Oleg Cassini
Encyclopedia
Oleg Cassini was a French-born
American
fashion design
er noted for being chosen by Jacqueline Kennedy
to design her state wardrobe in the 1960s.
He became the exclusive costume designer
for his then-wife, American film
and stage
actress Gene Tierney
. His designs appeared in eleven of Tierney’s films in the 1940s and 50s.
as Oleg Cassini Loiewski, the elder son of Countess Marguerite Cassini and her husband, Count Alexander Loiewski. His father was a Russian diplomat, and his maternal grandfather, Arthur Paul Nicholas Cassini, Marquis de Capuzzuchi di Bologna, Count Cassini, was the Russia
n ambassador to the United States
during the administrations of William McKinley
and Theodore Roosevelt
.
His father later adopted his wife's surname, which they deemed more distinguished, and when the family lost its status and fortune in the wake of the Russian Revolution (1917), the Cassinis moved to Italy, where Marguerite Cassini went to work as a fashion designer.
Oleg Cassini grew up in Florence
and travelled to Paris twice a year with his mother to study current fashions. He studied fine art at the Accademia di Belle Arti Firenze
, after which he won a number of international fashion competitions in Turin
. He then moved to the United States in 1936, first to New York
and then to Hollywood.
Cassini took American citizenship and became a Second Lieutenant
in the United States Army
during World War II
at Fort Riley
, Kansas
. Initially, he joined the United States Coast Guard
, but according to his The New York Times
obituary, he later served in the U.S. Army as a cavalry officer because he found the idea of cavalry service a bit more glamorous.
His brother, Igor Cassini
, became a famous gossip columnist
known as “Cholly Knickerbocker.”
and eventually gravitated to his mother’s career, fashion, when he took a job sketching for the French couturier, Jean Patou
. In the late 1930s, he worked as an assistant to the costume designer, Edith Head
; and, in the early 1940s, he was hired by Paramount Pictures
.
Among the films Cassini costumed was The Shanghai Gesture
, a 1941 film by Josef von Sternberg
, which starred Cassini’s second wife, the actress Gene Tierney who eventually would only wear Cassini designs onscreen. As a result, Cassini costumes appeared in Leave Her To Heaven
(1945), The Razor’s Edge
(1946), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
(1947), That Wonderful Urge
(1948), Whirlpool (1949), Night and the City
(1950), Where the Sidewalk Ends
(1950), in which Cassini appeared as a fashion designer, as well as The Mating Season
, Close to My Heart
, and On the Riviera
(all 1951).
After the war, Cassini designed ready-to-wear dresses while continuing to design for television, motion pictures, and Broadway theatre
.
Cassini shot to international stardom, however, in the early 1960s, thanks to his association with Jacqueline Kennedy. “We are on the threshold of a new American elegance thanks to Mrs. Kennedy’s beauty, naturalness, understatement, exposure and symbolism,” Cassini said when his selection as the couturier to shape the entire look of the First Lady
was announced.
The fashion industry elite, however, was shocked at Cassini’s selection by the White House. As Women’s Wear Daily
journalist John Fairchild
wrote in his 1965 book The Fashionable Savages, “Everyone was surprised. Oleg Cassini had been around for years. He was debonair, amusing, social, but none of the fashion intellectuals had considered him an important designer.”
The publicity that Cassini’s work for Jacqueline Kennedy received led women from 18 to 80 to copy the look of simple, geometric dresses in sumptuous fabrics and pillbox hat
s with an elegant coiffure. Meticulously tailored and featuring oversized buttons and boxy jackets, as well as occasionally dramatic décolletage
, it was a style that was inspired by the work of Hubert de Givenchy
. Cassini designed a reported 300 outfits for the First Lady, including a much-copied coat made of leopard pelts and a heavy satin gown for the inaugural ball in 1961; the Cassini outfits were paid for by her father-in-law, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.
The name recognition that he gained during these years led him to be the second designer (after Jean Desses) to have licensing agreements, with his name adorning everything from luggage to nail polish, as well as a special luxurious trim package
available on coupé
versions of the 1974 and 1975 AMC Matador
automobile. The all new "smooth and slippery" coupé
featured "marks of haute couture
" with the "upholstery, panels and headliner done in jet black, with carpets and vinyl roof
in a copper accent color. Outside, striping, rub rails, wheel covers and a crest mark the Matador as Cassini's." Available only in black, white, or copper exterior paints, Cassini himself helped promote the car in AMC's advertising. The special Oleg Cassini Matador was positioned in the popular and highly competitive "personal luxury car
" market segment at that time.
