THE SECRET LIFE OF THE SAVOY by OLIVIA WILLIAMS : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

 

If you love reading MISTRESS MANIFESTO, you will love this book!  

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

C 2022 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

MARGUERITE ALIBERT, THE PRINCE OF WALES, and GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER

Ali Kamel Famy bey, her husband, shot dead,  Marguerite Alibert, some say, had planned out the whole thing.  They were known to be a couple that argued publicly and horribly and they were divorcing.  She admitted shooting him, but used the self defense argument, which was conceivable.  Now as the press covered the shooting and a scandal was brewing, the Prince of Wales' handlers were worried.  Insiders knew that the Prince and Marguerite had carried on a relationship for a couple years and now the Royal family blocked the press from mentioning the Prince.  But would Marguerite in court?  Would Ali's family?  What if she showed or sold her letters from the Prince to the press?  Then the world would know what the Prince thought of his father and political issues.  He had not been careful and she could not be counted on to be discreet.

Her defense got sordid.  She said that her husband expected unnatural sexual activity from her and that her doctor said she had anal damage.  Of course, she could have had damage from her years as a sex worker, courtesan, or other men, but because she knew Ali went to brothels were men could be hired.  It was hinted that the operation she needed money for had something to do with this.

Importantly, the Royal Household lawyers wanted to get the letters back and secure Marguerite's silence.  By August 1923 a settlement had been reached.  But she turned over most of the letters - not all.  Leaving some in Paris - just in case she needed them.

Marie Marguerite Famy plead not guilty of murder.

The trial, like the O.J. Simpson trial in which the former star football athlete plead not guilty to the murder of his wife Nicole Brown Simpson, was a show trial.  While the press alleged that she had S and M and lesbian relationships, she was acquitted.

Marguerite Alibert died January 2nd, 1971, having a long life.




C 2009  Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved

The Woman Before Wallis - Prince Edward, The Parisian Courtesan, and the Perfect Murder is the primary reference for this month's posts.

MARGUERITE ALIBERT and ALI KAMEL FAMY BEY - ANOTHER MARRIAGE and a MURDER

In December 1920, Marguerite, a bit less than a year after her divorce from Henri Laurent, arrived back in Cairo, Egypt. She first became the mistress of a Sepphardic Jewish Italian banker named Mosseri.  But she also became the mistress of Jean d'Astoreca.  Being kept by these two men didn't stop her from meeting Ali Kamel Famy bey, who was enraptured by her as she acted uninterested.  He was an heir to a fortune inherited when he was sixteen. He was known for his hot temper and for having a good time with his money.

By 1922, when he was 21, he was feeling some pressure to marry as the male in the family.  In May of that year, Marguerite got the formal introduction she needed in society to meet him.  Soon they were living as man and wife and traveling from one resort to another.  His family was against the marriage.  But on December 26th, 1991 they were married in a Civil Ceremony.

The early days of their marriage was like a honeymoon.  She had her lawyer deal with the marriage contract in which he paid 8000 pounds, 2000 as the signing, and the rest if he died or there was a divorce.  And she was to convert to Islam, which she did rapidly after the civil ceremony, giving up her Catholicism.  But soon the couple was threatening to kill each other.

The Islam religious ceremony came to pass in February 1923.  She did not know that in Islam a woman cannot divorce a husband.  This seems to have invalidated or challenged the premarital contract.  And for all his chasing Marguerite, he had not given up going to seedy places where there were both male and female prostitutes available.  Despite ongoing travel and luxury, Marguerite got bored of this husband too.  And they were fighting openly and terribly.

Back in Paris, due to her own efforts as well as her divorce settlement with Laurent, she was worth 37,000 pounds by 1923.  There she decided to humiliate her husband by recovering her admirers.  By June 1923 she had a detective following Ali hoping that he was homosexual so she could use that information to get money from his family.

