Aristotle Onassis

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Aristotelis Socrates Onassis
Born	January 15, 1906(1906-01-15), some sources say 1900 Smyrna
Died	March 15, 1975 (aged 69) Neuilly-sur-Seine
Occupation	Shipping magnate
Spouse	Athina Livanos (1946-1960) Jacqueline Kennedy (1968-1975)
Children	Alexandros and Christina

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Aristotelis (also Ari or Aristo) Sokratis Onassis (in Greek, Αριστοτέλης Ωνάσης) (January 15, 1906 – March 15, 1975) was one of the richest shipping magnates of the 20th century.^[1][2][3] Some sources say he was born in 1900 and later changed his age to be 16 so as to avoid deportation from Turkey.^[4]

Contents 1 Life 1.1 First big step 1.2 Success in business 1.3 Marriage and family 1.4 Death 2 See also 3 Notes 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Life

Onassis was born in Karatass, a suburb of Smyrna, Ottoman Empire (now İzmir, Turkey) to a middle-class Greek family. At the time of his birth, Smyrna had a very significant and prosperous Greek population. After being briefly occupied by Greece (1919-1922) in the aftermath of the allied victory in World War I, the city was re-captured by Turkey; the Onassis family holdings were lost, causing them to move to Greece as refugees. In 1923, Aristotle Onassis left his country to go to Argentina with allegedly only $63. After difficult beginnings, he once said: "Is hard to mantain vitality when you are allways hungry" he finally got his first job in British United River Plate Telephone Company.

[edit] First big step

After hearing a calling from an Argentinian film retailer and a high executive of Paramount in New York about Rudolph Valentino, he was at the top at this time, he had the idea of importing tobacco from Turkey, with a great help from his father Socrates. This tobacco was softer than that of Cuba, and he was sure it would impress women more than the last one. After a failure in a contract closed with Juan Gaona, director of a huge Argentinian company, he turned to make his own cigaretts. After some time managing this business and his job in British United River, he finally got a considerable amount of money.

His power and influence were rapidly increasing, he uses to be present in important social events, and in 1925 he received Argentinian and Greek citizenships.

[edit] Success in business

After engaging in many different entrepreneurial activities with determination and a passion for success, he finally managed to become a world-class businessman making his first million by the age of 25, ^[5] owning commercial ships, tankers and whalers. In 1954, the FBI investigated Onassis for fraud against the U.S. government. He was charged with violating the citizenship provision of the shipping laws which require that all ships displaying the U.S. flag be owned by U.S. citizens. Onassis entered a guilty plea and paid $7 million. He founded Olympic Airways (today Olympic Airlines), the Greek national carrier, in 1957.

To finance his ships he used a method that he, in his own words described as utilizing the formula OPM (other people’s money). And, much in the same way he closed contracts to transport ore in ships he didn't yet have, and closed several contracts to transport oil on tankers that hadn’t been build yet.

While the big petroleum companies like Mobil, Socony, and Texaco signing contracts with long terms and fixed prices with Onassis then having trouble in managing their own fleet with high cost due to USA flags, Aristotle made huge amounts of money.

Onassis fleet had Panama flag and sailed with no tax and low costs. With all this Aristotle could profit in every business, despite of having one of the lowest prices in the merchant navy market, and his tankers paid itself with a simple six month contract. The other 20 years of these ships lifecycle were only profits.

[edit] Marriage and family

Onassis married Athina Livanos, daughter of shipping magnate Stavros Livanos, on December 28, 1946; their son, Alexander (April 30, 1948 – January 23, 1973), and daughter Christina (December 11, 1950 – November 19, 1988), were both born in New York City. After their divorce, Athina married John Spencer-Churchill, Marquess of Blandford. She later married Stavros Niarchos, her late sister's widower and Onassis's arch shipping rival.

Despite the fact they were both married, Onassis and opera diva Maria Callas embarked on a notorious affair. They met each other in 1957 during a party in Venice promoted by Elsa Maxwell. After this first encounter Ari said to Spyros Skouras: "There were just a natural curiosity; after all, we were the most famous Greeks alive in the world". According to Greek Fire: The Story of Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis by Nicholas Gage, Callas gave birth to their child, a boy, who died hours later on March 30, 1960. Onassis ended his relationship with Callas to marry Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, on October 20, 1968. It was said that Kennedy insisted on marriage rather than an affair so as to avoid upsetting her children. That Callas was really the love of his life is suggested by the short lived happiness he experienced with Kennedy (he tried to end the marriage early but was unable to without committing an egregious offense, according to Greek law at the time), and by the many times he tried to see Callas while married to Kennedy. He flew to Paris to see Callas after the death of his son Alexander in an airplane crash. Callas responded, "If only our son had lived," referring to the child they are believed to have had together in 1960.^[6] Onassis never recovered from the death of his son.

"If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning." Aristotle Onassis [7]

[edit] Death

Onassis died at age 69, on March 15, 1975 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, of bronchial pneumonia, a complication of the myasthenia gravis that he had been suffering from during the last years of his life. According to his will, his daughter, Christina inherited 55% of the Onassis fortune while the other 45% was used as funds for the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation set up to honor his son Alexander Onassis. This 45% was the share that his son Alexander would have inherited, had he not died in 1973. However, Jackie Kennedy received her share of the estate settling for a reported $10,000,000 ($26 million according to other sources) which was negotiated by her former brother in law Teddy Kennedy (this amount would later grow to several hundred million under the financial stewardship of her companion Maurice Tempelsman). Christina's share has since passed to her only child Athina, making her one of the wealthiest women in the world.

[edit] See also

• Greek shipping
• Skorpios Onassis' private island
• Christina O Onassis' famous yacht
• John Paul Papanicolaou He purchased his yacht Christina O.
• Stavros Niarchos One of Onassis greatest rival and husband of his sister-in-law; a big shipping magnate

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Ari: The Life and Times of Aristotle Socrates Onassis, by Peter Evans, 1986.
• Le Fabuleux Onassis, by Christian Cafarakis, 1971.

[edit] External links

• The Life of Aristotle Onassis
• The Onassis Foundation