“All I remember about those days are nerves, and Jackie on the phone ‘Hurry, hurry, Oleg, I’ve got nothing to wear’,” he wrote in his 1995 book, A Thousand Days of Magic: Dressing Jacqueline Kennedy for the White House.
His designs were shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
in 2001 in its exhibit Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years, which was curated by Vogue
’s European editor-at-large, Hamish Bowles
.
Cassini’s autobiography
, In My Own Fashion, was published in 1987.
His partnership with David’s Bridal was formed in the 1990s, and they had a line of his wedding dresses at the time of his death.
— a Russian Orthodox ceremony took place in New York City
on September 16 — Cassini became the fourth husband of Mary “Merry” Fahrney, a daughter of Chicago
industrialist Emory Homer Fahrney and his wife, the former Marion L. Hills. She was an heiress to the Dr. Peter Fahrney & Sons patent medicine
fortune. In addition to having a small role in the 1934 motion picture Cleopatra
, which was directed by Cecil B. DeMille
and starred Claudette Colbert
, Merry Fahrney was an aviator and parachutist frequently known in gossip columns as Madcap Merry. She had previously been married to and divorced from Hugh Parker Pickering, by whom she had a son, Peter, who was adopted at 15 months of age by his maternal grandparents and given the surname Fahrney; Frank Van Sands Eizsner; and Baron Arturo Berlingieri, to whom she was married from July 31, 1937 until February 3, 1938.
According to Cassini’s memoirs, it was on his honeymoon when he realized that he had been married, apparently, for reasons other than heartfelt affection. He recalled that his new bride “smoked cigarettes one after another with the casual arrogance of the carnally satisfied. I was just another scalp.” However, considering Fahrney’s wealth and Cassini’s lack of it, the decision to wed likely was deemed mutually beneficial, whatever the groom’s belated regrets.
Nearly two months after Fahrney and Cassini married, on October 26, her divorce from Berlingieri was reversed on appeal. The Illinois Appellate Court declared the divorce invalid on the grounds that the former Baroness Berlingieri’s claim of being beaten up four times on her honeymoon was unproven, that she had not established beyond doubt that the baron tried to extort US$200,000 from her, and that as she was an Italian citizen by marriage, the Chicago court had no jurisdiction. The divorce, however, was soon resolved in her favor.
Fahrney’s divorce from Cassini, which was granted on February 5, 1940, was equally dramatic. She won her case by proving “marital misconduct” on her husband’s part, stemming from evidence presented that Cassini had been in the company of “a scantily clad young woman” in his apartment in the Hotel Lowell in New York City. Curiously, however, Fahrney and her first husband, Hugh Pickering, were reported to have been in an adjoining room with an automobile salesman, spying on the couple. Cassini, for his part, denied he had been unfaithful and attempted to prove that his wife had had extramarital affairs, presenting testimony from his cook and the couple’s former butler, who claimed that Merry Cassini had been caught in compromising circumstances on three occasions. Cassini also declared that his wife had bought clothes for another man, socialite La Grand Griswold. (Griswold, for his part, testified that he had asked Merry Cassini to be his wife, but that she had refused, saying that she already had a husband.) In handing down the divorce decree in Merry Cassini’s favor, the judge declared the defendant’s claims of wifely adultery were “unworthy of belief.”
In 1941, Merry Fahrney married her fifth husband, a Swede
, whom she divorced the same year. In 1944, she married her sixth husband, Carlos Ojeda, Jr., a son of the Mexican ambassador to Argentina.
and stage
actress Gene Tierney
(1920–1991), whom he married on June 1, 1941. The Cassinis had two daughters, Antoinette Daria Cassini (born October 15, 1943), who was born mentally retarded, due to her mother’s bout during pregnancy with German measles, and Christina “Tina” Cassini (born November 19, 1948). Cassini, in interviews and his autobiography, felt that Agatha Christie
used the real-life tragedy of his and Tierney’s as the basis of her plot for The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
. As related in Tierney's autobiography (Self-Portrait in 1979, but well publicized for years previously) in June 1943, while pregnant with her first child, Tierney came down with the German measles, contracted during her only appearance at the Hollywood Canteen
. The baby, Daria, was born prematurely, weighing only 3 pounds and 2 ounces, and requiring a total blood transfusion. The infant was also deaf, was partially blind with cataracts, was severely retarded and ultimately had to be institutionalized.
