To Catch A Sunbeam

 Sunday Express - Sunday 26 September 1993 "Basualdo went on to attract some of the most wealthy women in society - his choicest catch being Christina Onassis.  They first set eyes on each other at a private dinner party, but he claims, he wasn't in the least bit flattered by her wealth. A year or two later they were an item. "She was sexually very demanding" he says. "But for a while at least he was happy".  "Then I remembered Rubirosa's advice, "Heiresses are your future asset" he had told me.  Then Luis and his girlfriend Lucy (when he had left his wife Clare), "together in Paris and almost penniless, they chanced to bump into a bored and decidedly overweight Christina Onassis, who immediately invited the couple to spend the summer with her on her private island of Skorpios.  "In those days, Clare and I were madly in love and travelled everywhere together. So the idea of spending time on Christina's private island appeale...

 According to the article, "Bounder stays a jump away from the law", Luis was Christina's "secretary" and he put the money into an account called "Charles Spencer". Christina was "rather taken by Luis dashing charm". 

Daily Mirror - Friday 09 March 1984 Luis told the London Bankruptcy court that all he had left in the world was a pair of cufflinks.

Daily Express - Wednesday 14 June 1989 "Argentina's leading bounder, Luis Basualdo, tells me he is attempting to clear his name after his former employee and sometime lover, Christina Onassis, accused him of embezzling £800,000 from her estate.  Certainly, police in Austria were interested to interview Basualdo, 42, former son-in-law of Viscount Cowdray and Scotland Yard were ready to pounce should the polo loving libertine step foot on this land.  Luis, who has taken exception to my calling him the kind of man to give Argentina a bad name, insists that the shipping heiress withdrew charges against him and they were on the best of terms before her death in December.  "I was on Christina's payroll for three years and she never paid me" said Basualdo from the safety of Mexico. "She paid me $30,000 a month, but I wasn't paid from 1983 to 1986 except one payment in September '83".  And what, you may wonder, did Basualdo do for the not ungerous stipe...

Daily Express - Saturday 08 January 1994 "Over certain people, I exercise a Rasputin power" says Basualdo proudly.  "Welcome to the world of Luis Basualdo, an obsolete existence steeped in alcohol, drugs, smudged lipstick, feuds, fortunes and nights that drift limply into days. It is a world that fears mediocrity more than death, that pours scorn on anything as decent as family values and operates on such a twisted moral level".  "I'm immoral, not amoral" says Basualdo.  "In Basualdo's macabre book, money can transform the ugliest woman - in fact he fears bright, beautiful girls, especially of they interrupt. "I like stupid girls. I like them to listen and laugh and think I'm a genius, a god. If they're clever, they become superior and surpass you. They are monsters". Yet, with a typical burst of clarity, he adds: "I don't hate bores. I hate the people I bore. I detect it instantly, develop contempt and leave". ...

 The newspaper reported under the headline "The nobs nobble Luis", that Basualdo had been "thrown out" of Prince Charles's exclusive Guards Polo Club. "It is the first time such a thing has happened in the clubs 24-year history". Major Ronnie Ferguson, said "Mr Basualdo's membership has not been renewed for 1980. It was a committee decision".  The paper went on to speculate that the decision, "a virtual ban from the game" is likely to spell "social death" to Basualdo ("The Argentine Bounder"). The Guards Committee decided to oust Basualdo after the Hurlingham Polo Association had cleared him of accusations resulting from bailiffs chasing him at Cowdray Park. 

Sunday Independent (Dublin) - Sunday 25 July 1993 "Some people - no manners. At the late eighties launch of a his book on Christina Onassis in New York. Nigel Dempster made a holy show of himself.  The evening - hosted by Conde Nast grand dames Anna Wintour and Tina Brown - was in full swing when Nige introduced his publisher, Lord Weidenfeld, with the ill chosen bon mots: "Are you still a peer, or has Ann Getty stripped you of your title?" The Lord's visage sunk quicker, I should imagine, than the Belgrano. The larks did not end there, however, turning to Luis Basualdo, Onassis associate, The Moan On Sunday surmised that since Luis had a million of Onassis money, he must therefore surely have murdered her.  Not done yet, Dempster then pointed to one Danny Marentette across the room, whom he suggested had stripped Christina of her status of virgo intacta. It was not altogether surprising that, then, that all at once practically the social queens of New York, one by o...

Daily Mirror - Thursday 24 July 1975 "NOT since Solomon met the Queen of Sheba has there been such a meeting of assets. The marriage of Christina Onassis and Alexander Andreadis brings together a staggering fortune of about £624,312,200.  The Onassis fortune, comprising banking, industry, construction, real estate, shipping and transport, as well as a huge gold holding, was assessed last year as being worth £330,734,300.  The late Aristotle, Christina's father, sold the Olympic Towers block in Fifth Avenue, New York, after the computation. It was valued at £22,934,779, but was so heavily mortgaged, that the sale does not alter the total fortune.  However, the slump in tanker rates and values could have wiped out about £36,897,247 of the Onassis millions, bringing the total fortune down to around £225,000, 600. Christina controls a comforting 45 percent."

Belfast News-Letter - Tuesday 29 November 1966 "Bartram and Son Ltd., ship builders of Sunderland., announced last night an order for their first SD14 Liberty replacement design cargo ship from Deko Trading S.A. of Panama, a member of the Onassis group".  The article also added that the joint managing director of Bartram's said that this was the first time that the Onassis group had built new tonnage in Britain. 

Belfast News-Letter - Wednesday 21 May 1969   "Mr Aristotle Onassis, Greek millionaire and husband of Jackie Kennedy, who holds £2,000,000 worth of shares in Messrs. Harland & Wolff, can now vote at company meetings." The article states that an 11 year ban on foreign nationals holding shares from voting was lifted yesterday, when a special resolution giving effect to this procedure was passed unanimously at an "extraordinary general meeting" in Belfast. The ban had been introduced in 1858 by the chairmen, Sir Frederick Rebbeck, who feared that the yard would be taken over by foreign investors. They felt that by 1969 that the reintroduction of this voting rights would make any difference in the control of the company or lead to any take over moves. 

 Daily Express - Saturday 25 April 1959 "Last night Panama's President de la Guardia introduced a new name into the mystery - shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis one of the most important canal users and a friend of Roberto Arias, whose firm looks after the Onassis shipping interests in the area.  President de la Guardia, telling reporters in Panama about an occasion when officials could not contact Dr Arias as ambassador in London, said: "He was probably running around the world with Onassis. If I'd been President (it was before he took office) I'd have fired him". Meanwhile the revolve allegedly backed by Mr Arias is continuing in the Panama cordilleras.  The young rebels who only three weeks ago seized some arms and declared war on the regime are still sniping it out with de la Guardia's troops.  The essential difference between this and other attempts to throw off what young Panamanian hot-heads call "the Yankee yoke" is that this time powerf...

Wolverhampton Express and Star - Monday 11 July 1977 "Shipping heiress Christina Onassis and her husband of two years, Alexandros Andreadis, have divorced.  The divorce court in Athens said the dissolution was at the request of both parties, and did not elaborate.  

This article appeared in the "HAVE YOU HEARD" column "Jackie Onassis would like to be U.S. Ambassador in Paris, or failing that, London. The settlement with the Onassis family of 5 million, in place of the income she was to have received from her late husband's will, puts her personal fortune at about 15 million dollars."