COMING UP : MAYBE IT'S TIME TO LEARN A NEW SKILL OR HONE A TALENT

 An entire month dedicated to helping you with that romance.

IT'S NOT UNUSUAL : TOM JONES

GLORY

image by Peter Griffin

public domain pictures release

 

PRINCE ALBERT II and the SO CALLED SECRET ACCOUNTS TO SUPPORT EX MISTRESS NICOLE COSTE and HIS EXTRAMARITAL CHILDREN :OPINION BY MISSY

PRINCE ALBERT II and the SO CALLED SECRET ACCOUNTS TO SUPPORT 

EX MISTRESS NICOLE COSTE and HIS EXTRAMARITAL CHILDREN

Today I walked the equivalent of Monaco by the sea.  It took me about forty minutes on flat sidewalks.  Of course, Monaco is far more picturesque and has a far greater and unique history in Europe than the California beach area that  I walked.  As I walked I thought about what it must be to Princess Charlene, the commoner athlete who has had to adapt to Europe's longest reigning aristocratic family with its tragedies and eccentric characters, made worse by International news coverage.

All over the news, is the revelations supposed to come from an ex-accountant for the Prince, that he has secret accounts to support his ex mistress and extramarital children.  Why would this story be so important?  

The subtext is that Princess Charlene did not know about the accounts.  But Charlene has said nothing about it.  Why would she?  Charlene dated Albert for years before they finally married and pressure was put upon her to become pregnant and give birth to heirs.  I believe Charlene to be a sensitive person in general but I doubt that she was unaware that Prince Albert had children from two affairs, one brief, and one that went on and might have turned into marriage if not for the objections of his father. This is old news to Charlene. Many women today enter into serious relationships with men who have had children in and out of marriage or with men who have been married before and had children with other wives.

If Princess did, as some speculate, have a breakdown which lead to a prolonged stay in Africa a couple years back, it would likely have been that another such revelation about her husband, Prince Albert II, had come up.  One she had not known about and frankly, one he himself did not know about. Such rumors are likely to come up for Albert. He was known to be a sexual animal prone to promiscuity for a good part of his pre-commitment life and to be fair to him, he didn't have to work hard at meeting women and the women were into it too. Actually, it's surprising there were not more children. 

Two things must be remembered about Albert, and the first is that he was born into wealth and advantage but also the burden of responsibility that he become the business-savvy ruler of a tiny principality, the country of Monaco.  While his father was the Prince, Monaco was in financial difficulties that were turned around. The country also agreed that it would be taken over by France in certain conditions are not met.  To the point, Albert does not dare allow his country, a city-state, to become in financial peril again.  It's speculation when it comes to the notion of "over-spending" and it could be that the reported allowances and real estate gifted is actually a pittance.

Albert is one of the world's richest men who took responsibility for support and that support follows some agreement that was likely made. His advisors would not likely put an end to that support or what seems to be the over-spending of Princess Charlene. In actuality, generosity is about not unwisely overspending when we support others, but in considering their situation without our contribution.

I personally do not think these accounts are "secret" but rather to separate out money for one purpose and another. Had Albert married the mothers of his extramarital children, he would have had to make financial arrangements for them, so why not this way?  It would be ridiculous for his daughter, Jazmin Grace Grimaldi, or his son Alexandre Grimaldi, to not live well.

Another aspect of this is something some friends of mine along the way who experienced wealth after living in relative poverty have experienced.  There's a loss of perspective that includes forgetting their days when they had to live paycheck to paycheck or how it was to grow up without. They simply loose their perspective about what things cost. Relatively unlimited funds and a new social group of spenders pushes them to buying whatever they like without consideration. Some of us have fantasies about what it would be like to be in their position but how many of us would like to be on the world-stage where our every haircut, every pound gained or lost, every fashion choice we made, was commented upon? It's near impossible for such a person to keep their privacy.

For readers of Mistress Manifesto, there is also another aspect to this reportage of Monaco of interest and that is exactly how men who are married and have a mistress as well handle the financing of their lifestyle. There certainly is the the potential for secret accounts.  I wish I knew but feel sure that in some cases the mistress is not a secret and in some cases the money is not a secret either. Mistresses are thought to be kept by rich men who can afford them, but today the financial help a man can give a woman who he's involved with can be not so much, an amount that betters her life but does not fully financially support her.  The woman who is fully financially supported by a man, sometimes for the rest of her life, is what I call a Classic Mistress.  We do not hear much about these women who live private lives. 

C 2024 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

You may be interested in the following archived posts:

September 2010

NICOLE COSTE  Mistress of Prince Albert II of Monaco and Mother of His First Son

January 2015

THE GRIMALDI CURSE and THE MISTRESSES OF THE PRINCES OF MONACO

Here is an article that has appeared recently about these "secret" payments.

