Tina Onassis Niarchos
Athina Maria "Tina" Onassis Niarchos (née Livanos; Greek: Αθηνά (Τίνα) Λιβανού, pronounced [aθiˈna ˈtina livaˈnu]; 19 March 1929 – 10 October 1974) was an English-born Greek-French socialite and shipping heiress, the second daughter of the Greek shipping magnate Stavros Livanos and Arietta Zafiraki. She was known best as the first wife of Aristotle Onassis, but she later married her older sister Eugenia's widower, Stavros Niarchos. She was also the elder sister of George Stavros Livanos.
Tina Niarchos | |
|---|---|
| Born | Athina Mary Livanos 19 March 1929 Kensington, London, England |
| Died | 10 October 1974 (aged 45) Paris, France |
| Title | Marchioness of Blandford |
| Spouses | |
| Children | Alexander Onassis Christina Onassis |
| Parent(s) | Stavros Livanos Arietta Zafirakis |
Marriages and family
She was married three times. Her husbands were:
- Aristotle Onassis (28 December 1946 – 1960); with him she had two children, Alexander Onassis (1948–1973) and Christina Onassis (1950–1988). She divorced him upon her discovering that he was having an affair with the opera singer Maria Callas.[1]
- John Spencer-Churchill, Marquess of Blandford (23 October 1961 – March 1971), later 11th Duke of Marlborough.
- Stavros Niarchos (21 October 1971 – 1974), her sister Eugenia's widower.
After her divorce from Aristotle Onassis, she resumed using her maiden name, Livanos, until her marriage to Spencer-Churchill.
Her son with Onassis, Alexander Onassis, died at the age of 24 in January 1973, as a result of injuries sustained during an airplane crash in Athens.[2]
Athina Niarchos died on 10 October 1974 in the Hôtel de Chanaleilles, the Parisian mansion that she shared with her husband. Her death was officially ruled by pathologists as having resulted from an acute edema of the lung, but has also been attributed to her suffering a drug overdose.[3][4] She was buried next to her sister at the Bois-de-Vaux Cemetery in Lausanne, Switzerland.[5][6]
Her daughter, Christina Onassis, sued Stavros Niarchos, her mother's widower, for her mother's estimated US$250 million (in 1974 dollars) estate, claiming the marriage should be annulled by Greek law. Christina later ended the lawsuit and Niarchos returned all of his wife's money as well as her jewelry, artwork and other personal effects to Christina.
Her only living descendant is her namesake granddaughter, Athina Onassis, Christina's daughter.
Notes
- Feroudi Moutsatsos, Kiki (1998). The Onassis Women. London: Putnam. ISBN 0399144439.
- "Mr Aristotle Onassis.", The Times, London, 17 March 1975, p. 14
- Anthony, Andrew (17 October 1999). "High Society". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
- Soames, Mary (February 2001). Winston and Clementine: The Personal Letters of the Churchills. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 0618082514.
- Evans 1987, p. 292.
- Evans 1987, p. 293.
References
- Evans, Peter (1987). Ari: The Life, Times and Women of Aristotle Onassis. London: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-009961-4.