High life
Life isn't fair
Taki
Gstaad Thierry Roussel, by far the world's most successful roué, is £5,000 richer this week, while Rupert Murdoch, the world's biggest media tycoon, £5,000 poorer. Roussel ben- efited from a Napoleonic law called 'inva- sion of privacy', which in real terms means truth is no defence. A Greek hack writing under the pseudonym of Atticus M the Sunday Times was responsible for a libel- lous label, and a French court acted accordingly. So I will not repeat the libel- lous word.
Let's take it from the top. Thierry Rous sel, now in his mid-forties, married Christi- na Onassis when he was broke, in debt, and under the threat of having his kneecaps removed without anaesthetic by those to whom he owed money. Her annual person- al income at the time — 1984 — was about 50 million greenbacks. When Roussel dis- covered that his wife was spending less than $10 million per annum, he talked her into such big-budget purchases as a large private jet, a yacht and various Parisian duplexes. More important, he invested her money in one money-losing venture after another.
After the couple's daughter was 11°111' and named Athina instead of the more appropriate 'meal-ticket', Roussel took liP with other women and had two children out of wedlock. When Christina set up a trust to protect her fortune for her daugh- ter, Roussel demanded, and received, a cash settlement of about $10 million plus an annual allowance of about $2 million for life.
Now comes the good part. My old friend and mentor Porfirio Rubirosa married three of the richest women on earth — Flor Trujillo, Doris Duke and Barbara Hutton — and all he got was $5 million in toto. Even counting for inflation, it was Peanuts compared to what Roussel — a conceited, low-life opportunist who could not carry Rubi's jockstrap — has received and continues to receive.
So where is the libel? Roussel is down- and-out one minute, rich as hell the next thanks to a woman's bad judgment, the greatest Greek writer since Homer points out the folly of it all, and a French court sends Homer down. But, Zut alors! Since 1984 Roussel has received close to $100 million from Christina and her estate, which puts him in• a class by himself. He nevertheless sued the Onassis trustees last Year claiming that they were criminally mis- managing the Onassis fortune. He demand- ed control of the $6 billion trust. He did not get it. Both a Swiss court and more recently a Greek court threw the bum's claims where they belonged. Which goes to prove that there is still some justice left in the world.
The Onassis Foundation and the trustees Who run it have guarded the Onassis her- itage and have quadrupled the fortune. In fact, the Onassis Foundation is among the best-run and most successful institutions in the birthplace of electrolysis. ASO Naviera, the holding company for the Onassis ship- ping interests, has renewed the tanker fleet and has made property investments world- wide. Roussel, on the other hand, has a rare knack for losing business ventures, yet insists on running the $6 billion fortune that will go to his daughter in the year 2003. And it gets worse. The French low-lifer on whose uncle's Mercedes I once relieved myself while he sat inside saying nothing — was no hero to his wife. Before she died she handed a letter to Stelios Papadimitriou, a prominent Athens lawyer who administers the Onassis Foundation, asking him to 'protect me against Thierry • • and the job of a protector is to keep the door closed'. In other words, keep the adventurer from going through my daughter's fortune. The letter was written just before she died and showed the deep distrust Christina felt for the French cad. Alas, the Foundation's charter provides for the 12-year-old meal ticket to take over its presidency in 2003. Roussel, at present, receives $6 million per annum on a deal he struck with the Foun- dation in which he agreed that Athina would learn Greek and be brought up in the Orthodox faith. But Athina has not set foot in Greece in years, and Roussel has Undoubtedly planted certain anti-Greek ideas in her tiny head. What I find very sad is the fact that there are no Onassises left, and all that the old boy worked for will one day come into the partial control of a man Onassis would not hire as a grease monkey. Still, until the low- lifer takes over, the Onassis Foundation will continue to hand out international prizes for humanitarian achievements, awarding scholarships for Greeks to study abroad, and extending the already built and operat- ing $80 million cardiac hospital in Athens.
They say it's an unfair world, and I guess they're right. But for a French court to rule against the truth — ce n'est pas le cricket!
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