DAILY BEAST : Albert Battles Secret Data Dumps

SONDRA LOCKE : THE UGLY END : CLINT HAS MOVED ON AND FINANCIAL MACHINATIONS BEGIN

After Clint Eastwood bought Sondra Locke the house, following her second abortion and the a sterilization, he bought a house for her husband, Gordon.  However, she was presented what appeared to be a lease agreement for that house, which was explained to her as a business maneuver to his benefit. She had been paid less than market rate salaries for her work in the films she appeared in with Clint - the Dirty Harry films.  Finally for Sudden Impact she got a substantial raise for her acting. Wishing to improve her career, Sondra took a directorial position for another film that would not be a collaboration with Clint.  Clint seemed to resent it in some way.  When he was elected mayor of Carmel, California, the town he considered home, his responsibilities put a further distance in their relationship. For Sondra and Clint's relationship might have been a well kept secret when it came to the public, even as they had as a couple many friendships and associations with Hollywood's biggest names.  In 1987 the tabloids were catching up with them.  It was reported that Clint had given Sondra a big engagement ring.  The ring was a gift from a friend. By the Christmas - New Years season 1988, Clint was behaving as if Sondra was no longer his "bestest of the westest." Her women friends felt he was treating her badly and suggested she get a lawyer.  She talked to one, just in case.

Excerpt: page 248 :

"I hesitated to bring it up while you were shooting this film," he began, " but I was .... uh... thinking, it's come to my attention that you... uh... and Gordon are sitting on my only real estate in Los Angeles."

Sitting on his real estate!  Gordon and I? Incredible!

"Your real estate?  Your real estate! That's outrageous, Clint." He actualy looked caught.

"Well,... uh...well... uh, I was thinking maybe you could go stay with Gordon for a while."

He said it as if it were a casual and normal request. 

****

Page 250  Gordon called:

"Listen to me carefully. Stay calm, do you understand? Gordon said. With that my pulse quickened.

"What is it? Just tell me quick,: I almost screamed.

"Clint has locked you out of your house. The sissy waited until you were safely at work, then he changed the locks."

(A letter followed telling her not to return to the house where she had been allowed to stay rent free by Mr. Eastwood.... This was the house that he had supposedly gifted to Sondra. Next boxes were delivered with her personal effects including her clothes - in effect moving her out of that house. Gordon refused the boxes.  By not accepting these boxes Gordon knew they would have to go back to the house she had lived in or be put in storage. But perhaps the worst of it was learning that Clint had two children in Carmel.)

Page 270

My mind was still searching to get all his actions lined up. For at least the last four years, Clint had been living this double lie, going between me and this other woman, and having children with her. Two babies had been born in the last three years of our relationship, and they were't mine. More pain was heaped onto my pain about my own abortions and subsequent tubal ligation.

(In court hearings Sondra learned that she was not in Clint's will but the other woman with children was.)

To this point I will conclude my excerpting of Sondra's book.  What she went through would devastate anyone.

WHAT OPINION DO YOU HAVE OF WHAT YOU'VE READ?

C 2024 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

All Rights Reserved including International and Internet Rights.

SONDRA LOCKE : ABORTIONS and STERILIZATION : CLINT WAS NOT GOING TO CHANGE HIS NATURE OR HIS LIFESTYLE

Sondra Locke and Clint Eastwood didn't just go from hotel to old house he owned with his wife in Sherman Oaks. From 1977 through the 1980's she says they acquired most of their homes.  These included Sun Valley, Idaho.  Then a house in Carmel, near the ocean.  He considered it "home" while she thought of Los Angeles as 'home." Because she traveled with him as well, it does seem as that he was mostly living with her. It was the ranch near Mount Shasta that they had the conversation in which to decide on a second abortion...

These passages from ages 170-171

"What are we gonna do? I asked, gently approaching the subject we'd been postponing.

"Well, baby, you know how I feel," Clint said.

I had learned that I was pregnant.

It was not my first pregnancy. The previous year in the summer of 1978, we had to face the same dilemma, and I had reluctantly agreed to an abortion. IT was a hard and painful decision, but Clint had convinced me that it was the only reasonable answer.  It was difficult for me to argue the point, because Maggie had only just learned about us then, and Kyle and Alison (Clint Eastwood's children with his wife Maggie) had had no time adjust.  However, the concept of abortion was not something I had ever even turned over in my mid: I had never been pregnant, no close friend of mine had been pregnant,  Even Gordon, with whom I naturally talked about everything, only said, "It's something only you and Clint should decide."

"In truth, I had never contemplated having a family or not.  But "abortion," despite my pro-choice" politics, was a horrible word and, if I had allowed myself to think about it, a horrible deed.  But denial can be a short term savior, so I flipped a switch somewhere in my head and heart and had taken denial's hand.  After all, Clint had been a clear and unmovable on what he wanted me to do. I abstracted it all. Through a reliable reference, Clint had arranged for a doctor at UCLA to perform the abortion for me.  A woman.  I liked her immediately; she was sensitive and thoughtful and before I knew it, it was all over.  And I tried to forget.