Some time after, Tierney learned from a fan who approached her at a garden party for an autograph that the woman, who had been a member of the women's branch of the Marine Corps, had sneaked out of quarantine while sick with the German measles to meet Tierney at her only Hollywood Canteen appearance. This incident, as well as the circumstances under which the information is imparted to the actress, is repeated almost verbatim in the story.
Fraught with problems that included Tierney’s serious depression after the birth of the couple's daughter with disabilities, Cassini’s marriage was short but volatile. Both husband and wife had extramarital relationships, with Tierney’s (while separated from Cassini) being a romance with John F. Kennedy
. Tierney won an uncontested divorce in California that year; the action was withdrawn since the couple reconciled before the divorce was made final. However, another divorce action was filed in Los Angeles
, California, on February 28, 1952, with Tierney declaring that her husband cared more about his tennis game than his wife; the final decree was granted on April 8, 1953.
She was romanced and engaged to the Prince Aly Khan
after her divorce. Their engagement was strongly opposed by the prince's father the Aga Khan
. Soon after Tierney broke off their engagement. After a series of emotional setbacks, she married oil baron W. Howard Lee in 1960 and was happily married until his death in 1981.
After his divorce from Tierney, Cassini dated and almost married Grace Kelly
. He and Tierney remained lifelong friends until her death. Cassini was quoted as saying, “Gene is the luckiest, unlucky girl in the world, all of her dreams came true, at a cost.”
Cassini died from complications of a stroke
in Manhasset, New York
, in 2006. He was survived by his then secret third wife Marianne Nestor, his two children, and four grandchildren. He was predeceased by his brother, Igor Cassini. At the time of his death, Cassini was renovating a five-story limestone town house on East 63rd Street in Manhattan that was decorated like a medieval redoubt
as well as living in a house in the Oyster Bay, New York
, whose property once had been part of the estate of Louis Comfort Tiffany
. Cassini is buried in the Cemetery of the Holy Rood
in Westbury, New York
.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
fashion design
Fashion design
Fashion design is the art of the application of design and aesthetics or natural beauty to clothing and accessories. Fashion design is influenced by cultural and social latitudes, and has varied over time and place. Fashion designers work in a number of ways in designing clothing and accessories....
er noted for being chosen by Jacqueline Kennedy
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier "Jackie" Kennedy Onassis was the wife of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and served as First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. Five years later she married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle...
to design her state wardrobe in the 1960s.
He became the exclusive costume designer
Costume Designer
A costume designer or costume mistress/master is a person whose responsibility is to design costumes for a film or stage production. He or she is considered an important part of the "production team", working alongside the director, scenic and lighting designers as well as the sound designer. The...
for his then-wife, American film
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and stage
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
actress Gene Tierney
Gene Tierney
Gene Eliza Tierney was an American film and stage actress. Acclaimed as one of the great beauties of her day, she is best remembered for her performance in the title role of Laura and her Academy Award-nominated performance for Best Actress in Leave Her to Heaven .Other notable roles include...
. His designs appeared in eleven of Tierney’s films in the 1940s and 50s.
Early life
He was born in ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
as Oleg Cassini Loiewski, the elder son of Countess Marguerite Cassini and her husband, Count Alexander Loiewski. His father was a Russian diplomat, and his maternal grandfather, Arthur Paul Nicholas Cassini, Marquis de Capuzzuchi di Bologna, Count Cassini, was the Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n ambassador to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
during the administrations of William McKinley
William McKinley
William McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...
and Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
.
His father later adopted his wife's surname, which they deemed more distinguished, and when the family lost its status and fortune in the wake of the Russian Revolution (1917), the Cassinis moved to Italy, where Marguerite Cassini went to work as a fashion designer.
Oleg Cassini grew up in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
and travelled to Paris twice a year with his mother to study current fashions. He studied fine art at the Accademia di Belle Arti Firenze
Accademia di Belle Arti Firenze
The Accademia di Belle Arti is an art academy in Florence, Italy and it is now the operative branch of the still existing Accademia delle Arti del Disegno that was the first academy of drawing in Europe.-History:The Accademia delle Arti del Disegno The Accademia di Belle Arti ("Academy of Fine...
