Society: An International Marriage

There are fewer social rules than ever before, and there are absolutely none on how to announce the marriage of a middle-aged multimillionaire, who has just divorced his third wife, to the young and fashionable daughter of another multimillionaire. Last week the world got a hint that in the publicity-conscious 20th century, such an occasion should be arranged in out-of-the-way places with the secrecy that money can command.

The wedding was that of Charlotte Ford, 24, daughter of Henry and great-granddaughter of the Ford who founded the family fortune, to Stavros Niarchos, 56, the Greek shipping magnate. Niarchos is the sort of man whom old Henry Ford would probably never have met in his day and would not have understood if he had. About all the Detroit car czar would have respected him for is the fact that he is one of the few men in the world who could not be accused of marrying Charlotte for her money. Niarchos’ wealth is hard to pin down in numbers, but it is more than $200 million.

Madras Shorts. As a child, Charlotte hardly seemed destined for such things. At suburban Grosse Pointe, she and her younger sister Anne padded about country-club terraces in madras shorts, smiled for the family photographers, and read comics instead of classics. Their mother came from an old-line Roman Catholic family (their father converted before his marriage), and they both attended strict Catholic schools, took their religion seriously. They seemed perfect “convent girls.”

Charlotte was something of a wallflower until her middle teens. She was overweight and a mite bossy. But as the time for her debut approached, she took herself in hand, dieted, and straightened her posture. The night of the $250,000 extravaganza, dubbed “the party of the century,” she was poised and pretty. Anne’s debut two years later was the second party of the century and cost just as much.

After that, the two girls grew up fast. At their mother’s urging, they went to Paris to study, Gstaad to ski. Their parents also showed up in Europe a lot, especially their father, who had made his mark as a responsible captain of industry when he took over the company on his grandfather’s death and led it to new productive heights. He bought a yacht and began taking regular cruises to the Mediterranean every season. In 1960, at a party Princess Grace gave in Paris, he met Christina Austin, a lively Italian-born divorcee. They were married in 1965, a year after Anne McDonnell Ford got a divorce in Idaho. Henry and Christina now live in Detroit.

Pop & Camp. The first Mrs. Ford moved into an apartment on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, and the two girls with her. They were quickly caught up in the jet set, and, with a name like Ford, they naturally got a lot of publicity. Charlotte worked for a decorator, and both girls smiled radiantly from fashion magazines. They learned what there was to learn about pop paintings and camp culture, wore Courrèges suits and the latest “flip” hairdo. They were picked for the list of America’s ten best-dressed women.

In such circumstances, it was unlikely that either would fall in love with the boy next door. They didn’t. With Anne, it was Giancarlo Uzielli, 31, a handsome Florentine who moved to New York 22 years ago and whose father bought him a seat on the Stock Exchange in 1962 (estimated price: $175,000). The elder Fords were not overjoyed with the match, partly because Uzielli is a divorced man whose marriage has not yet been annulled. A modest civil ceremony was set for Dec. 28 in the Ford apartment, to be preceded by a big party the night before atop the RCA Building.

Urging Finesse. Though it didn’t appear in the gossip columns, Niarchos had been cruising on the horizon of Charlotte’s new life for more than a year. During the summer of 1964, he sailed into Villefranche aboard his three-masted schooner, Creole, which is the world’s largest yacht. Only a couple of waves away was the Fords’ yacht Santa Maria. Soon Niarchos’ launch was running a veritable shuttle between the two yachts.

Niarchos is celebrated for his personal charm. The mere fact that he had been married to two other ladies and was currently married to a third was of no great significance in the jet set.* It was also nice that though he might not have quite as much money as Father Henry, he spent it with more style. This was a man who handed out gold cigarette boxes as if they were match books, ordered his suits 16 at a time. The salon of the Creole was furnished with Van Goghs, Renoirs, a Gaugin and a Rouault.

Last summer the Creole trailed the Fords’ yacht all over the Mediterranean. When the season was over, Charlotte announced to her parents that she was going to marry Niarchos. The Ford family handled it well, and not a word leaked out. Explained one member of the family: “The worry wasn’t that they would get married—we accepted that. We were urging finesse in handling the whole affair.”

The plan was to release a statement to the press after the couple had already taken off on their honeymoon It almost worked, except for Manhattan’s alert pseudonymous Columnist Suzy, who had the whole story the day after the wedding.

Upstaged? Having heard none of the drawing-room rumors, most of the pres. played up the wedding as an elopement, hinted darkly that Charlotte had beaten her sister to the altar by two weeks so as not to be upstaged. The truth of the matter was that Niarchos and Charlotte were simply waiting for his divorce—which finally came through (in Juarez, Mexico) a few days before the wedding.

Once it had, Niarchos swung into action, and with characteristic style. Charlotte and Niarchos’ lawyer flew from New York to Juarez on a Ford company plane. Niarchos himself flew from Canada on another. The wedding party was installed in a spanking new Juarez motel, and a judge came to marry the happy couple in their motel suite. Another Ford plane took them to Nassau in the Bahamas. Waiting there was a Boeing 707 that Niarchos had chartered from BOAC to take them to Zurich (price: roughly $40,000). From there, they boarded his own Lear jet for the last leg of the trip to St. Moritz. When they got there, they headed straight for a hotel instead of Niarchos’ own mountainside chalet. Why? Because in the chalet was Eugenie Livanos, his newest exwife, and their four children.

What did the bride’s parents think of the whole thing? If Anne McDonnell Ford said anything it was only to her closest friends. The night after the wedding, Henry, a more public personage, was at a party in Detroit. When a good friend asked him what he thought of his new son-in-law, he said: “He is a very nice man.”

-Niarchos’ publicists do not usually mention his first marriage in 1930 to Helen Sporides, daughter of Admiral Constantine Sporides, which lasted one year. His second marriage was to Melpomene Capparis in 1939, whom he divorced in 1947 to marry Third Wife Eugenie Livanos. Eugenie’s sister, Tina, once married to Aristotle Onassis, is now the Marchioness of Blanford.