NICHOLAS PAPHITIS
ATHENS — Associated Press Published on Saturday, Oct. 14, 2006 12:00AM EDT Last updated on Tuesday, Mar. 17, 2009 1:00PM EDT
It was a mark of Aristotle Onassis's fame that dinner guests on his opulent yacht included Winston Churchill, Tito, John F. Kennedy and Jackie Bouvier -- later to become Onassis's second wife -- Rudolph Nureyev, Greta Garbo and Elizabeth Taylor.
The shipping tycoon's lavish lifestyle and business acumen made him one of the most famous Greeks of the 20th century. And now a new exhibition in Athens, Aristotle Onassis: Beyond His Myth, sets out to reconstruct his life through a series of personal effects.
These include a love letter from opera diva Maria Callas, luxury collectibles and his trademark horn-rimmed sunglasses.
"We wanted to advance beyond the myth, to show the real Onassis," said Anthony Papadimitriou, president of the Alexander S. Onassis public benefit foundation that organized the exhibition, which opened last week and runs through Nov. 12.
Onassis was born in 1906 to a wealthy Greek family in Smyrna -- modern-day Izmir -- that lost everything after the Greeks were evicted from Turkey in 1922.
He emigrated to Argentina, where he launched his shipping business. After moving to New York, he branched out into air transport by founding Olympic Airways. He died in Paris in 1975.
"We at the foundation knew . . . the real Onassis," Papadimitriou said. "He was a terrific businessman, but also a cultured, charming man who left his mark on an era."
The foundation, named after Onassis's only son -- who died in a 1973 plane crash -- has provided many of the 300 objects and 500 photographs displayed at the new branch of the Benaki Museum.
Several of the exhibits are linked with Callas, a fellow Greek with whom Onassis had a long-running relationship in the 1960s.
There's a letter to "Aristo my love," jewellery, a score from Tosca, clothing items and a piano specially commissioned for the diva to withstand the damp on Onassis's yacht Christina.
"Onassis was a man whom women loved, and not only for his money," Papadimitriou said.
For more information, visit http://www.benaki.gr/index-en.htm and http://www.onassis.gr/english/main/index.php.
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