, after which he won a number of international fashion competitions in Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
. He then moved to the United States in 1936, first to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and then to Hollywood.
Cassini took American citizenship and became a Second Lieutenant
Second Lieutenant
Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces.- United Kingdom and Commonwealth :The rank second lieutenant was introduced throughout the British Army in 1871 to replace the rank of ensign , although it had long been used in the Royal Artillery, Royal...
in the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
at Fort Riley
Fort Riley
Fort Riley is a United States Army installation located in Northeast Kansas, on the Kansas River, between Junction City and Manhattan. The Fort Riley Military Reservation covers 100,656 acres in Geary and Riley counties and includes two census-designated places: Fort Riley North and Fort...
, Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
. Initially, he joined the United States Coast Guard
United States Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven U.S. uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission and a federal regulatory agency...
, but according to his The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
obituary, he later served in the U.S. Army as a cavalry officer because he found the idea of cavalry service a bit more glamorous.
His brother, Igor Cassini
Igor Cassini
Igor Cassini was an American syndicated gossip columnist for the Hearst newspaper chain. He was the second journalist to write the Cholly Knickerbocker column.-Career:...
, became a famous gossip columnist
Gossip columnist
A gossip columnist is someone who writes a gossip column in a newspaper or magazine, especially a gossip magazine. Gossip columns are material written in a light, informal style, which relates the gossip columnist's opinions about the personal lives or conduct of celebrities from show business ,...
known as “Cholly Knickerbocker.”
Career
Cassini studied art under Giorgio de ChiricoGiorgio de Chirico
Giorgio de Chirico was a pre-Surrealist and then Surrealist Italian painter born in Volos, Greece, to a Genovese mother and a Sicilian father. He founded the scuola metafisica art movement...
and eventually gravitated to his mother’s career, fashion, when he took a job sketching for the French couturier, Jean Patou
Jean Patou
- Early life :Patou was born in Normandy, France in 1880. Patou's family's business was tanning and furs. Patou worked with his uncle in Normandy, then moved to Paris in 1910, intent on becoming a couturier.-1910s - World War I and later:...
. In the late 1930s, he worked as an assistant to the costume designer, Edith Head
Edith Head
Edith Head was an American costume designer who won eight Academy Awards, more than any other woman.-Early life and career:...
; and, in the early 1940s, he was hired by Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
.
Among the films Cassini costumed was The Shanghai Gesture
The Shanghai Gesture
The Shanghai Gesture is a 1941 American United Artists film noir motion picture starring Gene Tierney and Walter Huston, with Victor Mature and Ona Munson....
, a 1941 film by Josef von Sternberg
Josef von Sternberg
Josef von Sternberg — born Jonas Sternberg — was an Austrian-American film director. He is particularly noted for his distinctive mise en scène, use of lighting and soft lens, and seven-film collaboration with actress Marlene Dietrich.-Youth:Von Sternberg was born Jonas Sternberg to a Jewish...
, which starred Cassini’s second wife, the actress Gene Tierney who eventually would only wear Cassini designs onscreen. As a result, Cassini costumes appeared in Leave Her To Heaven
Leave Her to Heaven
Leave Her to Heaven is a 1945 American 20th Century Fox Technicolor film noir motion picture starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, with Vincent Price, Darryl Hickman, and Chill Wills...
(1945), The Razor’s Edge
The Razor's Edge (1946 film)
The Razor's Edge is the first film version of W. Somerset Maugham's 1944 novel. It was released in 1946 and stars Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne, Anne Baxter, Clifton Webb, Herbert Marshall, supporting cast Lucile Watson, Frank Latimore and Elsa Lanchester. Marshall plays Somerset Maugham....
(1946), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir romantic fantasy film starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison. It is based on a 1945 novel written by Josephine Leslie under the pseudonym of R. A. Dick...
(1947), That Wonderful Urge
That Wonderful Urge
That Wonderful Urge is a 1948 20th Century Fox screwball comedy film, a remake of Love is News , directed by Robert Sinclair starring Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney.- Plot :...
