The Riviera Set

by Mary S. Lovell

  Following the private screening Rita and the wedding guests had arranged to drive into the hills for an al fresco dinner at La Terrasse restaurant in the village of Le Cannet. Outside the cinema, however, a crowd had gathered to see Rita leave, and she was mobbed. Rita was helped into the limousine by Emrys Williams, but by the time he got into the driver’s seat she had almost been pulled out of the other door. She found this crowd adoration a nightmare.

  In French law a civil marriage service must be conducted in public, but the couple knew from experience that their wedding might provoke chaotic scenes. Having been briefed by the Duke and Duchess of Windsor about their successful application twelve years earlier to be allowed to marry in a private residence, Aly had applied to the French Minister of Justice. However, his application was refused a few days before the wedding. There was nothing for it but to fall back on the contingency, which was to hold the four-minute civil service in Yallauris, to which the owner of Château de l’Horizon paid its land taxes.

  By 1949 Vallauris had already become known as the home of Picasso.* But the mayor and chief of police were well aware what this wedding meant in terms of favourable publicity for the little town, and played it to the hilt. A red carpet was borrowed from Cannes and fresh paint applied to the mairie. Not only were the bride and groom a major security issue but the guest list, many hundreds strong, read like an international edition of Who’s Who. Over a hundred policemen in uniform and almost the same number in plain clothes were drafted in. Aly arrived an hour before the time of a quarter past one specified on the invitations, hoping to persuade the mayor to restrict the number of reporters allowed inside the building. His request was sweetened by a donation to the town of a million francs, the notes wrapped up in newspaper – suggesting the idea came from his father, who often made gifts and donations in precisely the same manner. The mayor said he was obliged by law to leave the doors of the room open for the public service, but he had been able to arrange for it to be held in a small ground-floor room for the sake of the Aga Khan, who could not climb stairs. Having done all he could Aly, looking tired, greeted his guests while he waited for his bride.

  Rita, escorted by police cars and motorcycle outriders, was driven to Vallauris at fifteen miles an hour in the new white Cadillac convertible that Aly had bought for the purpose. Every foot of the road leading into the hills was lined with people, who had begun waiting in the early morning. As soon as the Cadillac passed they fell in behind and followed on foot to the town. The streets were soon en fête, but as the room provided at the mairie was so tiny only thirty guests were able to attend the service. Chief among them were the Aga Khan and the Begum, Princes Sadruddin, Karim and Amyn, three important Ismaili clerics and King Vidor. Just as the ceremony was about to get under way a group of journalists caused a vociferous disruption, protesting that, by keeping them out, the wedding was being illegally conducted in private. Twenty of them, but no cameras, were allowed in, to stand against the wall of the little room. After the brief exchange of vows the mayor made a speech about the honour paid to the town, to be sure of his moment of glory.

  Rita, now formally Her Highness Princess Margarita, wore an ankle-length Jacques Fath dress in ice-blue chiffon, with long sleeves and a matching picture hat in swirls of organza which haloed her face. On the third finger of her left hand, beside her wedding band, she wore a twelve-carat diamond, which was only out-dazzled by Rita’s smile. She looked radiantly happy and few would have guessed she was two months pregnant, and had such cold feet that a few days earlier she had sent for Orson Welles and begged him to remarry her. Against his better judgement Orson persuaded her to go through with the wedding on the basis that if it didn’t work out she could divorce Aly. Later he would say that he had done so with qualms; in his heart he knew that Aly was one of the most promiscuous men in Europe, and though generous and charming he was not right for the emotionally needy Rita. Nor were her misgivings lessened when Rome* publicly declared that her marriage could not be recognised by the Church.

  The formal proceedings over, half-blinded by flashbulbs, the newlyweds were cheered through Vallauris by the townsfolk and showered with petals. Their small convoy – the Aga Khan and the Begum followed the Cadillac in their Rolls-Royce convertible (one of only a handful in the world at that point) – was cheered and pelted with flowers all the way back to l’Horizon. Safe inside its high walls, the couple were greeted by their guests; Rita later said she did not know many of them, but that quite a few of the women had been lovers of her new husband. Aly had hired a hundred security guards to keep press and paparazzi out, and two motor boats patrolled the shore, but clearly the villa was infiltrated for in one report some photographs appeared of the couple’s bedroom.

