|
Home
Word of the Day
Archives
Clever
Clue of the Month
The
Cruciverbalist
Links
Daily
Email
|
|
ARI (AIR-ee)
Greek
shipping magnate of the 20th
century
Common
clues: Jackie’s second; Onassis; Jackie's “O”;
“Exodus” hero; Uris hero
Crossword
puzzle frequency:
5 times a year
Frequency
in English language:
15786 / 86800
Video:
Onassis
heir story
Aristotle
Onassis (January
15, 1906–March 15, 1975) was the most famous Greek shipping
magnate of the 20th century.
Onassis
was born in Smyrna, Ottoman Empire (now Izmir, Turkey). At the
time of his birth, Smyrna had a significant Greek population.
After being briefly occupied by Greece (from 1919 to 1922), in
the aftermath of the allied victory in WW1, the city was
recaptured by Turkey, and the Onassis family holdings were lost,
spurring them to move to Greece as refugees. By 1932, Onassis had
become a world-class businessman, owning commercial ships,
tankers and whalers. He founded Olympic Airways (today Olympic
Airlines), the Greek national carrier, in 1957. 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 requires that all ships displaying the
American flag be owned by United States citizens. Onassis pled
guilty and paid $7 million.
He
married Athina Mary Livanos, daughter of shipping magnate Stavros
Livanos, on December 28, 1946; their son, Alexander (April 30,
1948–January 23, 1973), and daughter Christina Onassis,
were born in New York City. After their divorce, Athina married
her late sister's widower—and Onassis's arch shipping
rival—Stavros Niarchos.
Despite
the fact they were both married, Onassis and opera diva Maria
Callas embarked on a notorious affair. 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 cruelly broke with Callas to marry Jackie
Kennedy, the widow of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, on October
20, 1968.
Onassis
died in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France of bronchial pneumonia at the
age of 69. Alexander had died in an airplane crash. Christina
inherited his fortune, which has since passed to her only child,
Athina Roussel.
*
* *
Exodus
is a 1960 epic war film made by Alpha and Carlyle Productions and
distributed by United Artists. It was produced and directed by
Otto Preminger from a screenplay by Dalton Trumbo from the 1958
novel, Exodus, by Leon Uris. The Super Panavision 70
cinematography was by Sam Leavitt. The music, including the
frequently covered title theme, was written by Ernest Gold.
Arthur
Stevens related in the 1985 book The Persuasion Explosion that
the idea for the book came about when Edward Gottlieb, an
American Public Relations man seeking to improve Israel's image
in the US, decided to commission a novel about Israel's origin
that showed Israel in a good light and hired Uris to write it.
According to Stevens, "Uris' novel solidified America's
impressions of Israelis as heroes, of Arabs as villains; it did
more to popularize Israel with the American public than any other
single presentation through the media.."
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Aristotle Onassis"
and
Exodus.
|
|
|