The Onassis Women [Hardcover]

Kiki Feroudi Moutsatsos (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 28, 1998

At seventeen, Kiki Feroudi Moutsatsos began a job at Olympic Airways that would change her life. She worked in the office of the most renowned man in Greece, and within a year she was Aristotle Onassis's personal secretary. For the next nine years, the last of his life, Moutsatsos was a key player in Onassis's professional and private worlds. She spent her days in his office, assisting him with important business matters, and her evenings at his sister Artemis's villa, mingling with his family and their world-famous guests. She was witness to his personal relationships with the most significant people in his life. She worked side by side with his children, Alexander and Christina, planned his travels with mistress Maria Callas, and even managed the details of his wedding to Jacqueline Kennedy in 1968. The Onassis Women is Moutsatsos's privileged insider's account of this larger-than-life figure and the grand objects of his love. Moutsatsos greatly admired Jackie, and the two women developed a close relationship, extending beyond their ties to the Onassis family. Moutsatsos visited Jackie in New York, staying in her Fifth Avenue apartment, and kept in touch with her throughout her life, even in the weeks before her death. Moutsatsos also became an intimate friend to Aristotle's daughter, Christina. Though often rebellious, Christina was always desperate for her father's love. Moutsatsos observed their volatile relationship as well as the push-pull element between Onassis and the women in his life. With the possible exception of Jackie, all these women--his mistress, his sisters, and his daughter--needed Aristotle's approval and suffered to gain it at almost any cost. It is through understanding the importance of these relationships, and their interconnectedness, that we begin to truly perceive the charmed and haunted lives of Jackie, Maria, Christina, and Aristotle Onassis. Index.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Tales of Jackie and Maria from a personal secretary of Onassis.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Judy Kaye has starred on Broadway in Grease, On the Twentieth Century, and Ragtime, and won the Tony® Award for her performance in The Phantom of the Opera. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult (September 28, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399144439
• ISBN-13: 978-0399144431
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #727,246 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #6 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( C ) > Callas, Maria
  • #6 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( O ) > Onassis, Aristotle
  • #64 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( O ) > Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nothing new. Too much author's self-importance!, May 26, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Onassis Women (Hardcover)

Although Kiki admired and grew to love her employers, I think she sugar coated many of her observations. She also made quite a few mistakes, so I wonder how much is true. The anecdotes she narrates are mostly known, she could have made up the whole thing. In all, a good account of a family who despite their wealth -or maybe on account of it- had many failures. But she does present them as human beings, with their good and bad qualities. Easy reading, but not much content.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars MONEY CAN'T BUY HAPPINESS AFTER ALL, December 12, 2004

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Onassis Women (Hardcover)

The cliche "Money can't buy happiness" and its waggish footnote "but there are plenty of other selections" are both proven true in The Onassis Women by Kiki Feroudi Moutsatsos,

former secretary to Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.

As reverential as it is revelatory, this chatty discourse begins in 1966. Thus, one misses much of the mogul's early years, such as his days hawking neckties on Buenos Aires streets.

Nonetheless, the slice of life the author did share with Onassis and his women is juicy enough to sate the hungriest curiosity. Is there anyone extant who doesn't know that

the aforementioned women included Jackie Kennedy Onassis and tempestuous diva Maria Callas? That these iconic ladies shared him makes the story even more intriguing. At center stage is, of course, Aristotle Onassis, "part god, part mortal" - a modern day Croesus, albeit a mercurial one, small in stature yet larger than life. Oft described as a cunning, predatory wheeler-dealer, he is presented here as an energetic, intelligent man whose craggy face could blacken with anger or soften with compassion.

Equally adept at dictating and doting was his older sister, Artemis, who adored and feared the titan, as did his two half-sisters Merope and Kalliroi. However, it was 90-pound, fashionably dressed, vodka sipping Artemis who played a major role in this contemporary Greek tragedy. Although married to an eminent surgeon, she saw herself as an Onassis first, hosting celebrity studded dinners in her 100-year old villa, and becoming confidante/advisor to her brother's famous American bride.

Tina Livanos, Onassis's first wife, whom he married when she was 17, receives scant attention. Blond, tall and beautiful, she gave him two children, Alexander and Christina. Of his marriage to Tina, Onassis said it was as if he'd had three children rather than two.

