We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds.
Under a grey sky, clouded by heavy smoke, a young boy named Aristotle Onassis is crammed on the bridge of a little boat. Unhelpfully cradled by the waves of the Aegean Sea, he stares at the horizon as his native town of Karatas is set ablaze. Tragically, the world will come to know September 1922 as the Smyrna Holocaust.
The port city of Smyrna is burning; fire and sword destroying the Armenian and Greek quarters of the town, captured by the Turkish Army that would be committing atrocities such as looting, rape and the slaughter of Christians, including his uncle. At 16, the son of a rich tobacco trader finds himself sailed away from genocide and brought to safety on the greek’s shores as a refugee, living in a camp like the too many that today are created by conflicts and poverty.
Aristotle is leaving behind the luggage he had packed for Oxford University and is diving into an unrestful ocean of gambles, luxury, and sensational drama. And above all, ships.
It’s 1923 and Aristotle is officially stateless, a pirate. He reaches Argentina holding a Nansen passport for refugees, with a few hundred dollars in his pocket and a bucket of astuteness, ambition, and irresistible charisma. In a small room in Buenos Aires, ‘Ari’ has to take turns for a bed with his cousin. During the day he meets ‘the right people’ at a fancy yacht club, and when the night comes he works shifts at a telephone company where he kills boredom by listening to international conversations. What a clever opportunity that is to practice with foreign languages, and to eavesdrop on business ideas, making the most of them.
SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES… BY BOAT.
Passion is in the air in the streets of Buenos Aires. Rudolph Valentino, a Latin lover turned “The Sheik” on the silver screen, seduces global audiences with a puff of a cigarette that inflames the hearts of millions of women. Aristotle seizes the opportunity to cash on the cinematic hysteria and the mania for the exotic Middle East: he launches his new brand of cigarettes with pink tips targeting the female market and turns it into a shipping business. Rolling drums now for his first million dollars: he is just 25.
Never start a job, a battle, or a relationship, if the fear of losing overshadows the prospect of success.
If ‘Audentes fortuna iuvat’ (fortune favours the brave), Aristotle worked hard to learn the tricks of the shipping trade and partied harder flirting with the exclusive shipping elite. In his distinctive attire -tuxedo and cigar- he would join aristocrats, businessmen and politicians sipping cocktails at the Savoy Hotel in London.
Onassi’s obsession with becoming a shipowner would steer the wheel of his future through the headwinds. Strong nerves and acumen helped him foresee business returns beyond the global crisis. Think the Great Depression or the Second World War. In 1932 he decided to invest in six 10,000-ton freighters that had become cheaper at a time when the world was in the grip of the infamous economic shock that would last 120 months until 1939.
Noticing the increasing demand for oil, ‘the fuel of the future’, he built the first 15,000-ton tanker, almost doubling the size of the typical ships. The Ariston was launched as the largest tanker in the world and of course, Onassis being Onassis, a swimming pool to entertain his celebrity guests in belted swimsuits, was also a first for a ship.
When the Second World War, while the majority of Greeks merchant ships operating alongside the allied forces (for one quarter of a million dollars a year) sunk, only Onassis didn't lose a vessel or sailor.
IF I CAN MAKE IT THERE I’LL MAKE IT ANYWHERE
Onassis had two main rules:
1) At your job you must be serious but at life you must be crazy;
2) The one rule is, there are no rules.
The globetrotter could be seen enjoying an exclusive lifestyle in Paris, Buenos Aires, Monte Carlo and Montevideo. When in 1940 he established himself in New York, he positioned himself at the crucial centre of the post-war reconstruction, by ship. Equipped with brains and money but lacking the US citizenship to make his visionary plan happen, Onassis and his lawyers went hunting for loopholes. A rule-twister-but-not-breaker, he managed to set up a dummy corporation to buy 6 liberty ships and 4 mammoth surplus tankers. He would be ready to sail -and profit from - the winter fuel crisis of 1947. His fortune grew as massive as his ships, which operated at low cost and mostly sailed tax-free under Panamanian and Liberian flags.
Onassis nearly turned the multinational oil industry on its head when he turned his ambition to Saudi Arabia where the giant American consortium Aramco was dominating the oil market. The Greek tycoon nearly secured a tanker transport deal with the inexperienced King of Saudi Arabia but his main rival Starvos Niarchos thwarted the Jeddah deal collaborating with the FBI and the US government to scuttle a move that would have ended monopoly control of Saudi Arabia's oil by American oil companies.