Two nights after La Bal du Grand Prix (the Grand Prix ball, the couple came to blows again and Marguerite threatened to shoot Ali.  They both owned guns - this was known publicly.  His family wanted them to separate citing that she was not an obedient Islamic wife.

In England at the Savoy hotel during the season of 1923 that began in April and provided constant entertainment, Ali cut Marguerite off financially.  On July 9th of that season he stopped her from buying more jewelry and clothing.

She said she had to have an operation.  She said he cut her off from the money to pay for it.

Shortly after 2 am after a dance at the hotel, during the worst lightening and thunderstorm, she chased him out of their suite and shot him three times.  He bled out from a head wound.
She admitted it immediately.  She said she had lost her head.  They had been arguing over their divorce but she wasn't completely out of her mind.  She claimed she had only wanted to frighten him away from abusing her.  She wept learning her husband had died - and only 23 years old too!

Within hours she was arrested.  The newspapers were carrying the story and so were the tabloids.


C 2009  Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved

The Woman Before Wallis - Prince Edward, The Parisian Courtesan, and the Perfect Murder is the primary reference for this month's posts.

MARGUERITE ALIBERT , THE PRINCE OF WALES, and HENRI LAURENT - A MARRIAGE

I think of the film Pretty William, an early Julia Roberts film in which the Richard Gere character turns out to be not a client but a man of her dreams she can find true love with.  A popular film and pure fantasy. ...

In 1907 Marguerite Alibert had met Andre Meller, a 40 year old married man, tall, good looking and rich via the wine business.  He owned racing stables too.  The couple were seen around town since there was no shame in Paris of having a Mistress, unlike in Britain.  She was his keep. Their relationship of seven years included foreign travel. (Figuring 1907-1914, she was about 16 - 22 years old.) When Andre was out of town, Marguerite continued to be a courtesan and sex worker like other kept women in Paris. She made him jealous and acted as if he were not pleasing enough, not providing enough for her.  (And here we see there were distinctions between these categories.)

She moved on to the Prince of Wales who, during 1917 and 1918, wrote 20 or more letters to her in which he was open with his feelings about his father and his political views.  She wrote back. The Prince enjoyed women with strong and dominating personalities. Some say that he actually enjoyed women who were dominatrix, something Marguerite may have practiced in the brothels where she worked. But as the affair with the Prince fizzed out and he moved on to Mrs. Dudley Ward as his mistress, Marguerite wrote the Prince a horrible letter hinting black mail.  She wanted money.  He sought legal advice. The Royal Household lawyers wanted to get those letters back from her or "secure" her silence.  

Marguerite met Henri Laurent.

In 1919 the Prince of Wales left Buckingham Palace to live at York House and have more independence from his controlling family. By 1920- 1921 Freda Dudley Ward and the Prince were embroiled. By 1922 their relationship was strained.  She wanted to divorced her husband and also showed interest in another man.

In 1919 Laurent had proposed to Marguerite.  Once again she only had money in mind.  He was a dull man who happened to be generous. Henri Laurent was rich enough to give her and her daughter Raymonde a good life.  Once married to him, Raymonde finally came to live with her mother and she was given a private education in England. The marriage lasted from May 1919 to March 1920.  Now Marguerite was a rich woman.  That she was rich did not end her need for even more.  But she was able to upgrade her life after divorce due to her settlement with him.  It could be argued that she no longer had to be a sex worker or a courtesan. But it seems she never wanted just one man in her life.

C 2009  Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved

The Woman Before Wallis = Prince Edward, The Parisian Courtesan, and the Perfect Murder is the primary reference for this month's posts.

GEORGE GERSHWIN : I'LL BUILD A STAIRWAY TO PARADISE

1922 This was a popular song among the upper crust.

MARGUERITE ALIBERT and THE PRINCE OF WALES

According to Andrew Rose, the author of The Woman Before Wallis, Marguerite Alibert rose from a common sex worker in one of the finest brothels in Paris, and was groomed to have an upper class presentation by the owner, Madame Denart.  Marguerite was 16 and had recently given birth to an illegitimate daughter. 

