The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People

by David Wallechinsky

  QUIRKS: Onassis could be described as a “roaring” heterosexual. His boudoir humor tended toward the explicit. Once he asked Ingeborg Dedichen to examine him for piles. As she investigated, Onassis wafted a not so gentle breeze in her startled face. On another occasion, when harassed by a photographer, Onassis took him into the washroom, where he said he would show him the secret of his success. Unzipping his fly, he revealed an asset that may best be described as physical rather than fiscal.

  HIS THOUGHTS: “I’ve always been attracted to tall, statuesque women. I guess I should have been a sculptor.”

  —J.M.M.

  XIII

  Bed Sports

  The Other Don Juan

  JUAN BELMONTE (Apr. 14, 1892-Apr. 8, 1962)

  HIS FAME: More than 45 years after his death, Spanish-born Juan Belmonte is still considered one of the two greatest bullfighters who ever lived.

  HIS PERSON: The eldest of 11 children, he was raised in abject poverty in a Seville slum. He grew up scrambling in the streets, and at the age of 11 he joined a gang of “guttersnipes,” whose members taught him “to smoke, to drink … , to play cards, and to go with women.” Small, ugly, virtually a cripple, and a stammerer, Belmonte resolved at the age of 16 to become the world’s greatest matador. His early attempts were met with jeers and laughter; during his first professional fight, an exhausted Belmonte begged the bull to kill him. Because of his physical limitations, he revolutionized bullfighting techniques; since he could not jump out of the way of a 1,200-lb. charging bull, he used his fantastic control of the cape to make the bull swerve away from him.

  Belmonte was an enormous success, and soon nearly every matador was trying to imitate this new style. Many were killed in the attempt. Even the great “Joselito,” who learned and perfected Belmonte’s innovations well enough to become his rival, was killed by a bull in 1920 at the age of 25.

  But Belmonte went on and on; his stamina was unbelievable. He fought 109 times in 180 days one season, and soon was earning $10,000 for each performance. He figured prominently in many books, including Ernest Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon and The Sun Also Rises. Fame did not come without sacrifice, however. Fear was his constant companion, and when Belmonte was asked how many times he had been gored, he replied, “Say 50 times, including three times where a man appreciates it least.”

  LOVE LIFE: His first love was a married woman who was “adept in the arts of pleasure.” Convinced he would be fatally gored in Valencia during his second professional fight, Belmonte gallantly burned the lady’s letters (written in red ink, which she swore was “her own heart’s blood”) to spare her reputation after his death.

  As his fame as a bullfighter grew, Belmonte was delighted to observe a dramatic increase in his appeal to women. Once a woman named Chivita (which translates as “nanny goat”) “suddenly started to make love” to him in a tavern. Her date, an aficionado, didn’t mind relinquishing her to the great bullfighter, but Belmonte, probably put off by her aggressiveness and the accompanying public attention, considered the incident “one of the most unfortunate things that ever happened to me.”

  He first saw Julia Cossio at a bullfight in Lima, Peru. His love for the socialite grew, but the shy Belmonte dreaded participating in a wedding ceremony. Finally, he discovered that a proxy marriage could be performed while he was fighting bulls in Venezuela, so his stand-in married Julia in 1918. They had two daughters before they were estranged.

  Belmonte was a womanizer, and females of every social level were his great joy after—and even before—his almost daily encounters with bulls. By a servant girl he had a son, whom he ultimately acknowledged. Juan Belmonte, Jr., became a good matador, but he lived in the shadow of his father’s legend until he gave up bullfighting.

  A millionaire, Belmonte owned a great estate in Spain and made up for his limited schooling (which had lasted only four years) by undertaking his own education. He had affairs constantly with wealthy women from the international jet set. One famous and beautiful actress who lives in California recently recalled, “Even the sound of the footsteps of that ugly-beautiful, bandy-legged little man coming down the hotel hall to my bedroom would set me aquiver!” She went on to explain: “The same energy that went into his conquering a bull also went into his conquering a woman, and he was the greatest lover I ever had.”

  Although Belmonte retired from bullfighting in 1935, he kept returning to the ring, and was performing in exhibitions well into his 60s. One of his favorite companions during these later years was an exquisite Chinese woman who wanted to be a matador.

