Gloria Guinness
Encyclopedia
Gloria Guinness born Gloria Rubio y Alatorre, was a Mexican-born socialite
Socialite
A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....

 and fashion icon of the 20th century, and a contributing editor to Harper's Bazaar
Harper's Bazaar
Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...

from 1963 until 1971. She was named to the International Best Dressed List
International Best Dressed List
The International Best Dressed List was founded by fashionista Eleanor Lambert in 1940 as an attempt to boost the reputation of American fashion at the time.People who have been on the list include from A to Z:-The International Hall of Fame: Women:...

 Hall of Fame in 1964.

Early life

Born in Guadalajara
Guadalajara, Jalisco
Guadalajara is the capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco, and the seat of the municipality of Guadalajara. The city is located in the central region of Jalisco in the western-pacific area of Mexico. With a population of 1,564,514 it is Mexico's second most populous municipality...

, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, she was a daughter of José Rafael Rubio, a Mexican journalist, and his wife, Dolores Alatorre. As a young woman, she was employed as a nightclub hostess before moving to Germany.

Marriages

Her first husband was a German-born resident of Mexico named Scholtens, from whom she was divorced.

She married a second time on 4 October 1935, in Kensington
Kensington
Kensington is a district of west and central London, England within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.To the north, Kensington is...

, London, England, to Franz-Egon Maria Meinhard Engelbert Pius Aloysius Kaspar Ferdinand Dietrich, 3rd Graf
Graf
Graf is a historical German noble title equal in rank to a count or a British earl...

 von Fürstenberg-Herdringen (1896–1975); she was his second wife. By him, she had two children:
  • Dolores Guinness
    Dolores Guinness
    Dolores Guinness born 31 July 1936 in Berlin-Charlottenburg, Germany, is a German born Freiin , socialite, fashion icon and jet set member of the 1950s and 1960s. She is also a member of the International Best Dressed List since 1970...

     born as Dolores Maria Agatha Wilhelmine Luise, Freiin von Fürstenberg-Hedringen (born 31 July 1936 in Berlin-Charlottenburg). She married her stepbrother Patrick Benjamin Guinness (1931–1965), son of Loel Guinness, on 22 October 1955 in Paris. Have issue. Patrick was killed in a car accident in 1965. Have issue:

  1. Maria Alexandra (born 1956) married Foulques, Count de Quatrebarbes (born 1948) in 1979. Have issue.
  2. Loel Patrick (born 1957).
  3. Victoria Christina
    Victoria Niarchos
    Victoria Christina Niarchos is a member of the non-aristocratic branch of the Guinness beer clan.She is a daughter of the late Patrick Benjamin Guinness and his wife , the former Dolores Guinness, Dolores Maria Agatha Wilhelmine Luise, Freiin von Fürstenberg-Hedringen Victoria Christina Niarchos...

     (born 1960) married Philip Niarchos in 1984, son of late Greek billionaire Stavros Niarchos
    Stavros Niarchos
    Stavros Spyros Niarchos was a Greek shipping tycoon, sometimes known as "The Golden Greek." In 1952, Stavros Niarchos built the first supertankers capable of transporting large quantities of oil, and subsequently earned millions of dollars as global demand for his ships increased.- Early life :He...

    . Have issue.

  • Franz-Egon Engelbert Raphael Christophorus Hubertus, Freiherr
    Freiherr
    The German titles Freiherr and Freifrau and Freiin are titles of nobility, used preceding a person's given name or, after 1919, before the surname...

     von Fürstenberg-Hedringen (born 27 July 1939 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf). He married Agneta Sundby (born 12 April 1943), a Swedish model on 20 August 1967 in Visnum church, Visnum, Sweden
    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....

    . Later divorced.


She also had a stepdaughter from her husband's first marriage, the actress Betsy von Furstenberg
Betsy von Furstenberg
Betsy von Furstenberg is a German-born American radio, television, film, and Broadway actress.-Birth and childhood:...

