"DOLLAR" PRINCESS' LOVE STORY

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 140, 15 June 1935, Page 6 (Supplement)

"DOLLAR" PRINCESS' LOVE STORY

(By MICHAEL BORISOFF.)

She lay basking on the strip of hot sand fringing the calm blue waters of the Lido—the strip which is the preserve for the patrons of the opulent Excelsior Hotel—and even in the scanty attire of the fashionable sun lounger in this exotic playground she looked incredibly expensive.

It might have been her exquisitely groomed and tended hair—it requires money and a highly paid French maid to have hair like that. Or it might have been her sun bathing get-up, wisps of gaily patterned silk, obviously from the highest priced Paris shop.

Or, again, it might lave been her large jewelled earrings, or the flat, jewelencrusted platinum bracelets she wore on her arm, or the long, solid gold, diamond-monogrammed case from which she languidly drew a flat Egyptian cigarette.

My friend, who knew Princess Mdivani, formerly Barbara Hutton, the Woolworth heiress, who had just married Prince Alexis Mdivani, sighed: "Ah me! Fifty million dollars' worth of love. I wonder if it is a marriage that will stand the test of time." A Wager Made and Lost. And I then made the wager which I have now lost. I said: "You're a pessimist. I know these Mdivani boys are always in and out of the divorce courts. But this marriage of Alexis and Barbara Hutton may last. They may And something in common—enough, anyway, to keep' them together and make their marriage a euccess. Why not?"

But my friend shook her blonde head and 'laughed. "I bet you a fiver they're arranging a divorce by this time next year."

I took her and I have lost.

I had not then met Princess Mdivani more than half a dozen times, on those casual, crowded social occasions that people call "parties"; shoals of people, champagne flowing, caviare by the bucket load, "million-dollars-back-of-this" written over everything, laughter, colour, froth of wit, and dance band playing the latest tunes.

She struck me as a contented-looking girl, very gorgeously ornamented, even to the finger -nails ("Finger-Nails" Hutton, the Mayfair crowd christened her after ono glance at her black and silver nails). And Alexis Mdivani, divorced in 1932 from Louise Van Alen, of the multi-millionaire Astpr family, also looked very well satisfied with life and himself. Why not? ' r i Barbara Sutton had fallen in love with Alex, and ho could give her the title of Princess—a Georgian title, true, but still the title of Princess is worth having, even when you share it with a brace of film actresses, Pola Negri and Mae Murray, to wit, who have married your husband's brothers—and whose marriages were dissolved.

Chic, Pretty, Highly Ornamental.

They married, and Prince Alex became the husband of one of the world's richest girls, a chic, pretty, highly ornamental and very generous dollar princess—a wife who, besides bestowing a handsome marriage settlement on her husband, had presented him.with a string of valuable polo ponies, and celebrated the wedding with festivities which she herself announced would entail an additional expenditure. of at least £20,000. It was a modern marriage in the rich set, one of those romances in which the traditional roles of the sexes are reversed, and the bride makes love gifts of exceeding richness and the bridegroom graciously receives.

Whence- came that £10,000,000 which , enabled Barbara Hutton to gratify her every whim, to pay 1,000,000 francs in Paris for a black pearl ring, and 10,000,000 francs .for a pearl necklace,. p.nd to adopt a general money-no-object attitude towards life? Where the Money Came Prom' It came from tne five and ten-cent stores in the U.S.A. —from the humble pennies of the masses, and especially the girls and women, who throng the Woolworth stores, buying. . .

The growth of the American fixedprice chain store business may be guaged by reference to the growth of the British offshoot—a minor concern compared to its giant American parent. Started in 1909 with a capital of £100,500, the enterprise grew in size and prosperity until, when the American interests wanted to sell out in 1931, the business could be conservatively capitalised and sold to the eager public for the colossal sum of £35,000,000, each of the 5/ shares being offered at 40/.

The citizens who eagerly bought the business offered them for cash did wonderfully well. The market value is now over £80,000,000. The ordinary shares have risen to over £5 apiece. The business last year made £4,879,950, and paid an 80 per cent dividend, and* carried forward over £5,000,000 cash. The American Woolworth business is five times the size of the British business.

But the cynic philosopher who said that money is the most important thing in the world was not quite right. The Woolworth heiress and her Georgian prince had, one would have thought, Everything. But they found they had. so little, in actual fact, that after less i than two years together the marriage is being dissolved. The former Barbara Hutton, who spent so lavishly on the man she wanted, is getting a divorce at Reno, in the easy-divorce State of Nevada, U.S.A. One of Barbara's Disadvantages. Barbara had no real home—that was one of her disadvantages. Always on the move from one luxury playground to another, she had no roots anywhere. "A ship that passes in the night," sighed a sentimental woman, having said good- ; bye to the little dollar princess; all wrapped in sables, as she prepared to go down the gangplank at New York docks. "You mean a diamond bracelet that flits from hotel to hotel," retorted a hard-boiled ship's reporter who stood by. He was nearer the mark. Now she would be on her way to ban Francisco; now riding in a rwkshaw oW°^- the Slln - ba thed, dustv streets of ■ft from- W g \ you woukl S ct a note °m her ieaaed Shepherd , 8 Hotel>

Abrupt End to Hothouse Romance.

Truth about the romance of the world's richest girl and how it ended. Secret of happiness and content that money could not buy—the pleasure chase and the price.

Cairo; she was having such a good time Then she was en route for the West Indies.

Not long after she was in the Paris Eitz, giving orders for the transformation of its foyer into a Montmartrc street, summoning out-of-season delicacies by air from all parts for hundreds of guests, waving the magic wand of money and getting (for a £2000 fee) Jack Harris' band over by air from the London' Cafe de Paris; for she preferred it to any in Paris.

Then, away again. Her dainty patents tripping across the old cobbled streets trod by the Medici in Venice. Curlyheaded gondoliers propelled her private barge under the moon on the Grand Canal, while a troubadour satin- all the more sweetly, because the dollar princess tipped in a princely way—and besides, she had lovely eyes. And Then She Might Not Have Married Alexis. Then, almost before one realised they had left the American Babylon, Barbara's "home town," one found them installed in a luxury suite in the most sumptuous London hotel, and in the ballroom under soft ' lights fashion correspondents were noting Barbara's enormous diamond ear-rings and the jewels in her hair.

People born in less financially fortunate circumstances are apt to think that money solves all problems, and that a millionairess can have none. Barbara Mdivani is a living refutation of that error. She can dress, and sh* can dance, the little dollar princess. And she can write poetry—set to music by Elsa Maxwell. But Alexis has never seemed much interested in poetry . . . Perhaps if Barbara were a dashin"sporting girl, who rode horses, drove a high-powered sports car very fast, flew her own aeroplane, and was hard, stream-lined, more often in sports' clothes than Rue de la Paix frocks, and in riding boots and sports shoes than in the very high-heeled slippers which are almost her uniform wear, perhaps then she would have found more in common with her husband Alexis. But, alas, if she were that kind of a girl she might not have married Prince Alexis Mdivani.—Copyright Universal Features.