A 3-week 1959 cruise on the Christina, Onassis's sumptuous yacht, with Tina, Sir Winston and Lady Churchill, Artemis, Maria Callas and their respective husbands made waves and headlines. Following that voyage Tina sued Onassis for divorce citing adultery, and Maria Callas left her husband declaring she loved Onassis.

Disembarking the ship Maria wore a bracelet engraved TMWL (To Maria With Love). "Tina already owned a bracelet with the initials TTWL, and Jackie would receive her TJWL a few years later."

The nine -year Callas/Onassis liaison was a vesuvian match notable for vitriolic quarrels followed by passionate reconciliations. Artemis disapproved of this pairing, deeming "the Tigress," as she called Maria, "of peasant stock." Apparently, Onassis also considered Maria unmarriageable. Refusing to let her rearrange furniture in her shipboard suite, he said, "Never forget, my darling, you are not the housewife here. You are only a guest."

Despite his sometimes public disparagement, it is said that Maria truly loved Onassis, giving up her career and suffering two abortions to please him. In 1968, when Onassis left Maria for Jackie Kennedy, the bereft diva commented sadly, "I have lived the most beautiful years of my life next to Aristo, and I have lived the worst."

Although Christina and Alexander disliked Jackie and violently opposed their father's remarriage, Onassis sealed his vows with a $1.25 million heart-shaped ruby ring, only one of many lavish gifts for Jackie. He delighted in hiding a diamond bracelet in her dinner napkin or wrapping her breakfast roll in a strand of priceless pearls.

Yet, they had not been married a month before Onassis visited Maria in her Paris apartment. Whether or not the new Mrs. Onassis was aware that he had resumed his former affair is not known. One of the magnate's greatest coups may have been keeping the two women apart for over six years.

It is in reference to the Kennedy/Onassis marriage that the author puts many persistent rumors to rest. Citing the eye-witness accounts of servants, Ms. Moutsatsos insists that the pair enjoyed each other sexually as well as intellectually, and were truly devoted.

A life marked by luxuries that few of us can imagine was shattered by Alexander's untimely death. More than a father's pride and joy, Alexander was Onassis's raison d'etre. Heedless of his deteriorating health, the man whose hero was Odysseus turned into a pathetic shadow, scarcely existing until his death in 1975.

This was a loss so debilitating to the fragile Christina "that she attempted suicide within minutes of her father's death."

Of all the Onassis women, Christina's story is surely the most heartbreaking. Born into a life of ostentatious privilege, she ran second to Alexander in their father's eyes. Longing for friends yet unable to win them, she bought company with trips on her Learjet and extravagant house parties on Skorpios, the family's private island.

Desperately afraid of being alone, she paid an Argentinean polo player $30,000 a month to be at her beck and call. He was her favorite paid companion, "Even though he was always accompanied by his young girlfriend, Clare." Violent mood swings tested those around her; an uncontrollable appetite for chocolate and Coca-Cola pushed her weight to over 200 pounds.

Happiness in her fourth marriage was found with the birth of her daughter, Athina, whom she worshipped. When her husband, Thierry Roussel, asked for a divorce to marry his longtime mistress and the mother of two of his children, Christina offered him $10 million to impregnate her again. He refused.

Christina died at the age of 38. Official cause? Pulmonary edema.

The remaining Onassis woman, Athina, is now of age. In the year 2003 she inherited a $3 billion shipping fortune, the legatee of a grandfather she never knew and a mother she may not remember.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Dishing Subjects!, April 8, 1999

By 

Laura A. Atiyeh "Moviebuff" (Berkeley, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Onassis Women (Hardcover)

I very much enjoyed this one and felt that Jackie was far more warm and human than previously portrayed in most bio's. Overall, this was a "dishing the dirt" paradise, though, by one who was THERE! Kiki seems a bit optimistic and far too sweet about everyone and rationalized about Ari's temper tantrums and peculiar idiosyncrasies. I feel I got to know about Christina much more than any other book or article, but I came away feeling empty-handed about Maria Callas who was the most fascinating woman of the bunch. Kiki didn't seem to get to know her very well. A great read and I would recommend this highly!