The Riviera Set

by Mary S. Lovell

  Aly went on searching and rescuing for some time after that: the sense of adventure and slight danger in the missions appealed to him. His energy was inexhaustible and he would drive all day and night to get the horses back to Metz, or – occasionally – directly to Normandy.

  Their love of horses was something that the Aga and his son shared, and the Aga was absolutely overjoyed to recover irreplaceable horses, whom he had believed lost to him. When in August 1945 Aly was demobbed, he was rewarded by becoming the Aga’s legal partner in the horse-racing business and the chairman of the farms, studs, stables and horses. It was a significant enterprise worth about five million dollars of which some three million dollars was the value of the horses, and the remainder included four stud farms in France, and seven in Ireland. Wartime advances in technology had made transatlantic air travel almost safe enough to be commercial, albeit for the very few, and for the next few years Aly flew constantly between Europe and the United States buying and selling bloodstock and nominations while the Aga, who had almost forty years’ experience of racing (though always claiming it was for him merely a hobby’), made all the decisions about breeding.

  It was almost impossible to go to the cinema in the late Forties without seeing on Pathé Pictorial newsreels a clip of the famous Prince Aly Khan, usually described by the narrator as ‘the millionaire playboy’, driving expensive sports cars such as Bentleys, Lagondas and Delahayes; winning horse races (he won dozens of races riding as a ‘gentleman jockey’); boarding his own aeroplane, the twin-engined De Havilland Dove, named Avenger; relaxing on a sunny beach; having drinks with a famous beauty of the day; or dressed in romantic Arab clothes, riding in the desert. He was also termed a Casanova, and he did not bother to deny the description, loving all that life had to offer and draining the dregs from every minute.

  He was not only a playboy, though. He took seriously his role as the heir apparent of the Ismaili faith, travelling for three months of the year to visit followers scattered throughout Asia, Africa and South America. He was often mobbed, and worshipped as a living deity, and he told friends that he found this so exhausting that he trained for his tours as if he were about to ride in an important race. Having his own aeroplane made an otherwise impossible schedule feasible, and though he had obtained his private pilot’s licence in 1937 he did not have a twin-engine rating, nor have the time to learn and practise good instrument flying, so he employed John Lancaster, a highly qualified former RAF squadron leader, to manage and fly the Avenger.

  Lancaster recalled how on their visits to the village of Salamiyah, the largest Ismaili community in Syria, their car would be swarmed over by young men who wanted to kiss their leader’s hands and feet.7 Aly was in his element as he made speeches, inspected schools and mosques, headed meetings of village elders, resolved problems, attended naming ceremonies of babies and marriages. At night they mounted sure-footed desert horses (which Aly had introduced to Salamiyah a few years earlier) for a ten-mile ride to their desert camp, tribesmen carrying swinging lanterns and firing muskets that had been used in the Crimea – the flashes lit their way across the stony steppes and the reports echoed from the hillsides. As they passed through hamlets the villagers would be waiting for God to pass, and when he did there would be much shouting and firing of guns, along with clapping and high-pitched ululation from the women. Aly would return to Salamiyah many times, and eventually chose to be buried there.

  Aly also took his partnership with his father in the racing business very seriously, and within three years the combination of his buying and selling and the Aga’s canny breeding policy proved unbeatable. The Aga’s horses (he always led the winners in) won a number of Class One races including the Irish Oaks and – the icing on the cake – the 1948 Derby. It was the Aga’s fourth Derby victory and the French-trained My Love, which started outsider at 100/9, won by a length and a half over the British favourite. The occasion was only marred for Aly by the presence of the hated Yvette, who towered over both him and his father.