. According to her friend Etti Plesch
Etti Plesch
Etti Plesch, , Austro-Hungarian countess, huntress, racehorse owner and socialite. Plesch lost two of her six husbands to the same woman, Louise de Vilmorin, a French literary figure, and owned two winners of the Epsom Derby, in Psidium in 1961 and Henbit in1980.Born Maria Anna Paula Ferdinandine...

, Gloria Rubio Scholtens was introduced to Fürstenberg by her mentor, newspaper heir, diplomat, and art collector Friedrich Horstmann, who reportedly "dressed her up and presented her at a dinner as a mysterious aristocrat."

Her third husband was Prince Ahmad-Abu-El-Fotouh Fakhry Bey (1921–1998) who she married in 1942. He was a grandson of King Fuad I of Egypt and a nephew of Princess Fawzia of Egypt (the first wife of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran) and King Farouk I of Egypt. During her marriage to Fakhri, she also was a mistress of the British ambassador to France, Duff Cooper
Duff Cooper
Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich GCMG, DSO, PC , known as Duff Cooper, was a British Conservative Party politician, diplomat and author. He wrote six books, including an autobiography, Old Men Forget, and a biography of Talleyrand...

. At same time Cooper were involved with Princesse Ghislaine de Polignac (1918-2011) and Louise de Vilmorin 
After her divorce in 1949, Gloria Fakhri became involved with both Loel Guinness and David Beatty, 2nd Earl Beatty
David Beatty, 2nd Earl Beatty
David Field Beatty, 2nd Earl Beatty , known as Viscount Borodale from 1919 to 1936, was a British Conservative Party politician.-Family:...

.

Her fourth husband, whom she married on 7 April 1951 in Antibes
Antibes
Antibes is a resort town in the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeastern France.It lies on the Mediterranean in the Côte d'Azur, located between Cannes and Nice. The town of Juan-les-Pins is within the commune of Antibes...

, was Group Capt. Thomas Loel Guinness, a Member of Parliament (1906–1988) and a member of the extended Guinness beer family, though his particular branch made its fortune in banking and real estate. Of him, she told Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...

, "I could never sleep with Loel. He farts too much."

Spy?

There is also a long-standing rumor that Gloria Guinness was employed at some point as a spy and that when she married her fourth husband, she had no valid passport and was legally a citizen of no country. This rumor is to a certain degree borne out by her appearance in a series of supposedly nonfiction books written by Aline, Countess of Romanones
Aline, Countess of Romanones
Doña María Aline Griffith Dexter, Countess of Romanones, Grandee of Spain is a Spanish-American aristocrat, socialite, and writer who started at the US Office of Strategic Services as a cipher clerk during World War II...

, who knew her during WWII and was a friend, fellow spy (originally on opposite sides - the Countess was still an American citizen during the war, and an employee of the OSS
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...

), and sometime adversary of Gloria, who was by this point an almost legendary character, the glamorous "Countess von Fürstenberg" who maintained friendships with important Nazis, including Goering and even Hitler himself, and lived in neutral Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

 throughout the latter days of the Second World War as an espionage agent for the Axis
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...

.

Six homes around the world

The Guinnesses had an apartment in Manhattan's expensive Waldorf Towers, an 18-century farmhouse called Villa Zanroc in Epalinges
Epalinges
Epalinges is a municipality in the district of Lausanne in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.It is a suburb of the city of Lausanne.-Geography:...

 near Lausanne
Lausanne
Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...

 (with a bowling alley in the basement), a 350-ton yacht that plied the Mediterranean in the summer, a seven-storey house on Avenue Matignon in Paris
Paris
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...

, decorated by Georges Geffroy
Georges Geffroy
Georges Geffroy was a post-war French interior designer.-Biography:"an eighteenth-century gentleman, a figure from another era, one of a breed of decorators that is extinct today,” remembers couturier Hubert de Givenchy,...