(1948), Whirlpool (1949), Night and the City
Night and the City
Night and the City is a film noir based on the novel by Gerald Kersh, directed by Jules Dassin, and starring Richard Widmark and Gene Tierney. Shot on location in London, the plot evolves around an ambitious hustler whose plans keep going wrong....
(1950), Where the Sidewalk Ends
Where the Sidewalk Ends
Where the Sidewalk Ends is a 1950 American film noir directed and produced by Otto Preminger. The screenplay for the film was written by Ben Hecht, and adapted by Robert E. Kent, Frank P. Rosenberg, and Victor Trivas. The screenplay and adaptations were based on the novel Night Cry by William L....
(1950), in which Cassini appeared as a fashion designer, as well as The Mating Season
The Mating Season (film)
The Mating Season is a 1951 classic farce with elements of screwball comedy. A film made by Paramount Pictures, it was directed by Mitchell Leisen and produced by Charles Brackett from a screenplay by Charles Brackett, Richard Breen and Walter Reisch, based on the play Maggie by Caesar Dunn...
, Close to My Heart
Close to My Heart
Close to My Heart is a 1951 Warner Bros. drama directed by William Keighley, written by James R. Webb , and starring Ray Milland and Gene Tierney.-Plot:...
, and On the Riviera
On the Riviera
On the Riviera is a 1951 musical comedy film made by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Walter Lang, produced by Sol C. Siegel from a screenplay by Valentine Davies and Phoebe and Henry Ephron, based on the play The Red Cat by Rudolph Lothar and Hans Adler, with dance sequences choreographed and...
(all 1951).
After the war, Cassini designed ready-to-wear dresses while continuing to design for television, motion pictures, and Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
.
Cassini shot to international stardom, however, in the early 1960s, thanks to his association with Jacqueline Kennedy. “We are on the threshold of a new American elegance thanks to Mrs. Kennedy’s beauty, naturalness, understatement, exposure and symbolism,” Cassini said when his selection as the couturier to shape the entire look of the First Lady
First Lady
First Lady or First Gentlemanis the unofficial title used in some countries for the spouse of an elected head of state.It is not normally used to refer to the spouse or partner of a prime minister; the husband or wife of the British Prime Minister is usually informally referred to as prime...
was announced.
The fashion industry elite, however, was shocked at Cassini’s selection by the White House. As Women’s Wear Daily
Women's Wear Daily
Women's Wear Daily is a fashion-industry trade journal sometimes called "the bible of fashion." WWD delivers information and intelligence on changing trends and breaking news in the fashion, beauty and retail industries with a readership composed largely of retailers, designers, manufacturers,...
journalist John Fairchild
John Fairchild
John Fairchild is a retired American basketball player.Fairchild played high school basketball at San Dieguito High School in Encinitas, CA and college basketball at Brigham Young University....
wrote in his 1965 book The Fashionable Savages, “Everyone was surprised. Oleg Cassini had been around for years. He was debonair, amusing, social, but none of the fashion intellectuals had considered him an important designer.”
The publicity that Cassini’s work for Jacqueline Kennedy received led women from 18 to 80 to copy the look of simple, geometric dresses in sumptuous fabrics and pillbox hat
Pillbox hat
A pillbox hat is a small woman's hat with a flat crown and straight, upright sides, and no brim.-History:Historically, the pillbox was also military headgear, often including a chin strap, and can still be seen on ceremonial occasions in some countries, especially former members of the Commonwealth...
s with an elegant coiffure. Meticulously tailored and featuring oversized buttons and boxy jackets, as well as occasionally dramatic décolletage
Cleavage (breasts)
Cleavage, anatomically known as the intramammary cleft, is the space between a woman's breasts lying over the sternum. Cleavage is exposed by a garment with a low neckline, such as ball gowns, evening gowns, swimwear, casual tops and other garments....
, it was a style that was inspired by the work of Hubert de Givenchy
Hubert de Givenchy
Count Hubert James Marcel Taffin de Givenchy is a French aristocrat and fashion designer who founded The House of Givenchy in 1952. He is famous for having designed much of the personal and professional wardrobe of Audrey Hepburn, as well as clothing for clients such as Jacqueline Kennedy...
. Cassini designed a reported 300 outfits for the First Lady, including a much-copied coat made of leopard pelts and a heavy satin gown for the inaugural ball in 1961; the Cassini outfits were paid for by her father-in-law, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.
Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.
Joseph Patrick "Joe" Kennedy, Sr. was a prominent American businessman, investor, and government official....
Trim package
A trim package is an automotive package composed by a set of cosmetic embellishments to a vehicle. In some cases the trim package may include a specific model or ending name...
available on coupé
Coupé
A coupé or coupe is a closed car body style , the precise definition of which varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, and over time...
versions of the 1974 and 1975 AMC Matador
AMC Matador
The AMC Matador is a mid-size car that was built and sold by American Motors Corporation from 1971 to 1978. The Matador came in two generations: 1971 to 1973 and a major redesign from 1974 to 1978...
automobile. The all new "smooth and slippery" coupé
Coupé
A coupé or coupe is a closed car body style , the precise definition of which varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, and over time...
featured "marks of haute couture
Haute couture
Haute couture refers to the creation of exclusive custom-fitted clothing. Haute couture is made to order for a specific customer, and it is usually made from high-quality, expensive fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finished by the most experienced and capable seamstresses,...
" with the "upholstery, panels and headliner done in jet black, with carpets and vinyl roof
Vinyl roof
Vinyl roof refers to a vinyl covering for an automobile's top. This covering was originally designed to give the appearance of a convertible to models with a fixed roof, but eventually it evolved into a styling statement in its own right. Vinyl roofs were most popular in the American market, and...
in a copper accent color. Outside, striping, rub rails, wheel covers and a crest mark the Matador as Cassini's." Available only in black, white, or copper exterior paints, Cassini himself helped promote the car in AMC's advertising. The special Oleg Cassini Matador was positioned in the popular and highly competitive "personal luxury car
Personal luxury car
A personal luxury car is a highly styled, luxury vehicle with an emphasis on image over practicality. Accenting the comfort and satisfaction of its owner and driver above all else, the personal luxury car sometimes sacrifices passenger capacity, cargo room, and fuel economy in favor of style and...
" market segment at that time.
“All I remember about those days are nerves, and Jackie on the phone ‘Hurry, hurry, Oleg, I’ve got nothing to wear’,” he wrote in his 1995 book, A Thousand Days of Magic: Dressing Jacqueline Kennedy for the White House.
His designs were shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
in 2001 in its exhibit Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years, which was curated by Vogue
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
’s European editor-at-large, Hamish Bowles
Hamish Bowles
Hamish Bowles is the European Editor at Large for Vogue and involved in the worlds of fashion and interior design.- Background :As the European Editor at Large for Vogue, Hamish Bowles is recognized as one of the most respected authorities on the worlds of fashion and interior design. After...
.
Cassini’s autobiography
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
, In My Own Fashion, was published in 1987.
His partnership with David’s Bridal was formed in the 1990s, and they had a line of his wedding dresses at the time of his death.
First marriage
On September 2, 1938, in Elkton, MarylandElkton, Maryland
The town of Elkton is the county seat of Cecil County, Maryland, United States. The population was 11,893 as of the 2000 census and 14,842 according to current July 2008 census estimates. It is the county seat of Cecil County...
— a Russian Orthodox ceremony took place in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
on September 16 — Cassini became the fourth husband of Mary “Merry” Fahrney, a daughter of Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
industrialist Emory Homer Fahrney and his wife, the former Marion L. Hills. She was an heiress to the Dr. Peter Fahrney & Sons patent medicine
Patent medicine
Patent medicine refers to medical compounds of questionable effectiveness sold under a variety of names and labels. The term "patent medicine" is somewhat of a misnomer because, in most cases, although many of the products were trademarked, they were never patented...
fortune. In addition to having a small role in the 1934 motion picture Cleopatra
Cleopatra (1934 film)
Cleopatra is a 1934 epic film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and distributed by Paramount Pictures, which retells the story of Cleopatra VII of Egypt....
, which was directed by Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...
and starred Claudette Colbert
Claudette Colbert
Claudette Colbert was a French-born American-based actress of stage and film.Born in Paris, France and raised in New York City, Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the 1920s, progressing to film with the advent of talking pictures...
, Merry Fahrney was an aviator and parachutist frequently known in gossip columns as Madcap Merry. She had previously been married to and divorced from Hugh Parker Pickering, by whom she had a son, Peter, who was adopted at 15 months of age by his maternal grandparents and given the surname Fahrney; Frank Van Sands Eizsner; and Baron Arturo Berlingieri, to whom she was married from July 31, 1937 until February 3, 1938.
