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Never Before Noon: An Autobiography

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I once once seated at a dinner party in London next to Afdera Fonda. A young man across the table introduced himself as Prince something something Bourbon "a member of the Portuguese Royal Family." Afdera told him she knew every member of the Portuguese Royal Family and he was most certainly not one of them. He sat in silence for the rest of the evening. No one challenged Afdera, because if anyone would know such a thing, it was her.

The daughter of a Rothschild mother and Baron Franchetti, the Italian explorer, a favorite of Mussolini, she was named Afdera after a live volcano he explored in Ethiopia. And a wonderful choice, too. Afdera, as we see through the pages of this exquisite little memoir, is fiery, funny, outrageous and charming - a Holly Golightly of the upper classes. She married Henry Fonda, his 4th marriage, at 26 and was stepmother to Jane, then 19. Needless to say, she taught Jane everything.

Afdera had affairs with Jack Kennedy, Hemingway and discovered when Truman Capote walked in on her while naked in the bath that she shared the same body creams with the diminutive writer. "Great minds,' she said. "No, Afdera, great bodies." This is a lovely book and well worth digging out.