  In the spring of 1962, a depressed Belmonte told his friends: “My doctor has forbidden me to do the three things I love most in the world—fight bulls, ride horses, and mount women. It’s time to go.” So one Sunday, six days before his 70th birthday, he drove to his ranch near Seville, rode his horse, Maravilla, out into the fields, and proceeded to cape seven fierce bulls. Then, after attending mass, he spent two hours of pleasure with his mistress of 12 years. Finally, exhausted, he returned to his luxurious home and shot himself to death.

  HIS THOUGHTS: “Like a soldier in wartime, or anyone else who is living dangerously, a bullfighter is always preoccupied with women. The sexual explanation is simple enough.”

  —B.C.

  Wilt The Stilt

  WILT CHAMBERLAIN (Aug. 21, 1936-Oct. 12, 1999)

  HIS FAME: One of the best basketball players in NBA history, Wilt Chamberlain played for the Philadelphia/San Francisco Warriors, Philadelphia 76ers, Los Angeles Lakers and the Harlem Globetrotters. Though he holds many all-time records in the NBA—including being the only player in history to average more than 50 points in a season or score 100 points in a game—his most enduring record was made off the court; Wilt is remembered for having slept with upwards of 20,000 women (and never letting one of them take his lifelong bachelor status).

  HIS PERSON: Born in Philadelphia, Wilt was one of nine children, and enjoyed a cozy middle-class childhood, attending the largely Jewish Over-brook High School, where he soon excelled in track and field and basketball. By the time he graduated, 200 universities tried to recruit him. As a player for the University of Kansas Jayhawks, Chamberlain was already overachieving: he had appeared on the covers of Time, Newsweek, Life and Look magazines by the time he was 21. As a professional player, the 7’1” Chamberlain became the object of scorn, ridicule and fantasy, often seen as a monstrous giant or Goliath and subject to hard fouls by other players and jeering from fans. Yet by the beginning of the 1960s, Chamberlain was setting records that remain unbroken—that remain unthreatened—to this day. Chamberlain was bigger (7’1” and 300 lbs. in muscle at his peak), stronger, faster and more coordinated than almost anybody he was matched against on the court; his offensive power was so overwhelming that the NBA changed many rules to help hedge the curve against him. Despite his strength, and the scorn heaped against him both on the court and from the stands, Chamberlain was a man fully in control of his emotions; he did not foul out once in his 14-year stint in the NBA, in more than 1,200 games. After retiring at the end of the 1972-73 season, Chamberlain spent time coaching professional players, but after becoming bored with the role turned to acting (he played the villain Bombaata in the 1984 Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle Conan the Destroyer), big-league volley-ball, tennis, marathons, polo and, at one point, even planned to challenge Muhammad Ali to a fight, though this never came off. Rumors of an NBA comeback never ceased, even into Chamberlain’s fifties; he contented himself with authoring several books instead and resting on the laurels of his hard work before his death of heart failure in 1999, at the age of 63.