According to Cassini’s memoirs, it was on his honeymoon when he realized that he had been married, apparently, for reasons other than heartfelt affection. He recalled that his new bride “smoked cigarettes one after another with the casual arrogance of the carnally satisfied. I was just another scalp.” However, considering Fahrney’s wealth and Cassini’s lack of it, the decision to wed likely was deemed mutually beneficial, whatever the groom’s belated regrets.
Nearly two months after Fahrney and Cassini married, on October 26, her divorce from Berlingieri was reversed on appeal. The Illinois Appellate Court declared the divorce invalid on the grounds that the former Baroness Berlingieri’s claim of being beaten up four times on her honeymoon was unproven, that she had not established beyond doubt that the baron tried to extort US$200,000 from her, and that as she was an Italian citizen by marriage, the Chicago court had no jurisdiction. The divorce, however, was soon resolved in her favor.
Fahrney’s divorce from Cassini, which was granted on February 5, 1940, was equally dramatic. She won her case by proving “marital misconduct” on her husband’s part, stemming from evidence presented that Cassini had been in the company of “a scantily clad young woman” in his apartment in the Hotel Lowell in New York City. Curiously, however, Fahrney and her first husband, Hugh Pickering, were reported to have been in an adjoining room with an automobile salesman, spying on the couple. Cassini, for his part, denied he had been unfaithful and attempted to prove that his wife had had extramarital affairs, presenting testimony from his cook and the couple’s former butler, who claimed that Merry Cassini had been caught in compromising circumstances on three occasions. Cassini also declared that his wife had bought clothes for another man, socialite La Grand Griswold. (Griswold, for his part, testified that he had asked Merry Cassini to be his wife, but that she had refused, saying that she already had a husband.) In handing down the divorce decree in Merry Cassini’s favor, the judge declared the defendant’s claims of wifely adultery were “unworthy of belief.”
In 1941, Merry Fahrney married her fifth husband, a Swede
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, whom she divorced the same year. In 1944, she married her sixth husband, Carlos Ojeda, Jr., a son of the Mexican ambassador to Argentina.
Second marriage
Cassini’s second wife was the American filmFilm
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
and stage
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
actress Gene Tierney
Gene Tierney
Gene Eliza Tierney was an American film and stage actress. Acclaimed as one of the great beauties of her day, she is best remembered for her performance in the title role of Laura and her Academy Award-nominated performance for Best Actress in Leave Her to Heaven .Other notable roles include...
(1920–1991), whom he married on June 1, 1941. The Cassinis had two daughters, Antoinette Daria Cassini (born October 15, 1943), who was born mentally retarded, due to her mother’s bout during pregnancy with German measles, and Christina “Tina” Cassini (born November 19, 1948). Cassini, in interviews and his autobiography, felt that Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
used the real-life tragedy of his and Tierney’s as the basis of her plot for The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on November 12, 1962 and in US by Dodd, Mead and Company in September 1963 under the shorter title of The Mirror Crack'd and with a copyright date of 1962...
. As related in Tierney's autobiography (Self-Portrait in 1979, but well publicized for years previously) in June 1943, while pregnant with her first child, Tierney came down with the German measles, contracted during her only appearance at the Hollywood Canteen
Hollywood Canteen
The Hollywood Canteen operated at 1451 Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood, California between October 3, 1942 and November 22, 1945 as a club offering food, dancing and entertainment for servicemen, usually on their way overseas...
. The baby, Daria, was born prematurely, weighing only 3 pounds and 2 ounces, and requiring a total blood transfusion. The infant was also deaf, was partially blind with cataracts, was severely retarded and ultimately had to be institutionalized.
Some time after, Tierney learned from a fan who approached her at a garden party for an autograph that the woman, who had been a member of the women's branch of the Marine Corps, had sneaked out of quarantine while sick with the German measles to meet Tierney at her only Hollywood Canteen appearance. This incident, as well as the circumstances under which the information is imparted to the actress, is repeated almost verbatim in the story.