The Prince of Wales had met her on an early trip to France, but for seven years she was the "keep" of Andre Meller, a much older and rich older married man, and was seen around Paris and on foreign travels with him.  Their relationship ended when she was just about 22 and the first world war in Europe was beginning.

In 1914 on the eve of the war, Marguerite even drove a car for the Red Cross briefly, but since a warm climate was her doctor's suggestion, she went to Egypt for the first time where there was also no war threat. In Cairo she continued to have clients and when she came back to Paris she left Madame Denart and moved to the maison de redezvous of Madame Sonial de Thevals, another brothel where rich and powerful men paid for their pleasure. Being a courtesan or mistress was acceptable in Parisian society and such relationships were shown off rather than hidden as they were in Britain. The brothel sent out errand girls but actresses in need of money also worked there. Men paid astronomical sums and the prostitutes were not hurried or overworked. Marguerite was popular enough to be able to hold soirees in which she socially entertained creative people, entertainers, and minor aristocrats.  

On Saint Georges Day, the 23rd of April 1917, the Prince of Wales was on a three day leave and staying at the Hotel de Crillon, a luxury hotel. It was there that they were properly introduced while having lunch.  She wore emeralds and pearls, had long auburn hair, a beautiful face, and was delightful and charming.  He was captivated.

During their relationship, between 1917 and 1919, the Prince of Wales wrote Marguerite at least 20 letters. These were not just mash notes. He wrote from his heart. He also aired his political views and talked against his father. She wrote back.  He never considered these letters could hurt him - or the Monarchy - at some time in the future. The Prince may have been a bit more discretionary in that he never paid brothel sex workers with cash but instead gifted them jewelry and other fine things. Marguerite sent him sexy literature.  Perhaps part of his enjoyment of the relationship was that it occurred without his parents knowledge or approval. 

By 1917 the Prince was advised by those who wished to protect him and the Royal Family to end the affair. Perhaps the reason he did was that he was getting involved with other women and would soon take Mrs. Freda Dudley Ward, an unhappily married woman with a much older husband, as his Mistress. Mrs. Ward and the Prince also wrote letters to each other.  Their relationship was considered embroiled between 1920 and 1921. Their relationship ended in a friendship after she sought divorce in 1922, but Freda never used the many letters that they sent to each other as lovers or friends, written between 1918 and 1930, for blackmail.

When Marguerite realized that the Prince was leaving their relationship, she wrote him a horrible letter hinting blackmail because she had the letters he had written to her.  She wanted money.  He sought legal advice. But nothing happened because Marguerite had met Henri Laurant.  He was rich enough to give her and her daughter Ramonde a good life.  He proposed marriage and as she had only money in mind, Marguerite accepted.  She told Madame that she would give it six months.

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Continue to read the saga of Marguerite Alibert in coming posts!

MARGUERITE ALIBERT - SEX WORKER, COURTESAN, MISTRESS, WIFE - HER MEN and the PRINCE OF WALES : HIS LOVE LETTERS MAY HAVE SHIELDED HER FROM THE LAW

MARGUERITE ALIBERT

1890 - 1971

Two decades before he met Wallis Simpson, the Prince of Wales had a mistress he met in Paris, a famous courtesan who had started out as a 16 year old sex worker, Marguerite Alibert.  Years later when she was tried for the murder of her third husband, it was the letters she had from the Prince that provided her protection from the law. Or so it is thought.  Andrew Rose's book details the events in Paris, in England, in Egypt, and in the seasons in which the high living set traveled and enjoyed their many pleasures.

The future King Edward VIII, who would give up his throne for the woman he would marry, Wallis Simpson, was just 17 in 1912 and considered to be immature, effeminate, even suffering from arrested development, when he first went to France where he was supposed to learn to speak the language. On this trip he would also learn to drive and smoke. But it was during the war a few years later when he was introduced to Marguerite, who was then working at one of the most expensive brothels in Paris.

