The Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982), Wednesday 17 July 1974, page 5

National Library of Australia http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article51772841

Rothschild
bachelor
toes
line
at
last
The world's No. 2 catch has
entered into "a
dynastic
marriage"...
DAVID de Rothschild's
marriage to
Olympia
Aldobrandini.
although
a quiet
civil
one in
the
tiny village
of
Reux,
Normandy,
with no
splendid church
wedding
to follow, was
nevertheless the
wedding
of the
year.
David.
31 and
very
handsome, is the son and
heir of the
Baron
Guy
de Rothschild, head of
the
millionaire
banking
firm. He is considered
the most eligible
bachelor in the
world.
after
Prince Charles.
Now.
after
years
of
speculation whether he would marrv
his
close girlfriend,
model/actress Marisa Berenson.
he
married 18-year-old
Olympia, daughter
of Count
Aldobrandini.
related to
all
the
important
families in
Italy.
"You could
call it
a dynastic marriage."
said an observer
o the Continental social scene.
V\ ith 13 years'
age
difference. David
and
Olympia could
hardl\ be said to have
grown up
together. But
in
the tight
and
exclusive circle
in
which their families
move, he knew
her as a child.
It
was
not. however, until the
famous Volpi
ball
in
Venice,
given bv
Ohmpia's uncle Count Giovanni Volpi
for
her
coming
out.
that
David de Rothschild again met the
By
ANNE
MATHESON,
in London
little
girl
who used to come with her mother to tea at his
mother's house in the
fashionable avenue loch.
mother's house in the
fashionable avenue loch.
The Contessa Aldobrandini
is
French and Jewish,
divorced from
the
Count, of
princely
Italian family, papal
knights, of
Rome.
David's mother,
the
Baronne
Ali\. is divorced from
the
Baron
Guy
de Rothschild.
But
that night.
David was not thinking so much about
the
tall,
slender,
dark-haired
girl
whose
coming-out
dance
was the sensation of
European
social
life.
He
escorted
his
friend
Mansa Berenson. about whom evebrows had been
raised for a long
time.
Marisa had posed
in
the
nude,
the
pictures
given wide
display in
magazines
ali
over the
world. The Rothschild
family were not amused.
Marisa Berenson. herself
half-Jewish,
is
the
granddaughter of famous
critic
and art historian
Bernard
Berenson. and on her mother's side
she
is
the
granddaughter
of Elsa Schiaparelli.
who died recently.
Although through a court action
the
negatives
of the
nude pictures were retrieved, this
did not further
the
romance
in
the
eyes
of
the
Rothschild family.
Marisa continued to be
among
the avant garde
in
fashion, and
escorted by David dined out in Paris in a
topless dress.
Later
still
her
photograph by
David Bailey,
running in the
nude with
Helmut Berger, was the
big
sensation of an exhibition of "beauties through the ages"
at London's National Portrait
Gallery.
Mansa Berenson had graduated from model to film
actress,
with a small part
in "Death in Venice," then on to
"Cabaret."
She
is
working on another film.
About thal
time the news went round lhat the
Rothschilds had finally told
David that
Marisa wouldn't do.
They were not seen
together
for the next
six
months
Then after a two months' courtship and half u do/en
intimate dinners.
Das id
proposed
lo
Olympia,
a
girl
who
is
the
very
opposite lo
capricious
Marisa
Olympia,
still
a student who
plans to enter
university
in
France, to read Historv, is
very
much of
the same
background
as himself, wealthy, aristocratic.
The mystique
that
surrounds
the Rothschilds
hung
over
the
celebration of
their
engagement
at a party
for 4.000
guesLs
at their
French chateau. Ferrieres.
Members of the
noble
families
of France and
Italy
were
there, with David's friends
adding
a sprinkling of the jet set.
The vast hall was banked in flowers with
the
couple's
portraits
picked out
in
delicate
blooms as the
centrepiece.
portraits
picked out
in
delicate
blooms as the
centrepiece.
In
London. Marisa Berenson's photographs,
wearing
a
beautiful
Zandra Rhodes dress patterned in a stvlised
version of Ayers Rock.
Australia,
tills
one window alter
another at Fortnum and Mason's. She
is
the star of
that
exclusive store's
launch
of the
Ayers
Rock
Collection.
Olympia Aldobrandini. a few
weeks
before her
marriage
to David de Rothschild. Here
she was
photographed
ar-
riving
with her fiance at the
home of the Baron de Rede
on the
isle St.
Louis, in
France. She
is
13
years
younger
than her husband,
and
still
has
plans
for a
university course.