  That evening the Aga and Begum were in Paris at a celebration dinner party thrown by Daisy Fellowes. Nancy Mitford was there too and she wrote of the event in Daisy’s dining room, which was ‘the prettiest modern room you ever saw, like a pink and white sugar sweet’. She met the Aga and his ‘lovely new Begum’ and was impressed by Yvette’s ‘wonderful jewels’. She found the Aga ‘extraordinary just as one had always heard’, and he told Nancy, ‘Your grandfather was a great friend of mine.’ But when she looked at the dignified and bejewelled Begum Nancy could not dismiss from her mind what her lover, Gaston Palewski, had told her: ‘the Aga does the most dreadful things to the Begum’.8

  Two years earlier, in March 1946, a feature on Pathé Pictorial had stunned glamour-starved cinema audiences with a spectacle which established the Aga Khan in the public consciousness as a truly exotic personality. He was just short of his seventieth birthday and already famous for, in 1937, on the fiftieth anniversary of his accession, having been publicly weighed and presented with his (not inconsiderable) weight in gold by his adoring followers. Now it was his sixtieth anniversary as leader, and he was to be given his weight in diamonds at Bombay’s Brabourne Stadium before an audience of over a hundred thousand Ismailis. Unfortunately for British cinema-goers, the newsreel was in black and white, so they missed the spectacle of thousands of multi-coloured silk saris and brightly coloured umbrellas (providing shelter from the midday sun), the vibrancy of national costumes and uniforms of the Aga’s followers from all over the world: Arabia, East Africa, various islands in the Indian Ocean, and Asia.

  The Aga and Aly were gorgeously dressed as rajahs in silk jackets and turbans but it was the beautiful Begum Yvette who caught all eyes, in a white sari glittering with diamonds which had been liberally sewn all over it. The Aga weighed in at more than 234 pounds and the value of the diamonds in the counterweight was said to be in excess of three million dollars. One stone alone was worth one hundred thousand dollars. There was inevitable press criticism of such an overt display of wealth, but few journalists bothered to report that once the celebration was over the diamonds were returned to a London diamond merchant and most of the monetary equivalent was placed into a well-managed trust for education, housing, general charity and a cooperative organisation which provided, among other things, loans at low interest rates to Ismaili businessmen. In the UK, post-war rationing was stricter than during the fighting, and even for those who had managed to emerge from the war with some money there was very little to buy, except through the black market. The exotic spectacle of excess, colour and noise and the sensational wealth of the Aga Khan awed its cinema audience.

  Although Aly was considered to be the heir to all this pomp and riches, the title lay not in primogeniture but his father’s gift, and despite their successful cooperation in the racing business the Aga deplored his son’s way of life. It was not so much the women (he had probably bedded as many himself, but was extremely discreet about it), or the fast cars, or the ostentatious use of money – it was the fact that he could hardly open a paper or go to the movies without his son’s flamboyant antics being aired, and for the most part he hated the type of woman that Aly seemed drawn to. He had never been close to Aly; in fact, he had been much closer to Aly’s wife Joan and the couple’s two boys, Karim and Amyn (known to their contemporaries as ‘K’ and ‘A’). Now, although he and the Begum lived at Yakymour, a mere twenty minutes’ drive from the Château de l’Horizon, he still saw little of Aly, or Joan and the boys who were living in Paris.

  The Aga openly disapproved of Aly’s indiscreet behaviour which he felt did not befit a religious leader, but there is also good reason to believe that the Begum, who disliked Aly as much as he disliked her, missed no opportunity to drip poison into her husband’s ear. One of her attributes was her well-known ability to make the Aga laugh, but, as he told a friend, she was also the only person who could make him cry. (This, it was said, was after she placed him on a strict diet and restricted
his champagne intake.)

  The Aga had no complaint about one woman friend of Aly’s. Pamela Churchill became such a frequent house-guest at Château de l’Horizon (as well as Aly’s house near Paris) in the late Forties that it was widely rumoured she had become its chatelaine. Having parted from Randolph, she had enjoyed a wartime romance with Averell Harriman (whom she met at one of Emerald Cunard’s parties at the Dorchester) and a deeper five-year relationship with the acclaimed radio journalist Ed Murrow, to whom Harriman had introduced her. Both men were married, and though Murrow had asked her to marry him he later returned to his wife. Pam had been an immature nineteen-year-old when she married Randolph but her two grown-up relationships, plus a successful stint as éminence grise at the Churchill Club in Westminster,†† had witnessed her metamorphosis into a sexually aware young woman, confident in her beauty and her power over men. Her young son, ‘little Winston’, was well cared for by a nanny, and it would not be unfair to say that in the matter of their son’s divorce, Winston and Clementine’s sympathies lay with Pamela.