But now in 1979, we had to face the same decision again.... Before I had met Clint my gynecologist had suggested and fitted for me an IUD. Because my sex life was not very active, he did not think I should be constantly taking birth control polls. Clint complained of the IUD - it was uncomfortable for him, he said.  And he too was not in favor of birth control pills, so he suggested a special clinic at Cedars Hospital where they taught a 'natural' method of birth control.  It was the same rhythm' system that historically has been used to determine the fertile days for those who are attempting to achieve pregnancy......

"Well, you know I feel the same way I did before, sweetie.  I don't really want more children." Clint told me softly.  I'm concerned about you're having another abortion, though."

***

Clint convinced Sondra that it would be best to avoid the pill and prevent any further abortions through sterilization on the basis that this was the healthiest option.

***

I could feel my heart in my throat.  It was not that Clint was taking something away from me that I had absolutely counted on or had consciously planned on... it was just that any decision from which there is no going back is a scary one. (page 171-172)

***

Clint asked Sondra if she wanted to spend her life with him or not.  He reasoned that he was a lot older than she and that the sterilization would be the best thing for their life together.  Her husband Gordon and another friend took her to the hospital; Clint was not going to make an appearance and have the press figure things out.  Then he made a show of giving Sondra the Sherman Oaks house, which she did not want. so he told her to go find herself that she could love and decorate and he would buy it for her.  In 1980 she found her house In Los Angeles - Bel Air. It cost $1.1 million - a deal at the time. Gordon, her husband, helped her design it and renovate it. The Warners Brothers studio also helped.

DO YOU THINK SONDRA SHOULD HAVE LEFT CLIFF A THIS POINT?

C 2024 Mistress Manifesto   Selections

ENTWINNED

ARE YOU A HOLLYWOOD MISTRESS?

Does a rich and famous actor or director or someone in Hollywood keep you?

Missy wants to know!

SONDRA LOCKE : THE GOOD AND THE BAD OF BEING A MARRIED WOMAN HE CALLED SNOW WHITE - INVOLVED WITH A MARRIED MAN SHE CALLED DADDY : CLINT EASTWOOD

In these passages Sondra Locke's memoir, she describes the good and bad, the benefits and the accommodations, of accepting life with him unmarried, as his mistress. This is the second time I've read the book from cover to cover and I'm sensitive to two things; One that Sondra had no intention of divorcing her husband who she thought of as her only family and that husband, Gordon, was accepting of his wife, Sondra, being another man's mistress. 

It seems that Clint Eastwood was also happy that Sondra stayed married to Gordon. Two, that Sondra was into the relationship for the long haul, even though Clint remained married and she had two abortions and a tubal ligation, giving up any future children with him or another man, at his insistence. In the mid 1970's Gordon was having a romance with another man.

1975 : "Although Clint was clearly Daddy in the dynamics of our relationship, I seemed to bring out the little boy in him. And although he loved me for my childlike nature, he brought out the woman in me. Clint seemed astonished at his need for me, even admitting that he'd never been faithful to one woman - because he'd never been in love before," he confided.  He even made up a song about it: " She made me monogamous."  That flattered and delighted me. I would never doubt his faithfulness and his love for me. (page 145)

In the beginning when we were in Los Angeles, Clint and I stayed in his private  apartment adjacent to his office on the Warners lot. Soon we moved into his small house in Sherman Oaks, which he and Maggie's (Clint's wife) had acquired during his Rawhide success...... (Sondra hated the architecture and interiors but it was a respite from hotel rooms.)

***

1978 : Almost as if it were a nonevent, he answered, "Maggie wants to go to Hawaii."  I stood there dumbstruck.

"What do you mean a vacation? You didn't mention anything  to me." With Clint everything usually came out in little tiny snippets, but this one really threw me.

"Maggie asked about you and I told her," said Clint.

"What do you mean?  What did she say?"......

"She wants us to go there with the kids to see if we can 'work things out,' save our marriage, I guess," he replied.  (page 151)

(Clint said that he told his wife it was not just an affair and that he loved Sondra. This wife filed for a legal separation but not a divorce and did not actually divorce him till 1984.)

***

...  In retrospect it's interesting how the whole 'marriage or not" issue evolved for me with Clint.  In the beginning, I guess I wanted Clint to be divorced and marry me.  ...  Then, as the years went by somehow it did not seem to matter.  I truly believed that Clint and I did not need papers to validate the commitments we had made to each other.... And Clint knew the nature of Gordon's and my relationship, and was unconcerned that legally we were still married. In my conscious mind then, my marriage with Gordon was financial protection for him.  If something happened to me, he would be saved from unnecessary taxes on any assets I would leave behind. ... 

DO YOU THINK SONDRA's MARRIAGE TO A GAY MAN THAT SHE WOULD NOT GIVE UP MADE HER MORE VULNERABLE TO CLINT?