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Guests to Christina's island were pampered from the moment of their arrival in Athens. Whisked through customs, they were flown by helicopter to Skorpios, where Christina would greet them personally. Her estate had been transformed into a palace of luxury, catering to every whim of the billionairess. Some of the most famous names of the social era visited, and an invitation to Skorpios was a highly sought trophy. The day would invariably begin at one in the afternoon, and end sometime after four in the morning, with non-stop partying the entire time. While the liquor flowed freely, Christina was adamant that there be no drug use on the premises. This, of course, didn't include her prescription use of Seconal for sleep - sometimes 6 pills a day - amphetamines to control her weight, or tranquilizers to reduce the irritability caused by the amphetamines. By this time, her weight had ballooned to more than 100 kilos, and she was reduced to promising men positions in her company in return for sexual favors.

Thus it was an unhappy Christina who met her final husband, Thierry Roussel. Though the two had known one another and had an affair in the early 1970s, they couldn't marry due to his marriage with another woman. This time both were free, and it wasn't soon before they decided to marry. Christina checked into a health clinic, both to detox and lose some weight through a rigorous therapy of bullion and enemas. They cure worked, and she returned to Thierry both drug free and many kilos lighter. They hastily began to plan the wedding and try to have a baby, something Christina had longed for for years.

After the wedding, Thierry began to urge Christina to spend even more lavishly than she had before. Even at the rate she had been going, she still had over 40 million extra dollars at the end of each year. With his persuasion, Christina bought an even bigger jet, additional homes, and another yacht, the Alexander. They settled in a villa on Lake Geneva, and it was there that Christina gave birth to her daughter, Athina. The birth of Athina satisfied a primal longing in Christina that she hadn't known existed. For the first time in her life, there was someone into whom she could pour all of her love, without the thought that they loved her just for her money. This was the happiest event in her life, and something that all the riches of the world couldn't buy. It was the love for her daughter that got Christina through the divorce form Thierry. Though he had planned with Christina to have a child, he discovered that living with one of the richest, most powerful women on earth can be very difficult. The two fought constantly, and it wasn't long before Thierry began disappearing for long stretches of time. After a year or so of this tension, Christina was shocked to read a newspaper interview, in which Thierry said he wanted a divorce. He publicly aired all of the dirty laundry of their marriage for the world to see. Shortly after this, he announced his engagement to another woman. Christina had been betrayed again.

Lonely and with nobody to trust, Christina was easy prey for anyone trying to make fast money. She lost several million dollars in fraudulent transactions. In a desperate move to put the past behind her, Christina announced she had decided to travel to Buenos Aires. Hoping to begin a new life with a new body, she stopped enroute for a lengthy stay at a Swiss hospital, where she had her thighs surgically reduced, among other cosmetic procedures.

Living in Buenos Aires, Christina dutifully played the role of billionaire heiress, relishing in society's adoration of her. Though she realized that they only adored her for her fortune, she enjoyed the parties and attention, as well as the friends who called her "The Queen". This happy period of calm in her life, however, was brought to an abrupt end with her mysterious death in 1988. Though the death certificate read simply "pulmonary edema", most assumed that the edema was brought about by an overdose of barbiturates, which she had never really been able to resist. She died alone, her daughter having been too ill in Europe to travel to Argentina. Christina's death was a shock felt all around the world. Nobody could believe that someone who had been given such unimaginable wealth could have died so tragically, and alone. Her solitary return to Greece was the occasion of massive traffic jams in both Buenos Aires and Athens. Thousands attended her funeral, weeping as her body was borne out of the church. In the end, she found her final rest on Skorpios, next to her father and brother in the family chapel.

Though many are inclined to dismiss women of society as superfluous, Christina Onassis is not so easily cast aside. Though she failed utterly in the role she had been born to, that of beautiful social ornament to a successful man, she did what few heiresses have ever done before: she took what she was given, and made it even better than it was originally. Unlucky at love, she proved that she could hold her own in a man's world of business, and beat the men at their own game. While ultimately felled by the "Onassis Curse", she left a lasting mark on the world, something few of us can say.

Society_Divas/christina_onassis

Written by Jeff Woloson.