Marguerite was never in her early years one to trust her fate  to be with just one man. She may have, at times in her life, been a sex worker, courtesan, mistress, and wife, all at the same time. We will never know all her machinations but there is reason to believe that she managed to marry and make her husbands wild with jealousy because they suspected or knew that they would never be her one and only.

In 1915, when Europe was at War (World War I), the Prince was still considered an innocent abroad. But there were those in his entourage who wanted him to experience sex with high class prostitutes since the women he was most likely to marry of his class were chaperoned and thought of as wives or breeding stock. The Prince wanted to see action in the battlefields but was kept to visiting the front or administrative duties. He made good use of his days on leave. By May of 1916, the near 22 year old Prince had matured by changes in the world and in his personal life and had visited a brothel in Calais, assuring those who thought otherwise that he was heterosexual. But perhaps he started to develop a need for women with powerful personalities, unusual voices, and perhaps a tendency towards wanting to be dominated in the bedroom too.

Marguerite Alibert, who was born Marie Marguerite Alibert, called herself Maggie Meller after she became the seen-around-town mistress of a rich Jewish man, Andre Meller.  He was married and forty, a player who owned racing stables. She was 16. She would become known for having a hot temper and demanding and mercurial ways. With Meller and all her serious relationships there was a pattern of frequent and arguments that included public displays.

She would also later go by Mme Laurent, Mme Fahmy, and even Princess Fahmy bey - though the husband she shot and killed the bey.  Ali Kamel Famy bey was not actually an Egyptian Prince.  

Our Mistress of the Month was born in 1890 as the daughter of a cab driver and a charwoman.  Like CoCo Chanel, who would design evening dress for her, she was put into a nunnery to be raised. She went into servitude. As was also not unusual, she became pregnant. Marguerite was only 16 when she was delivered of her only child, daughter Raymonde, who she did not see for the first seven years of the girl's life. Put out of the home she'd lived and worked in, what could she do to support herself? Who got her pregnant, be it a member of the family she served, or someone else, is not known, but she alluded to a problem with not having a dowry as the reason for being husbandless and having an illegitimate daughter. She was probably saving face.

She may have started her career as a sex worker by becoming what was called a "polite" prostitute, singing in eateries and bars, and extending her entertaining to after hours. CoCo Chanel had also had to sing for her supper.

Mme Denart, who ran a high class brothel called a maison de rendezvous took her on as a protege, sending her for elocution lessons and teaching her upper class manners.
(page 36)  By 1907 she was "une dame a cinq heaves" (a five o'clock lady) or a "une cinq a sept"  (a five to seven); these terms indicative of the busy time at the brothel. Such brothels were was as far up as a sex worker could go being paid for sex - and sometimes included specialties such as lesbian acts or S and M.  

Since she became involved with Meller in 1907, not long after she'd had a child and become a sex worker, clearly Marguerite was able to move up from sex work into being a Courtesan and a "keep." (I can't help but think of an early film of actress Julia Roberts called "Pretty Woman" in which a young beginning prostitute finds true love with a rich man instead. The story commonly thought of as a fantasy.) Seven years after they met, she and Meller, who were seen around town together, split.  He had become pathologically jealous of her.  Still, besides living the rich life with him, he gave her a settlement of 200,000 franks.  (And so began the notion of PALIMONY!)  She then moved into a grander apartment, employed servants, kept her own horses, and went back to competing with other courtesans for men.

Because Marguerite Alibert's story is lengthy and complicated, this post will only be a start of her story here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT. So continue to read, please, as we learn more about her and the Prince of Wales, and then the husband she shot three times and killed, which she immediately admitted to!

Missy
C 2019 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

Also mentioned in this book are Cora Pearl, La Belle Otero, Liane de Pougy, Lina Cavalieri, and the Folies Bergere - the place for a courtesan to be seen!  Cora Pearl was our Mistress of the Month for July 2012 and the Duchess of Windsor - Wallis Simpson was January 2010.  Search the archives to read!