  Perhaps because she knew everyone in society and in politics – she was a frequent guest at Chartwell, and beloved of the Churchills – and was so adept at persuading men to tell her news, gossip and even secrets, Beaverbrook added Pamela to the staff of ‘Londoner’s Diary’ on the Evening Standard , for which she received a generous salary.

  Pam met Aly Khan when, following Royal Ascot in 1947, she and her then best girl friend, Kathleen ‘Kick’ Kennedy (the sister of Jack and Bobby and the widow of the Marquess of Hartington, heir to Chatsworth and the Duke of Devonshire),‡‡ went on with a circle of friends to the races in Paris. Three weeks earlier Aly had acquired a chestnut colt which he named Avenger II, and to everyone’s surprise the 33/1 outsider obliged by romping home in spectacular style to win the prestigious Grand Prix de Paris at Longchamp.§§ Aly then hosted the first of what would become a sensational annual society event, his famous summer ball at a prestigious restaurant in the Bois de Boulogne. The sea of floral decorations and massed balloons in his racing colours of green and red¶¶ filled the room with colour and scent. Each of the invited guests received a favour – for the women a trifle such as the new perfume, Yla, that he had financed, or an Hermès silk scarf featuring horses; for the men Cuban cigars or silver cigar cutters. Magnums of pink champagne flowed like waterfalls, and several orchestras ensured there were no breaks in the entertainment and dancing.

  When she danced with Aly at his first summer ball, Pamela received the full force of his dynamism; after all, the daughter-in-law of the most famous man in the world was a good connection for him. She agreed to meet Aly for dinner in London the following week. She told Kick about it later and was warned off in no uncertain terms: Aly Khan was seriously bad news, a womaniser of the most blatant type and someone to steer well clear of. Pamela ignored Kick’s advice; if anything, the warning acted as a spur to her interest, and during the next weeks she flew back and forth between London and Paris with Aly in Avenger for a series of intimate dinners. The attraction was mutual – he was rich, handsome, dangerous and fun. She was beautiful, well-connected, loved for him to drive fast and, having hunted all her life, was as good a rider as he was. It wasn’t long before he invited her to come and stay at the Chateau de l’Horizon.

  Fair, with fine translucent skin, red-haired Pamela received an almost literal baptism of fire at the villa. Unused to the Mediterranean sun (it was her first visit) she did not realise its power. On the first day she fell asleep on a sun lounger after lunch and was burned badly enough to require hospital attention. This might have spoiled the holiday, but Aly was so kind and solicitous while she was recovering that he earned her gratitude.

  Aly’s biographers all state that as a teenager he was sent to Cairo to be taught Ismdk by a Persian hakim and that as a result he was famed for turning his sexual technique into an art form. The Aga Khan himself had supposedly undergone the same teaching, which apparently enabled a man to restrain his sexual climax almost indefinitely in order to ensure the total satisfaction of his partner. The practice was said to have originated in India, land of the Kama Sutra, and was also supposed to have been mentioned by Richard F. Burton in the infamous ‘Terminal Essay’ to his acclaimed translation from the original of The Arabian Nights, and one or other of the various sex

  manuals he translated.## Pamela’s two biographers claim that she was captivated by this ability of Aly’s to prolong love-making.

  Although far from being the only woman in Aly’s life, during the winter of 1947-8 Pam was the one that visitors were most likely to find in residence at the Château de l’Horizon. Kick and her fiancé, Peter Fitzwilliam*** were among those invited to stay at the villa over the Whitsun weekend in May 1948. Kick had recently flown to America to tell her parents of her wish to remarry. On her return to London on 12 May she lunched with Pamela to tell her what had happened. She said the family talks had not gone well; the biggest problem for Kick’s parents was that Peter was not only a Protestant, but that in fact he was still married (his wife was an incurable alcoholic). Her mother had threatened to disown her if she married Peter, but Joseph P. Kennedy had quietly taken Kick outside and offered to go to the Vatican and try to arrange a Papal dispensation. Kick and Peter were to fly to Paris that afternoon to meet her father, before dining with Max and Jane Aitkerd††† in the evening. They would then fly down to Cannes the following morning. ‘Come down with us,’ Kick suggested. Peter had chartered a De Havilland Dove, almost identical to Aly’s Avenger.‡‡‡

