Passion and Obsession we had that in common.
Ari was Greek,born in Smyrna,a port city of Turkey.Like father,like son his Dad was a tough successful businessman,his beloved mother died when he was 8.In 1922 at eighteen Ari escaped the massacre of non-Turkish citizens by the Turkish Army,Ari emigrated to Argentina,there his courage and tenacity overcame all odds,he made a fortune in Import-Export,it was not enough for him, sensed he could do much more so immigrated to New York,where he built a shipping empire and became a millionaire.We have many things in common,we were Greek,born overseas,survivors of an unhappy childhood that toughed us and made us ambitious,determined to succeed .Win or die.
Father and Mother sailed to New York in August 1927,out of despair,to leave their past behind.My brother Vassili died of meningitis at age two.Five months after landing in the New World I was born,needless to say I was not well received,Mother refused to see me for the first ten days.It was not a happy childhood Mother and Father fought day and night,they had nothing in common he was easy going ,a womanizer,she was a frustrated housewife,restless,a dreamer with a folie des grandeurs.One day she decided to move back to Greece to get away from him and for my musical education.She had no talent of her own but was a go-getter,determined to achieve greatness through her two daughters.So Jackie and I,another Jackie not La Onassis,and Mother sailed back to Greece the year I was14.
Father and Mother sailed to New York in August 1927,out of despair,to leave their past behind.My brother Vassili died of meningitis at age two.Five months after landing in the New World I was born,needless to say I was not well received,Mother refused to see me for the first ten days.It was not a happy childhood Mother and Father fought day and night,they had nothing in common he was easy going ,a womanizer,she was a frustrated housewife,restless,a dreamer with a folie des grandeurs.One day she decided to move back to Greece to get away from him and for my musical education.She had no talent of her own but was a go-getter,determined to achieve greatness through her two daughters.So Jackie and I,another Jackie not La Onassis,and Mother sailed back to Greece the year I was14.
During World War II, I sang for the occupying Axis forces,sang for our suppers. In 1945 I sailed back to America,where I lived a desperate life,no money ,no job and no hope of a job,in America they called me the Greek,in Greece they called me the Gypsy.After years of despair I got my first a contract, signed it sight unseen to sing in Verona, Italy.There I met my destiny,within a week I met and fell in love with a very rich businessman 38 years my senior.Tita was single,so was I, loved Italian Opera so did I, we had that in common.He believed in me,loved me for who I was,fat,desperate,penniless,I had nothing to offer but my dreams
---I love you, believe in you, you are the first woman that loves me for myself, not for my money or my position in the Veronese society.I love music,Italian operas, I went to your rehearsals,I love your voice,believe in you, you will be great,you will achieve fame.I believe in God,heard His voice, you are his Chosen.
--- I love you ,you are the man of my destiny.
--- Trust me,I am a businessman with over ten factories all over the Venetia region,I will market your voice the way I marketed my brick business, I love you ,I promised you success, fame, fortune, I built our family business from scrap,instead of selling bricks I will sell your voice,I love you,promise you fame and fortune,trust me I will make you famous,the greatest singer in Italy,your voice will reverberate all over the world.You have my love,my word.
--- I love you ,you are the man of my destiny.
--- Trust me,I am a businessman with over ten factories all over the Venetia region,I will market your voice the way I marketed my brick business, I love you ,I promised you success, fame, fortune, I built our family business from scrap,instead of selling bricks I will sell your voice,I love you,promise you fame and fortune,trust me I will make you famous,the greatest singer in Italy,your voice will reverberate all over the world.You have my love,my word.
Callas and Onassis were introduced in 1957 by the predatory social columnist Elsa Maxwell, one of a number of exotic secondary characters in the lovers' drama. According to Gage, Maxwell not only promoted Callas's career, she made sexual overtures that the diva rebuffed, driving Maxwell to fury and despair. The centerpiece of the book, covering seven out of 23 chapters, is the saga of the three-week cruise along the Greek and Turkish coasts in the summer of 1959, when Onassis, then married to Tina Livanos, seduced Callas and the notorious affair began.
After both lovers divorced their spouses, they alternately adored and raged at each other, even finding excitement in fisticuffs and thundering curses. ''What a woman!'' Onassis proclaimed after one exhausting battle as he laughed and squeezed Maria's thigh. Onassis was compulsively unfaithful, and in 1964 he set his sights on the prestigious prize of Jacqueline Kennedy, who had taken a much noticed cruise on his yacht following the death of the Kennedys' newborn son in August 1963. After she entertained him at Sunday brunch in her Fifth Avenue apartment (''All the guests were men,'' according to a close friend of Callas), Onassis began sending her ''huge bunches of red roses.'' But within weeks after marrying Jackie in 1968, Onassis was back at Maria's doorstep in Paris ''shouting, whistling for Madame to let him in.''
As Callas lost her singing voice and Onassis suffered a series of tragedies -- the death of his only son and the suicide of his former wife -- as well as business reversals, the couple's devotion deepened, but she refused to be his lover as long as he remained married. When Onassis was dying in 1975, he took Maria's final gift, a red cashmere Hermès blanket, to the hospital, although neither Maria nor his wife was with him at his death. A heartbroken Callas died two years later.
Gage frequently draws on his knowledge of Greek history, culture and character to provide insights into the motivations of Callas and Onassis. Citing Plato's ''Symposium,'' he offers the Greek theory of destiny to explain the attraction of two such volatile individuals: ''The idea that each person is half of what was once a whole and spends his or her whole life searching for the other individual who will make him complete.'' Gage provides additional nuance by quoting a friend of Onassis who observed: ''Onassis loved, but he never fell in love. He had the oriental view that a real man does not allow himself to be conquered by love. Maria, on the other hand, flooded Onassis with her love, surrendered totally.'' Gage's extensive research has unearthed revealing new facts about the couple as well, from the birth and death of a son in 1960 to a phone call Onassis made to Callas two days before his marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy, asking her to come to Athens and ''save him,'' presumably by inciting a jealous Jackie to call off the wedding.
But journalistic overkill often slows the narrative to a crawl. The drama of the shipboard seduction collapses amid a deconstruction of when and where Onassis and Callas first had sexual relations. Nor does the reader need to know every document and source Gage consulted to pin down Onassis' birth date. He also has the annoying habit of boasting about his reporting. He repeatedly announces the circumstances of his interviews (''When I interviewed him in May of 1998 at his home near Lake Como''), making the book seem less the story of a fabled romance than a Baedeker of Gage's own odyssey as a reporter. Including photographs of himself with various sources adds to the impression that Gage considers himself as interesting as his subjects.
Every conscientious biographer makes countless phone calls and spends endless time tracking down elusive documents. But the details of such reporting and archival research belong in chapter notes that don't distract from the narrative. In this case, the author's notes are both sketchy and erratic, offering sources in some instances but ignoring many others. How does Gage know, for example, that John F. Kennedy exclaimed, ''For Christ's sake Jackie! Onassis is an international pirate!'' on hearing his wife was planning her cruise on the Onassis yacht?
Still, after years of erroneous accounts about Onassis and Callas, not to mention their own embroidered versions of their lives, Gage diligently sets the record straight. The most conspicuous falsehood that he demolishes is Callas's supposed abortion under duress from Onassis, first reported in a biography by Arianna Stassinopoulos and then popularized by Terrence McNally's play ''Master Class.'' But one wishes that Callas and Onassis didn't have to share the stage so often with their intrepid biographer.
Sally Bedell Smith's most recent book is ''Diana in Search of Herself: Portrait of a Troubled Princess.''
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