Lecture recorded in Winter 2020 term.
Recorded lecture will be available on June 19, 2020.
While growing up in Swiss boarding schools and throughout his life, René Silvin has learned first-hand that all that glitters is not gold. Several of his peers came from extremely wealthy families whose money did not lead to happiness.
For example, René’s family was intertwined with the Woodwards. Heir to a banking fortune, William “Billy” Woodward Jr. married the infamous Ann Crowell, a Manhattan showgirl. In what Life magazine called “the shooting of the century,” Ann fatally shot Billy in 1955. The widowed Ann had an on-again, off-again relationship with René’s father. The story is the subject of Dominick Dunne’s book and mini-series, “The Two Mrs. Grenvilles.”
Known as the “poor little rich girl,” Barbara Hutton was heir to the Woolworth fortune. Going from bad to worse in her selections, she married and divorced seven men, never finding happiness. Her only son, Lance Reventlow, died tragically at age 36. By the time of Barbara’s death in 1979, she was alone and nearly penniless. René visited her shortly before her death and was one of the last people to spend any meaningful time with her.
In the early ‘70s, René met and befriended Christina Onassis, daughter of the two shipping magnates, Aristotle and Tina Livanos Onassis. To Christina's horror, her mother Tina, died under mysterious circumstances in 1974. “The Golden Greek,” as Onassis was known, was then married to Jackie Kennedy. Ari died in 1975, a broken man after the tragic death of his only son Alexander, another classmate of René’s. Coincidentally, René was closely involved with the family during Onassis’ last illness and death at a hospital René was running in Paris.
René will also talk about Leona Helmsley, “the queen of mean.” She married real estate magnet, Harry Helmsley in 1972, after her real estate license had been revoked. One of the story’s many anecdotes describes a 1973 incident when Leona was stabbed in their Palm Beach Towers condominium. The most commonly accepted theory is that Harry stabbed Leona, while they both tried to blame the crime on a housekeeper. Leona led a tumultuous life, including 19 months in prison, convicted on tax evasion charges. She died lonely and secluded in her Greenwich, Connecticut mansion at the age of 86. She left $12 million to her dog, Trouble.
Tragedy surrounded Sunny von Bu¨low, the only child of utilities magnate George Crawford, who left his infant daughter $75 million in 1935. In 1980, her husband allegedly tried to kill her with an insulin overdose.
René, the ultimate raconteur, will describe these and other tragic stories in his inimitable fashion, using dozens of glamour shots and newsreel clips, proving the adage, “all that glitters is definitely not gold.”
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