  SEX PARTNERS: Chamberlain’s infamous 20,000-women figure was self-reported in his 1991 autobiography A View From Above, a bold statement (as he wrote, “At my age, that equals out to having sex with 1.2 women a day, every day since I was 15 years old”), and one that caused immense controversy in the African-American community for reinforcing old stereotypes—especially coming
shortly before Magic Johnson’s announcement of his HIV+ status. “Whites didn’t like it,” Chamberlain stated, “and people of color wanted me to be more attentive to my own kind so they could be ‘proud’ of me… I was just doing what was natural—chasing good-looking ladies, whoever they were and wherever they were available.” It was his early stint with the Harlem Globe-trotters that first opened the world of the infinite sexual possibility of the public figure to Chamberlain; often a Globetrotter wouldn’t have to do much more than hand out game tickets to women they saw on the street while on tour in order to sleep with them, even if they didn’t speak any English whatsoever, or stand shirtless on their hotel balcony flexing his pecs. Though his extreme height likely contributed to his attractiveness to women, it also made sex difficult, particularly in tight quarters. During his second season with the Lakers, at the age of 33, Chamberlain tore a tendon in his knee and was put in a cast; he wrote that, combined with his height, “trying to drag that cast around without breaking [a] girl’s leg (or decapitating her) was a real effort,” though, in best Chamberlain style, he found that in many cases the exotic quality of the cast made him even more attractive. Chamberlain narcissistically boasted of the high quality of the women he attracted, stating that “I am a man of distinctive taste and most of the women I have encountered, the average Joe would have proposed marriage to on the first date.” He also maintained that not one woman he slept with was married, a point on which he was unwavering. He developed his own 20-point rating system for women (he cited Raquel Welch and Jennifer O’Neill as among the only 19s he ever saw, and said he never saw a 20 in his life)—and liked his women “bright, pretty, well read, widely traveled, interested in good food and good times... white, black, red, yellow or green.” He preferred women to be 5’4” to 5’6”, ironically finding tall women unattractive, and was firmly an ass man rather than a breast man—“I’m a pragmatist at heart,” he stated, “and I can’t see where big breasts have any function as useful as walking or sitting.” Chamberlain lived alone in a palace he built himself in Beverly Hills; the media called it a “sybaritic paradise.” Wilt wrote that “I must admit that my favorite form of entertainment is still me and a pretty girl and a big bed—and I can think of no better, more romantic place for that entertainment than my own bedroom.” Chamberlain’s bed was situated atop a 13’ x 25’ platform, underneath a triangular mirrored ceiling which would slide back to reveal the sky with the flick of a switch. Another switch would close the drapes and lock the room into pitch darkness. Another room downstairs, the “X-rated room,” was designated for the sexual frolics of guests. Despite or because of his priapic exploits, Chamberlain remained a bachelor his entire life. Questioning the modern relevance of marriage, he stated “I’ve always thought that weddings—like funerals—are more for the friends and families of the principals than the principals themselves.” Chamberlain’s longest relationship lasted exactly three weeks—“I get tired of a girl fairly quickly, and when I do, I ‘fire’ her... who knows—I may already have fired one or two girls who would have made ideal wives for me if I’d kept them around long enough to really get to know them.” He reported that there had been exactly five women in his life (that is .025% of his total yield) that he loved enough to marry, though he never committed; as he commented in a 1991 interview, “The women who I have been the most attracted to, the most in love with, I’ve pushed away the strongest.”

  HIS ADVICE: “With all of you men out there who think that having a thousand different ladies is pretty cool, I have learned in my life I’ve found out that having one woman a thousand different times is much more satisfying.”

  —J.L.

  The Black Hope

  JACK JOHNSON (Mar. 31, 1878-June 10, 1946)

  HIS FAME: He was the first black heavyweight boxing champion of the world. In 48 years he engaged in 113 bouts and lost only 7. Ring historian Nat Fleischer called him “the greatest heavyweight of all time.”

  HIS PERSON: Raised in a poor family of nine in Galveston, Tex., Johnson ran away from home at 12, and in five years on the road he learned to be a boxer. He was soon beating the best fighters around and was in line for a shot at the heavyweight title held by a tough Canadian, 5-ft. 7-in. Tommy Burns. But Burns flung insults at Johnson and ignored him, until baited by a $35,000 promoter’s offer. The match was held outside Sydney, Australia, with Burns a 7-to-4 favorite. In the 14th round, a venomous right from Johnson knocked Burns flat. A black man ruled the fistic world.

  Champion Jack Johnson returned to a segregated, racist America, refusing to play Uncle Tom, flashing his power and arrogance. The seething press and boxing crowd sought a “white hope.” Johnson crushed them all. Novelist Jack London begged in print: “Jeff, it’s up to you!” and the undefeated, invincible white Jim Jeffries came out of five years’ retirement to take care of the black upstart. The fight of the century was staged on the blazing afternoon of July 4, 1910, in Reno, Nev. The 6-ft. 2 1/2-in. Jim Jeffries squared off against the 6-ft. 1/4-in. Jack Johnson. “The great Jeffries was like a log,” reported the Associated Press. “The reviled Johnson was like a black panther.” In the 15th round, Johnson knocked out Jeffries.

  Race riots exploded throughout the U.S. Johnson ignored them. In his beret and silk suits, sipping wine through a gold straw, enjoying his own Chicago cabaret, driving a Stutz Bearcat, starring in Othello, making love with endless white women, he was on top of the world. The whites had to get rid of him. They found him guilty on a phony morals charge, but Johnson escaped to European exile for five years. Eager to return home, Johnson defended his crown against lumbering 6-ft. 6-in. Jess Willard in Havana on Apr. 5, 1915. Johnson was knocked out by Willard in the 26th round. Johnson claimed he’d thrown the fight to get back to America and obtain a pardon. Experts claimed Johnson lost because he was out of shape. He got no pardon. He spent a year in Leavenworth Prison, working as athletic director. He died at 68 in an auto accident.

