The Grand Surprise

A friend sends me a tidbit from the journals of Leo Lerman. It's not the sort of thing I usually blog, but irresistible, for reasons you will understand (Jonathan, look away!):

January 6, 1969. At dinner, Larry Kelly told a saga: Onassis rang Maria [Callas], asking for a date. Maria said no Onassis said that after all they were in business together--the tankers [Onassis gave Callas a tanker for her birthday before they broke up]. She said all right, come to dinner. After dinner, Onassis said that he had to pee. He disappeared into Maria's bedroom. Soon Bruna, Maria's maid, went into the bedroom--rushed out screaming that Onassis was in there starkers. Maria told him to dress immediately. Onassis refused. Maria's butler, Ferruccio, was too airy-fairy to do anything but scream and swoon. Maria sent for the police, who made Onassis dress and leave. Maria flung down the window and screeched, into the three or four a.m. Paris night, "Shame on you! And on the anniversary of your second wife's first husband's death!" This was on November 22, 1968.

Onassis likes to fuck women up their asses. Mrs. Kennedy won't do it. Also, she will not sit in El Morocco with him and his three or four cigar-smoking Greek chums with their lavish, blondined females, while the Greek men talk business. Mrs. K. likes "intellectuals" - Galbraith, Schlesinger - but this is not why he married her. He wants to display her; she won't be displayed. Hence the rented house in Peapack, New Jersey. Onassis is bored with Mrs. K. They never planned a single day past their wedding day on Skorpios. [Whereas] Maria studied her role as Onassis's love. She would go to Crazy Horse [a Parisian nightclub] and watch, preparing this new role as meticulously as she always had prepared her opera roles. She said to Larry and Mary Reed when they were all in Cuernevaca that being fucked up the ass hurt and was boring."

Grand surprise, indeed.