man to agree to such a book. There was always the possibility to back out and claim that the cagey Hughes was not interested after all, but, once there were (fake) contracts written, Irving could only go forward. It was interesting and a challenge to see what it would take to pull of the hoax and the plot got to be convoluted and almost comical at times.

Hughes was at the time considered to be one of the richest men in the world. He is known for his endeavors in aerospace, for invention and being able to finance experimental planes, such as the plane that flew once and for a couple miles called The Spruce Goose. However, his more successful innovations did move that industry along, especially because he seemed to have unlimited funds to develop and build airplanes, some of which he himself was the test pilot for. Hughes became mentally ill; I know from past reading the theories were that he had suffered brain damage from crashing, in particular one crash in Beverly Hills that left him with some life-long physical debilities. A biopic staring Leonardo DiCaprio as Hughes that came out in 2004 had scenes that would suggest that Hughes had an obsessive compulsive disorder long before this terrible crash. Hughes had a great deal of stress to contend with and an excellent mind, as well as a great many germ phobias and other issues.

Hughes had also got into making films in Golden Era Hollywood and was known for his seduction of actresses.*** Though he had once been well known in Hollywood, Hughes had retreated into his illness in Las Vegas, Nevada where his seclusion might have been mental illness or might have been because being as rich as he was, he was legitimately afraid of being kidnapped. For many years no one saw him but perhaps a number of men who served his every wish, from bringing him Oreo TM cookies and milk, to following through on his orders when it came to business, as well as providing legal advice and protections. 

It is because Hughes was such a character that author Clifford Irving thought he would make the most fascinating subject and why he thought that he could write an "Authorized Autobiography" without ever meeting the man. Clifford and another writer, a sort of assistant, went to unusual and sometimes extreme means in order to create this book, for which Hughes was to get a huge payment as well. (The payment to Hughes went into a Swiss bank account that Irving's then wife Edith managed to pull off, though in the end she served time in the U.S and in Switzerland.) Irving and his partner significantly counted on Hughes being so reclusive, perhaps too ill, to ever protest the book. They did a great deal of actual research but Irving also forged letters from Hughes. Edith Irving willingly went to put the money into Swiss Banks for their own eventual use; It was suggested she did this to prove to her husband that she was willing to do something Nina Van Pallandt would not..

Image of the Film box.

While listening to this book, which I then got a print copy of, Irving said that he and his mistress Nina had a lovely and exciting relationship for many years, one in which neither wanted "more." She was on a second marriage and had three children but from the time they met they simply could not resist each other. (Irving would marry 6 times by the time he died and was probably unable to limit himself to one woman. Clifford and Nina's meet ups occurred because they both traveled and because he too considered the island of Ibiza, home. So sometimes the meet ups were rather spontaneously planned and sometimes they were a matter of coincidence. But his book is admits far more than Nina's.

While Irving, his researcher and unofficial co-author, and Irving's wife got found out when Hughes surprisingly did do a audio conference denying he had never met and never talked to Irving, it was mail fraud and the money in the Swiss banking system that caused them all to be sentenced to jail time and ended Irving's association with any publishing house. Irving's wife, got the worst of it, and he felt guilty about that. Or said he did.

Meanwhile Nina is portrayed in the film as being a bit of a turncoat, all about her career at that point. She said that she knew he was working on a book about Hughes, and that one of their rendezvous was said to be about a meet up with Hughes that never happened.  She did not say she knew that it was all a Hoax.

There were so many things that fell into place for Irving and his cohort, that it almost seemed miraculous and like the Hughes autobiography was meant to be! Sometimes, you root for the criminal and it was like that for me. I was incredulous, yet, there was so much cleverness. I do think Clifford Irving's book Hoax deserved all the praise that the critics gave it when it was published. However, Irving also must have been expert at coming up with lies that seemed to be truths, and lies that his publishing house wanted to believe him - in their greed - despite at times having doubts and putting him through tests, all of which he passed including a lie detector test and experts determining his forgeries were not.  

This month I will excerpt from the book by Nina and the book by Clifford, which gives us the rare treat of hearing from both parties....

Nina and Fredrik parted ways in 1969 and divorced in 1976.  She would remarry one more time, another brief marriage. Edith Sommer Irving served jail time and divorced Clifford too, though they had two sons.  He would marry six times during his life.  

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*** Howards Hughes featured here at Mistress Manifesto in May 2014 when I gave a month to Faith Domergue, Howard Hughes 15 year old Mistress. (He reportedly kept many women in his Hollywood film mogul days.)