High life
A natural state of affairs
Taki
March has been the cruelest month where sex and the English are concerned. A very competent doctor up north is struck off the medical profession because he admitted having an affair with one of his patients, who naturally spilled the beans once it was over. An Irish-American hack- ette goes to the tabloids and the numero dos of the Bank of England bites the dust. What is going on here?
In most civilised countries, a mistress is almost de rigueur. It is only in America and in this tight little island where a paramour is like having a rash. Most great men kept one, and most successful businessmen still do. Ditto for those in academia who are not homos. Last but hardly least, great ath- letes have been known for always having a bit on the side.
Space prevents me from listing even the most obvious cases of men who enjoyed mistresses, so here are a few examples at random. I'll start with those closest to home. Many successful Greek shipowners are home-loving and faithful to their wives, but many are just as home-loving and unfaithful. Aristotle Onassis is the first to come to mind. Married to the beautiful Tina Livanos, he had the great Maria Callas as a mistress, and after Tina divorced him, he cheated on Maria with an even more famous woman, Jackie Kennedy. Now that's what I call style.
Onassis, of course, was lucky. Being his own boss he had to answer to no one. Stavros Niarchos also had mistresses, most of them better looking than Callas and Jackie 0. My old man always kept one and my old lady never said a word except for once. She referred to a certain lady as Miss Black, because the woman in question had very black hair.
The greatest Italian industrialist within living memory, my old friend Gianni Agnelli, summed it up perfectly when cor- nered by a television reporter a couple of years ago: 'One can be a faithful husband and a bad one, whereas it is possible to be an unfaithful one and a good one,' said the wily Gianni, and the moronic American reporter is still trying to figure it out.
Amen, say I. Nothing is black and white. The worst French President ever, Francois Mitterrand, has had mistresses throughout his hideous life, as has the unspeakable All Babandreou, the Greek Prime Minister. Their cheating made them even worse men than they already were. Lady Dorothy Macmillan kept a mistress, Bob Boothby, and she was no great shakes. On the other hand, Henry Ford II's decline began when he came over to the Cote d'Azur in 1964, observed Agnelli, Niarchos and company, and tried to emulate them. Two divorces and three marriages later, he died prema- turely after testifying against The Spectator in 1986.
When I lived in Paris during the late Fifties and Sixties, most of my friends kept 'tine reguliere'. It was as likely for a young man back then to remain monogamous in Paris as it is that Mohamed Fayed knows who Max Kelada is, thank you very much Michael Cole. Poor Mauritzio Gucci not only had a beautiful mistress, but an even more beautiful sailing boat, the 180 foot Creole.
Without a mistress, the old Aga Khan would not have been perceived as the fabu- lous eastern potentate that he was, and even the present one, no friend of Taki's, has exercised his rights to a mistress dis- creetly. The irony is that his estranged wife, born Sally Croker-Poole, acted impeccably throughout 25 years of marriage, but fum- bled on the one inch line during the divorce proceedings.
The Begum is now travelling everywhere with her French lawyer, Philippe Lizop. The Aga is not amused by this turn of events, particularly as M. Lizop is driving a very hard bargain.
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