  It was a tempting offer but Pamela dithered. She had a number of commitments that would have to be broken, had already arranged her transport to leave for Cannes in a few days, and she hadn’t even begun packing. All these things considered, she decided not to join them, but she drove Kick to Croydon airport and watched as the Dove took off. On the evening of the following day she heard that they had flown into the side of a mountain in a violent thunderstorm near the town of Privas in the Rhone Valley, some five hundred kilometres south of Paris. They were both killed instantly.

  No members of the Kennedy family attended the funeral at Chatsworth, but Pamela joined the grieving Devonshires – who had really loved their former daughter-in-law – and they erected a headstone for Kick which read Joy she gave, Joy she had found. Had their eldest son not been killed in the war, Kick would have been the next Duchess of Devonshire.

  A week later, deeply affected by the sudden death of her friend, Pamela collected little Winston from school and they were flown to Cannes by John Lancaster in the Avenger. Pam was to stay at l’Horizon for most of the summer and the villa was filled to capacity with Aly’s friends, including a polo team that he had formed and was sponsoring, a number of beautiful women who came and went, and the usual Riviera society crowd who came for lunches and dinners or an overnight stay. Pam and Aly had become friends as well as lovers by now; they were not in love per se, but had a happy and uncomplicated ‘open’ relationship that suited them both. Pam enjoyed acting as unofficial hostess for Aly and excelled at running a grand house, which was without any curbs on expenditure for all bills were sent to the Aga. She was not especially devastated when it became obvious that a new woman had come into Aly’s life. A woman who would change everything.

  * The seventeenth-century Chateau Maisons-Laffitte is located about ten miles northwest of Paris. It is also known for its racecourse, which is often compared with that of Newbury, England.

  † Aly married the divorcee Joan Guinness (née the Hon Joan Yarde-Buller) in May 1936. The bride converted to Islam and took the name Tajuddawlah. The couple had two sons, Karim (now Aga Khan IV) and Amyn, but by 1947 had been living apart for several years.

  ‡ Although the Aga was, under Islamic law, allowed four wives, he subscribed to monogamy. However, Islam also allows ‘temporary marriages’, a convenient arrangement to cover mistresses.

  § His pet name for Yvette was Yaky, and he combined this with the last four lette
rs of the French word for love (amour) to come up with Yakymour, by which name it is still known. The villa is still in the family of the present Aga Khan.

  ¶ Still going strong, this cup is hotly contested each year. Any team winning for three successive years wins the magnificent trophy outright and a new trophy is presented thereafter. In its ninety-odd year history, the Aga Khan Trophy has been won outright five times: by the Swiss in 1930, Ireland in 1937 and 1979, and Great Britain in 1953 and 1975. The present trophy is the sixth one.

  # More than forty thousand pounds was donated – not equal to his pre-war winnings, but the prize money was much smaller for wartime racing.

  ** The Derby has been run at Epsom in all years except during the world wars. From 1915 to 1918 and from 1940 to 1945 the Derby was run at Newmarket Heath.

  †† A wartime club for visiting officers in London, which Pam had hosted for several years.

  ‡‡ William ‘Billy’ Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington, had been killed in military action in September 1944.

  §§ Ridden by English jockey Charlie Smirke, who was retained by the Aga Khan.

  ¶¶ A green jersey and cap, with a red sash. It was probably no coincidence that they are also the colours of the Ismaili flag: that is a red diagonal stripe on a green background with the Ismaili coronet in the top right-hand corner.

  ## I have a number of Arab friends, none of whom appear to have any knowledge of this so-called practice, and nor – as a Burton biographer – do I particularly recall it in Sir Richard Burtons writings.