  At the time, it was easily the most grandiose wedding ever held on the Riviera – covered from beginning to end by newsreel photographers and relayed to cinemas all over the world within days. In Europe the audiences had hardly recovered from the war: the occasional pair of black-market nylon stockings was the ambition of most women in terms of glamour. Mass television lay in the future and a weekly visit to the cinema was one of the chief forms of entertainment available to them. Millions watched and were thrilled by the fairy-tale wedding, with the beautiful bride and her handsome prince celebrating in the sunshine on the terrace of their swimming pool, the Mediterranean Sea in the background, surrounded by flowers and with rich, beautifully dressed guests drinking champagne and a newly created cocktail,* eating caviar while being serenaded by Yves Montand backed by a full orchestra dressed in white tuxedos. They were able to watch the bride cut the huge 120-pound three-tier cake with Aly’s gleaming ceremonial sword. On the screen were the bridegroom’s father, the Aga Khan – the man who’d been given his own weight in diamonds in India in 1946 – and his wife, a beautiful woman dressed in a blue and gold sari. There too was Rebecca, the child of Rita’s previous marriage to Orson Welles, dressed in a pretty organza dress, presenting her newly royal mother with a posy of flowers. This dazzling event was manna to an audience starved of colour and experiences; a Hollywood fantasy come to life.

  Readers of newspapers learned the following day that the guests enjoyed more than six hundred bottles of champagne, at least fifty pounds of caviar and forty lobsters, as well as groaning buffet tables of food lovingly created by René and his small army of chefs. It was excess taken to the maximum possible, but not everyone wholly enjoyed it. The Aga wrote his opinion of it in his memoir, deprecating the ‘clamorous publicity such as we had never before experienced in our family ... This was a fantastic, semi-royal, semi-Hollywood affair; my wife and I played our part in the ceremony, much as we disapproved of the atmosphere with which it was surrounded.’1

  After six hours the pregnant bride was exhausted. Hollywood gossip columnist Louella Parsons sniped that Rita looked anything but happy and was trying to lose herself in the crowd, but that may have been mere pique, for Parsons’s arch-enemy Elsa Maxwell took line honours, having introduced the happy couple. Eventually Rita slipped into the salon to join her father-in-law at the dining table, where he had ordered a calming cup of tea after sampling the delicious food on offer. ‘Too much caviar, Rita,’ he muttered. ‘Too much caviar.’

  On the following morning the only sound at l’Horizon was of the packing up and removal of the wedding furnishings from the terraces, and the inevitable cleaning up. Inside the villa, though, another marriage service was being held – in total secrecy. It was an Islamic ceremony conducted by the Ismaili mullahs who had attended the civil ceremony the previous day, and witnessed by several dozen Ismaili nobles and their colourfully dressed wives. Here, Aly promised Rita a dowry which included a house of her own, and the oaths were given and toasted in fruit juice.

  Not a word of this secret ceremony ever reached the newspapers, nor the fact that Rita was subsequently instructed in the Islamic faith by a mullah. Aly also hired a tutor to teach Rita French, because as his wife she would need good French for all the politi
cians she would meet and entertain, and an etiquette coach to teach her all the things that Pam Churchill had learned at her mother’s knee. This curriculum had to be fitted into a constant round of junketing.

  At Epsom that summer Rita fainted when the crush to see her became too much. The same thing happened at Longchamp, and again at the Festival of Stars at the Tuileries in Paris when a crowd of autograph hunters gatecrashed the dining room and mobbed her. Maurice Chevalier, sitting at a neighbouring table, was very put out when his new suit was soaked by the contents of a fallen champagne bottle and he complained bitterly, but maybe he was aggrieved that it was Rita the mob were after, and not him. There was a failed hold-up when thieves tried to snatch Rita’s jewels in Paris, and an attempted kidnapping of Rebecca at Gorizia, Aly’s palatial house at Deauville, which was foiled by her attentive nanny and the faithful Emrys Williams.