IN BUSINESS LIKE AN OLYMPIAN
While his maritime empire is a matter for economics textbooks, Onassis had a mistress in the sky and pursued his passion for aviation launching Olympic Airways, after gaining a contract from the Greek government granting him operational rights to the Greek transport industry. Olympic Airways is remembered as the golden era for Greek aviation, while for Onassis this was like reaching yet another inebriating finishing line: he was then one of the only two individuals in the world, and the first non-US citizen, to own a private airline.
A LEGEND BEGINS: LUXURY, PASSION AND FAMILY DRAMA, ONBOARD THE CRISTINA O.
Sitting at his Monaco desk, as the marine breeze gently waves the silky curtains of his office, Aristotle peeks out at the harbour, looking down at this newly finished 2.5 million dollar yacht lying at anchor.
She is named Christina O. after his beloved daughter. At 99.13 metres in length, she boasts the most lavish design that could ever be conceived amidst the austerity of post-war Europe.
Marble balustrades round and round the staircase lead to cabins named after each of the Greek islands, as portrayed in a gold on timber square map on the door.
Guests like Winston Churchill, Umberto Agnelli, Eva Peron, Frank Sinatra and Elizabeth Taylor would open gilded dolphin taps to wash their hands. During the day they could have a splash in a mosaic swimming pool that was raised to deck level to become a dance floor at night.
This felt like home for the Onassis family, and the legendary billionaire Aristotle would often sit alone on the bridge of the Christina, whisky in his hand pondering on new bold enterprises as the noise of parties faded out into the morning.
If women didn’t exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.
Onassis' magnetic presence, generosity and flattering charm conquered the hearts of celebrities from Veronica Lake to Greta Garbo. But when it came to marrying, his other half would have to be a Greek, and possibly a very wealthy one. At the age of 40, Onassis found the perfect match in Athina “Tina” Livanos, daughter of a shipping magnate, with whom he had his two children Christina and Alexander.
It is onboard Cristina O, however, that Aristotle fell for the stars again. The most glamorous tycoon invited the greatest opera diva in the world, Maria Callas to sail waves of passion. The chemistry between the two Greeks sparked one of the most fiery relationships ever portrayed by tabloids. She was strong and independent; he was strong and culturally insensitive. For him she filed for divorce from Italian industrialist Giovanni Meneghini, he never asked her to marry him. Their worlds collided, and at the end of a tempestuous nine-year affair Callas was replaced by the only other woman fit for his grandeur: Jacqueline Kennedy. In 1968 the most famous widow in the world, became known as Jackie O, becoming the wife of the richest shipowner at a ceremony on his private island of Skorpios: the sound of waves crashing on the shore broken by bells, sirtaki and the flashing clicks of international paparazzi.
SPELLS, SUPERSTITION AND A TRULY GREEK TRAGEDY
There was no happy ending to the Onassis tale of power, passion and ambition. Greek superstition pervaded the last years of a dynasty that fell under a tragic spell: Jackie’s spell, according to some including Aristotle, biographers report. The socialite, a former Kennedy and First Lady of the United States, found the wealth and protection she needed to establish herself as an icon of glamour and elegance, spending summers in Amalfi dining with the likes of Gianni Agnelli, but whose extraordinary shopping bills and outlandish lifestyle are said to have irritated and estranged Aristotle. Until the magnate was hit by a tragic blow.
The ‘Catastrophe’ struck in 1973: his adored son Alexander, an accomplished plane pilot, was killed in a plane crash in Athens at the age of 25. Aristotle never recovered from the pain. He died two years later as a result of complications of the myasthenia gravis he had developed in the last year of his life. The funeral cortege passed through the little fishing village of his father, where the coffin, made from walnut trees that grew on his island, was honoured by a flotilla of small boats crossing the hallowed waters of his sea. In Skorpios his and Alexander’s grave would soon be flanked by his daughter’s, Christina, who also passed away aged 38, after a long time battle with depression and drug abuse. At the age of three, Christina’s daughter from her fourth unhappy marriage was left the wealthiest child in the world. Now a professional equestrian, with an estimated fortune of 1 billion dollars and already troubled by a divorce, Athina has also inherited the same features and sullen eyes of her mother and late grandfather. A glorious dynasty ebbing away as extreme riches and turbulent love affairs draw the curtains on a modern Greek tragedy.
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