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 Stay at home
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| Magnolia blossoms ready to bloom. 5:00 PM. Photo: JH. |
| Monday, March 28, 2011. Weekend sunny and cold. |
| Central Park swinging. 5:15 PM. Photo: JH. |
Stay at home. Spring house cleaning. Emptying (half or less) closets, re-cycling. My books are being “organized” by a professional, Tom Graf, who has had to start at zero because I never organized them. In the past decade and a half, since I’ve been writing these Diaries, I’ve acquired and accumulated hundreds and hundreds of books. It wasn’t an accident. I am covetous of books. It actually gives me a thrill (and not cheap) sometimes when I re-discover a book I forgot I had and open it to see whatever drew me to it. It’s like a private celebration with life.
Anyway, they are being organized and indexed and they pretty much fill the entire living room of my not large apartment. |
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Dinner Saturday night with old friends at Café Luxembourg on 70th and Broadway. Everybody loves this place. The guy at the next table is a television commentator. The women at my table recognized him but couldn’t think of his name. Nobody else could either including the staff and the reservation was made in the name of the woman he was with. That was the mystery of our night. This is how New York is like any small town anywhere. Who was that guy? becomes the focal point at the end of the evening. And nobody knows. Or cares.
James Andrew from What Is James Wearing? (HOUSE 1.28.11) was dining with a friend. I don’t think there’s anything remotely like the place on the Upper West Side. And it couldn’t be on the East Side. Hip West Side Nabe is what it is, including celebs, actors, media and East Siders. And the couple around the corner or down the block. And very casual, almost hang-outish. Loved it all.
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| Elizabeth Taylor with husband number 3, Mike Todd. |
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Carol Joynt’s Washington Social Diary today is about Elizabeth Taylor. We were wondering if the world has had enough of Elizabeth Taylor since her demise last week. We concluded, after reading Carol’s Diary, that it is still interesting. It’s like the guy we couldn’t recognize at Café Luxembourg Saturday night. Curiosity flashes and takes to someplace so harmlessly interesting there’s no reason to resist.
It also reminded me that I have one more Elizabeth Taylor anecdote that just came to mind. It is not earth shattering or shocking but merely another demonstration of The Star that she was.
About twenty years ago in Los Angeles, one of the big department stores in Beverly Hills – I think it was I. Magnin. Or Saks – which had a fur storage service for their clientele, sold their storage business to another company. The storage facility would remain in the store but it would be owned and run by this new owner. The news had a lot of Beverly Hills women up in arms because the hitch was in the transferring of the business, and all of the furs had to be physically removed for a 24 hour period. No exceptions. Women with several furs found it more than a little annoying. But then again, Elizabeth Taylor kept some of her furs there too and she had to move hers for that 24 hour period. She had 89 furs in storage at that particular service.
Somehow that incident with the fur storage reminded a friend of mine who knew Elizabeth that she had kept another huge inventory of furs at a warehouse in her house in Switzerland where she stored “every piece of clothing she ever owned.”
The only other movie star I’ve ever known to keep such an extensive collection was Elizabeth’s MGM Schoolhouse mate, Debbie Reynolds. Debbie owns the largest collection of Hollywood film costumes dating back to Pickford, Chaplin, and Valentino, and she too has her own warehouse storing them. She may even own costumes worn by Elizabeth in some film. She acquired these over the years with the same kind of curious reverence when the Studios were divesting themselves of many of their physical assets aside from the film libraries.
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| HSH the Hereditary Princess Charlotte of Monaco, Duchesse de Valentinois, Contesse de Polignac. |
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This morning’s Telegraph of London is running an obituary of Princess Antoinette of Monaco, the sister of the late Prince Rainier’s and aunt of Prince Albert and the Princesses Caroline and Stephanie. The princess, who died ten days ago at age 90, was considered by some to be eccentric, by others to be wild in her younger years (which extended well into her 70s), and definitely a lady who did as she pleased. The obituary will tell you the whole interesting story.
The most interesting aspect of the princess’ story, which has never been unknown but rarely ever discussed in print, is the Grimaldi families lineage, which runs up and down both sides of the social ladder and fits nicely with allusion to the principality’s roots, in Somerset Maugham’s famous quote about Monte Carlo being a “sunny place for shady people.”
Princess Antoinette and Prince Rainer’s mother was Princess Charlotte, daughter of their grandfather, Prince Louis II. Louis reigned as Prince of Monaco from 1922 until in his death in 1949. Louis had married but had no heir. This caused a problem because of some legal agreement with Italy or France as to the ownership of the principality.
At the time of the “crise,” Louis, however, recalled that he actually did have an heir-ess ... a girl named Charlotte --- who had been born out of wedlock from an affair the prince had with Marie Juliette Louvet who was either a cabaret singer or a washerwoman (that’s in the Telegraph). Probably the former. Louis didn’t marry Marie Juliette, however. His father, Prince Albert I of Monaco, disallowed it, since it would have been marrying “beneath” his station. Albert I was a domineering character; son had no choice. Afterwards he married his princess Ghislaine Dommanget.
This “discovery” of “an heiress” was stretching it for some people at the time because royalty in Europe never traditionally acknowledged bastards as legitimate. Just like non-royalty today. Although Louis XIV, the Sun King, considered it perfectly all right and legitimized his bastard children with Mme. de Maintenon.
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| Princess Charlotte with Prince Rainier, her father Prince Louis II, and her husband Prince Pierre. |
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| Chateau de Marchais, the Grimaldi estate which Princess Charlotte converted to a modern rehab for ex-cons. |
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| The princess' lover, Rene Girier, infamously known as "Rene la Canne," the former jewel thief. |
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In the case of Monaco, there was a law outstanding that in the event of no legitimate heir, the principality leaves the Grimaldi family. Or vice versa. So Louis did the only thing a prince could do: He changed the law and then he “adopted” his daughter Charlotte in 1919. She became Charlotte Louise Juliette Grimaldi, Princess of Monaco and Duchess of Valentois (a very old family title). And thus from Charlotte all Monegasquen blessings fell and her grandson now occupies the throne.
Old Louis himself came from a grander background than his daughter’s mother. His mother was the daughter of the English 11th Duke of Hamilton and Princess Marie Amelie Elizabeth Caroline of Baden.
Princess Charlotte, it should be noted, did not have such a great time in her new found royalness. She was married off to a Count de Polignac with whom she had a son and daughter, but who basically had other interests.
In the 1940s Charlotte had finally got rid of Polignac and also renounced her rights to the throne of Monaco (her father was still alive), allowing her son Rainier to succeed her father. She moved to a family estate near Paris where she started a rehabilitation center for ex-convicts. She lived with an ex-con, a famous French jewel thief known as “Rene la Canne.”
It might be said that the Grimaldis have the most colorful genealogy of any royal family in Europe of the past three or five centuries. The first Grimaldi took over the palais one dark night in the 13th century, dressed as a monk, with a knife concealed underneath, knocked on the palace door one night and immediately murdered the owner and took over the place. Those were his politics.
Here's the link to the piece in the Telegraph of London. |
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| The royal family of Monaco at the Red Cross Ball in Monte Carlo in 2007. L. to r.: Prince Ernst August of Hanover, Princess Caroline, Charlene Wittstock, Princess Stephanie of Monaco, Prince Albert II, Princess Antoinette and Melanie de Massy, her granddaughter. |
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