  To forestall possible adverse publicity, when Rita’s pregnancy became obvious Aly announced that the birth of their child was expected in February. However, in November they slipped away to Switzerland and took the largest suite at the Palace Hotel in Lausanne, where Rita had booked into a clinic much favoured by European royalty. She went into labour on 28 December and gave birth to a girl, Princess Yasmin, delivered by Caesarean. Aly was a model husband: he stayed with her all night dozing by the bedside in a chair, and for the next few months, in the Gstaad house belonging to the Aga, they lived the quiet family life that Rita had always dreamed of.

  It was probably the happiest time of her life, for Aly appeared to be the husband she wanted. Not only did he seem quite content playing with little Yasmin and Rebecca, but his two sons from his first marriage came to stay and there was no evidence of his former womanising, even when he made a few hasty business trips to Paris. He devoted himself to making Rita happy. This idyll lasted about three months, by the end of which Aly was showing increasing signs of restlessness. ‘I’ve been around this place too damned long,’ he complained to his chauffeur. ‘I’m bored stiff’ To burn off some of his excess energy he took to the slopes. Aly had always been something of a daredevil skier and had broken his leg twice; now he became a demon on the most challenging runs, almost as though determined to break his neck. He almost did so when he took a nasty fall, breaking his right leg in seven places. ‘I guess I’m being paid out for all my sins,’ he told reporters, smiling to hide the seriousness of his injury – doctors were unsure at the time whether they would be able to save the leg.

  Rita was happy to nurse her Prince; indeed she welcomed the opportunity to prove herself the devoted wife, but Aly was a bad patient, bored and fretful. His entire leg was in plaster from toe to thigh, and as soon as he became even slightly mobile, with the aid of crutches, he clamoured to be taken to the Château de l’Horizon, where, he insisted, he would make a faster recovery in the mild climate of the Riviera.

  A flying ambulance was arranged and Aly was duly taken to Cannes. Had she been able to look into the future, Rita might have fought harder to keep him in Switzerland.

  * During the making of this film, soon after she and Orson Welles parted, Rita had a brief love affair with the millionaire Howard Hughes and became pregnant. Made aware by the studio of the effect on her image of having a baby out of wedlock she agreed to an abortion. She was still recovering from the effects of this abortion when she met Aly at Cap d’Antibes.

  † He had worked occasionally in one of the potteries at Vallauris since 1946, but had bought a house in 1948 and lived there after that date. Prior to 1948 he lived in Antibes and California.

  ‡ Rita was a Catholic.

  § The Ritaly cocktail: two-thirds whisky, one third vermouth, two drops of bitters and a cherry.

  16

  Marital Troubles

  When Rita returned to the Château de l’Horizon with the children some weeks later she felt Aly had reverted to the old life he had known before their marriage. The villa – her home – was constantly invaded by hordes of friends and visitors who had to be entertained and amused, and Aly began to behave like a bachelor again. Among the constant stream of visitors were many beautiful women to whom Rita thought Aly was far too attentive for a married man and the couple began to row over trivialities. She was not deft; after a dinner at La Croë Rita put her household staff into the same black and white maids’ uniforms that the Duchess of Windsor’s staff wore. One girl, who refused to wear such outdated clothes, was fired and promptly wrote an exposé for the newspapers.