Fraught with problems that included Tierney’s serious depression after the birth of the couple's daughter with disabilities, Cassini’s marriage was short but volatile. Both husband and wife had extramarital relationships, with Tierney’s (while separated from Cassini) being a romance with John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
. Tierney won an uncontested divorce in California that year; the action was withdrawn since the couple reconciled before the divorce was made final. However, another divorce action was filed in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, California, on February 28, 1952, with Tierney declaring that her husband cared more about his tennis game than his wife; the final decree was granted on April 8, 1953.
She was romanced and engaged to the Prince Aly Khan
Prince Aly Khan
Prince Ali Solomone Aga Khan , known as Aly Khan was a son of Aga Khan III, the head of the Ismaili Muslims, and the father of Aga Khan IV. A socialite, racehorse owner and jockey, he was the third husband of actress Rita Hayworth...
after her divorce. Their engagement was strongly opposed by the prince's father the Aga Khan
Aga Khan
Aga Khan is the hereditary title of the Imam of the largest branch of the Ismā'īlī followers of the Shī‘a faith. They affirm the Imamat of the descendants of Ismail ibn Jafar, eldest son of Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq, while the larger Twelver branch of Shi`ism follows Ismail's younger brother Musa...
. Soon after Tierney broke off their engagement. After a series of emotional setbacks, she married oil baron W. Howard Lee in 1960 and was happily married until his death in 1981.
After his divorce from Tierney, Cassini dated and almost married Grace Kelly
Grace Kelly
Grace Patricia Kelly was an American actress who, in April 1956, married Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, to become Princess consort of Monaco, styled as Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, and commonly referred to as Princess Grace.After embarking on an acting career in 1950, at the age of...
. He and Tierney remained lifelong friends until her death. Cassini was quoted as saying, “Gene is the luckiest, unlucky girl in the world, all of her dreams came true, at a cost.”
Tierney–Cassini ongoing divorce decree and estate trial
Christina Cassini, 61, sued on behalf of herself and disabled sister Daria Cassini in 2007 to get 25 percent each of the designer's $50 million estate. Marianne Nestor, Cassini's secret third wife, was left the bulk of the estate, and runs Oleg Cassini Inc. She moved to block the suit, but Nassau County Surrogate Court Judge John B. Riordan denied the motion. Judge Riordan stated "Cassini promised in his 1952 divorce from Gene Tierney that he would write a will leaving both of his daughters half of his fortune".Cassini died from complications of a stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
in Manhasset, New York
Manhasset, New York
Manhasset is a hamlet and neighborhood in Nassau County, New York, on the North Shore of Long Island. As of the United States 2010 Census, the population was 8,080....
, in 2006. He was survived by his then secret third wife Marianne Nestor, his two children, and four grandchildren. He was predeceased by his brother, Igor Cassini. At the time of his death, Cassini was renovating a five-story limestone town house on East 63rd Street in Manhattan that was decorated like a medieval redoubt
Redoubt
A redoubt is a fort or fort system usually consisting of an enclosed defensive emplacement outside a larger fort, usually relying on earthworks, though others are constructed of stone or brick. It is meant to protect soldiers outside the main defensive line and can be a permanent structure or a...
as well as living in a house in the Oyster Bay, New York
Oyster Bay (town), New York
The Town of Oyster Bay is easternmost of the three towns in Nassau County, New York, in the United States. Part of the New York metropolitan area, it is the only town in Nassau County that extends from the North Shore to the South Shore of Long Island. As of the 2010 census, the town population was...
, whose property once had been part of the estate of Louis Comfort Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art Nouveau and Aesthetic movements...
. Cassini is buried in the Cemetery of the Holy Rood
Cemetery of the Holy Rood
The Cemetery of the Holy Rood is a Roman Catholic cemetery located in Westbury, New York. The cemetery, established in 1930, is part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre.-History:...
in Westbury, New York
Westbury, New York
Westbury incorporated in 1932 as a village in Nassau County, New York in the United States. The population was 15,146 at the 2010 census.The Village of Westbury is in the Town of North Hempstead....
.
External links
- New York Times filmography
- Entry on Oleg Cassini in Columbia EncyclopediaColumbia EncyclopediaThe Columbia Encyclopedia is a one-volume encyclopedia produced by Columbia University Press and sold by the Gale Group. First published in 1935, and continuing its important relationship with Columbia University, the encyclopedia underwent major revisions in 1950 and 1963; the current edition is...
- Sewing patterns by Oleg Cassini