  SEX LIFE: When Johnson boasted, as allegedly he once did, “I can get any white woman in Chicago I want”—or when the press reported his affairs and marriages with young white ladies—the white population of America became inflamed and enraged. Once, 100 Texans prepared to converge on Chicago to lynch Johnson. In Congress, Rep. Seaborn A. Roddenberry of Georgia introduced a constitutional amendment banning intermarriage between blacks and whites, shouting, “No brutality, no infamy, no degradation in all the years of southern slavery, possessed such villainous character and such atrocious qualities as … states which allow the marriage of the Negro, Jack Johnson, to a woman of Caucasian strain.” Race riots set off by Johnson’s knocking out white men and bedding white women caused the deaths of 19 persons nationwide in seven years.

  Johnson’s explanation for his behavior was a simple one: “I didn’t court white women because I thought I was too good for the others. It was just that they always treated me better. I never had a colored girl that didn’t two-time me.”

  Most white men felt threatened by Johnson’s sexual prowess. They imagined he had a gigantic penis that their white women loved. When Johnson heard this, he laughed and decided to threaten his white tormentors further. Dressing to spar in public, he would wrap gauze bandages around his penis to enlarge it and then go out before the spectators in the skintight trunks of the time, displaying the mammoth bulge at his crotch. There was talk of forcing Johnson to wear loose boxing trunks instead of skintight ones. But former bareknuckle heavyweight champion John L. Sullivan announced, “The size of a nigger’s penis is not to be discussed in public.”

  SEX PARTNERS: At 20 Johnson married a childhood sweetheart, a lightly colored girl named Mary Austin. When he refused to quit prizefighting, she divorced him in 1901. Then he began living with Clara Kerr, an attractive black girl. They traveled everywhere together until Clara ran off with a white man in Johnson’s entourage, taking with her all of Johnson’s clothes and handy cash. Years later, Johnson heard Clara was in a New Jersey jail for murdering her husband. Learning
that she had killed in self-defense, Johnson helped her win acquittal and bought her a small hotel.

  Disenchanted by black women, Johnson turned to white ones. He became involved with an Irish girl from New York, Hattie McLay, daughter of a respectable jeweler. He took her along with him to Europe and on to Australia, where he won the championship. When he got back to Chicago with Hattie, he broke with her because she was an alcoholic and had been sleeping with his manager. After Hattie’s departure, Johnson fell for a girl of German descent, Belle Schreiber, brought up in Milwaukee and called “the prettiest white whore” in Chicago. Belle worked in the classiest bordello in America, the Everleigh Club, run by two young Kentuckybred sisters, Aida and Minna Everleigh. The club featured 30 exotic boudoirs furnished with marble-inlaid brass beds covered with white cashmere blankets, perfume sprays over the beds, and mirrored ceilings. The tubs in the bathrooms were gold. Among the club’s regulars were James J. Corbett, Ring Lardner, and John Barrymore. Belle Schreiber was one of the higher-paid prostitutes, receiving $50 a tumble. Meeting Johnson, she offered to live with him, and he accepted. Soon Belle accompanied Johnson to San Francisco. There, at his hotel, he found Hattie had just arrived for a reconciliation. The women ran into each other and began some hair pulling, but Johnson parted them and promised to keep each one happy. He would make love to Hattie, then to Belle, and to avoid the press he would use a rope outside Belle’s window to get down and back to his quarters. One night as he descended the rope, the hotel owner’s daughter pounced on him, grasping for his crotch. “She wanted the sight and feel of my privates,” Johnson said. “Like she thought I was built of leather down there. I’ve never seen a girl get so frantic.” To prevent her from screaming, Johnson had intercourse with her. When she wanted a repeat performance the next night, Johnson refused, insisting he could not satisfy three women. Furious, the girl told her father the champion had raped her. Her father confronted Johnson, accusing him of “ruining his poor little baby, with his gigantic, oversized thing.” Johnson paid off the hotel owner to suppress any bad publicity.