  Soon, Emrys Williams recounted, the couple were having regular arguments and even fights. Rita, who was so quiet when in company, had a fiery Latin temper which sometimes erupted into wild rages, and one occasion Emrys wrote about occurred when Aly wanted them to move to England for the racing season. Rita was determined to stay at home with the children and Emrys, who was helping his employer to walk at the time, became an unwilling spectator as the quarrel erupted:

  The dispute became very bitter. Rita’s rage boiled over. Never before or since have I seen such fury in a human being. She was flaming mad. And flaming – for once – is the right word. Her eyes were alight. Her face and cheeks were flushed a deep crimson. Loose red hair floated round her shoulders like a cloud of fire. ‘I’m sick of this!’ she screamed. ‘I’m going back to America.’1

  Aly’s quiet response, observing that she had been drinking, incensed her even further. She picked up two photographs in heavy silver frames and hurled them at him. A series of books followed the photo frames. Finally a tray of glasses of orange juice was flung at Aly, who was struggling to remain standing on his crutches. At last Rita had finished; she collapsed on the sofa in sobs as Aly hobbled over to her. Emrys slipped out of the room as his employers began a tender reconciliation. But it was doubtful that any marriage could survive such onslaughts for long, and like the rest of the staff Emrys was unhappy to have to work in such a miserable atmosphere. Devoted to his employer, Emrys knew only too well that the Prince was not an easy man to live with, but when the couple had a violent argument in public over whom he was going to drive home (they had arrived in different cars) he threatened to leave them unless they stopped fighting.

  Unfortunately this had become the pattern of the marriage, and it became the talk of the Riviera that they argued about everything from him using her money to the attentions he paid to other women.

  Among the women visitors was Debo Devonshire,* the young Duchess of Devonshire and the youngest of the Mitford sisters. She had met Aly at a party in London before his marriage to Rita, and often thereafter at the races in England and France. They became friends and she was a regular guest at both the Paris house and the Château de l’Horizon. She recalled that Aly’s chief characteristic was his overwhelming charm, and that he was the easiest of company. She first met Rita at Ascot shortly before the birth of Yasmin, but her favourite memory of them was on another occasion at Royal Ascot, as Rita and Aly walked arm in arm through the paddock behind Harold Macmillan and the crowds cheered and clapped Rita. Macmillan, then Housing Minister (and Debo’s uncle by marriage)* assumed they were cheering him – and though it had never happened to him previously, he took it as a sign that his work was appreciated and he courteously removed his top hat and bowed to his audience.

  Debo was bowled over by Rita’s appearance. In a memoir she wrote that Rita was one of the four most beautiful women she had ever seen.* ‘Her features were perfect, her mass of truly auburn hair sprang straight from her forehead and cascaded down to her shoulders, and she moved like the dancer she was.’2 But the two women got on well. Debo spoke very little French so she and Rita were fellow sufferers at the Château de l’Horizon where the lingua franca for conversation at the dinner table tended to be French. She remembered that the guest list was impressive: ‘You never knew who you were going to meet at Château de l’Horizon, Aly’s house on the sea near Cannes, where fellow guests ranged from beautiful women friends to international racing people, with a sprinkling of showbiz thrown in.’3 One day Aly arranged
for her to dine with his father and the Begum at Yakymour. The Aga, whom Debo’s sister Nancy referred to as ‘Father Divine’, ‘made me feel as though I had known him all my life’. As she was taking her leave he gave her a book ‘to read in bed’ – she half expected it to be an Islamic tract, but it was a romantic novel. At 2 a.m., when she was fast asleep, her telephone rang and she fumbled to answer it only to find it was the Aga asking how she was enjoying the book.

  Rita always attempted to show a smiling face to visitors but the noisy quarrels, mainly about Aly’s playboy behaviour and his spending (too often of her money), continued. After Christmas 1950 the couple left France for a three-month official tour of the Ismaili communities in East Africa and stopped over in Cairo to attend a New Year’s Eve party. Here, Rita stormed out during one of their public rows. Already upset over missing Yasmin’s first birthday because she had agreed to accompany Aly, she said he was neglecting her and paying too much attention to others. Aly smoothed things over. On arrival in Kenya, highly anxious about the part she was expected to play in meeting the wives of the Ismaili groups when she did not understand them, Rita appeared content, at first, to allow Aly to go off alone on various trips to Mombasa and Zanzibar to fulfil his obligations to his followers.