It is the most glamorous love triangle of the 20th century. Jackie Kennedy , Aristotle Onassis and Maria Callas : an iconic widow, a Greek billionaire, a crazy love diva. An exceptional documentary from France 3 unveils behind the scenes of this threesome at the heart of the nascent jet-set .
Two women for one man
October 20, 1968 on the private island of Skorpios in Greece , the flashes of the paparazzi crackle. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy , 39, says yes to Aristotle Onassis , twenty years his senior.
A happy woman, another destroyed.
In Paris, La Callas , who shared the billionaire's life for 9 years, learns the news in the newspaper. She who sacrificed her career for love has just been dethroned by her American rival. For plums! Because marriage is a failure. The couple move away, Jackie returns to New York , Ari stays on his island. The Greek shipowner died in 1975, shortly after the accidental death of his son Alexander, in a plane crash. Inconsolable, Maria died two years later in the Trocadero apartment where she had been living as a recluse since the death of her lover.
A love story as glam as it is tragic
Beyond gossip, this documentary, rich in archival images, delves into the roots of a love story as glam as it is tragic, to better reveal its secret dramas.
The fascinating Jackie first. His childhood not so golden marked by a gambler and alcoholic father, his marriage to JFK, sex addict and amphetamines, the loss of the little Patrick, 3rd stillborn child of the couple, until the assassination of JFK in 1963 … His life is marked by tragedies.
The story of Maria Callas ? It begins with a metamorphosis. That of an obese, short-sighted and lonely little girl, hated by her mother, who in adulthood turns into an opera diva adored by all for her sublime voice.
Between these two women, a man. Like them, he is powerful and tormented. Landed with 50 dollars in his pocket in the United States , the young Onassis saw his family decimated by the Turks during the Smyrna massacre in 1922. The orphan nourished a fierce thirst for success, at the expense of the women he collected as trophies.
The yacht of all temptations
It was in August 1959 that Maria, then at the height of her glory, succumbed to the charm of Onassis. Both are married, she with her manager, he with Tina, a rich heiress. The billionaire invites the singer on his yacht, the Christina , for a cruise on the Aegean Sea . Winston Churchill and Greta Garbo are also in the game.
Their volcanic bond will last 9 years. For him, Maria gives up her career, gives up American citizenship in the hope of marrying him. Pregnant at 40, Onassis demands that she not keep the child. She obeys. He does not come to the clinic and has a pearl necklace delivered to her.
Ironically, it was also aboard the Christina that Aristotle seduced Jackie four years later. Tired of her husband's infidelities, the beautiful American had come to spend a few days, at the invitation of her sister. These two will not stop turning around.
The birth of the jet set
Do you dream of entering the world of the happy few who roam the planet from party to party? Power, luxury, money but also loneliness, scandals and shattered destinies… This astonishing documentary shows how, in the 1950s, the worldly gotha emerges through its guardians and its heavenly places. Fascinating.
Callas-Kennedy-Onassis, two queens for one king, Friday April 5 at 9 p.m. on France 3
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