 (1903–1971), a stud farm
Stud farm
A stud farm or stud in animal husbandry, is an establishment for selective breeding of livestock. The word "stud" comes from the Old English stod meaning "herd of horses, place where horses are kept for breeding" Historically, documentation of the breedings that occur on a stud farm leads to the...

 in Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...

: Haras de Piencourt
Piencourt
Piencourt is a commune in the Eure department in Haute-Normandie in northern France.-Population:...

 near Guy de Rothschild
Guy de Rothschild
Baron Guy Édouard Alphonse Paul de Rothschild was a French banker and member of the Rothschild family. He chaired the bank Rothschild Frères from 1967 to 1979, when it was nationalized by the French government, and maintained possessions in other French and foreign companies including Imerys...

, a mansion near Palm Beach at Lake Worth, Florida
Lake Worth, Florida
Lake Worth is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida, which takes its name from the body of water along its eastern border, originally called "Lake Worth", and now generally known as the Lake Worth Lagoon. The lake itself was named for General William J. Worth, who led U.S. forces during the last...

. The Florida property is divided by U.S. Highway A1A, faces the lake on one side and the beach on the other; the two halves are connected by a specially built tunnel under the highway that Mrs. Guinness has had decorated with furniture and screens painted by a young French artist she is interested in. They also had a house in Acapulco
Acapulco
Acapulco is a city, municipality and major sea port in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific coast of Mexico, southwest from Mexico City. Acapulco is located on a deep, semi-circular bay and has been a port since the early colonial period of Mexico’s history...

, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

. She commissioned the Mexican architect Marco Antonio Aldaco to design the house in Acapulco.

They also kept three planes—an Avro Commander for short hauls around Europe, a small jet, a helicopter for Loel Guinness' hops between the Lake Worth house and the Palm Beach golf course.

Fashion

She was dressed by Cristóbal Balenciaga, Elsa Schiaparelli
Elsa Schiaparelli
Elsa Schiaparelli was an Italian fashion designer. Along with Coco Chanel, her greatest rival, she is regarded as one of the most prominent figures in fashion between the two World Wars. Starting with knitwear, Schiaparelli's designs were heavily influenced by Surrealists like her collaborators...

, Marc Bohan at Christian Dior
Christian Dior
Christian Dior , was a French fashion designer, best known as the founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, also called Christian Dior.-Life:...

, Chanel
Chanel
Chanel S.A. is a French fashion house founded by the couturier Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, well established in haute couture, specializing in luxury goods . She gained the name "Coco" while maintaining a career as a singer at a café in France...

, 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...

, Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel
Chanel
Chanel S.A. is a French fashion house founded by the couturier Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, well established in haute couture, specializing in luxury goods . She gained the name "Coco" while maintaining a career as a singer at a café in France...

, Valentino Garavani, Halston
Halston
Roy Halston Frowick, also known as Halston was a clothing designer of the 1970s. His long dresses or copies of his style were popular fashion wear in mid-1970s discotheques.-Early life and career:...

 and shoes by Roger Vivier. But she also favored the Spaniard Antonio Canovas del Castillo del Rey at Lanvin (clothing)
Lanvin (clothing)
Lanvin is a high fashion house founded by Jeanne Lanvin.-History:Lanvin made such beautiful clothes for her daughter that they began to attract the attention of a number of wealthy people who requested copies for their own children...

. She was one of the first persons to wear the capri pants
Capri pants
Capri pants are mid-calf pants worn in warm weather. Variants end below the knee and calf...

 by Emilio Pucci
Emilio Pucci
Emilio Pucci, Marquis of Barsento , was a Florentine Italian fashion designer and politician. He and his eponymous company are synonymous with geometric prints in a kaleidoscope of colours.-Early life:...

. She was photographed for 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...

, Harper's Bazaar
Harper's Bazaar
Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...

and Woman's Wear Daily by Cecil Beaton
Cecil Beaton
Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton, CBE was an English fashion and portrait photographer, diarist, painter, interior designer and an Academy Award-winning stage and costume designer for films and the theatre...

, Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon was an American photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century."-Photography career:Avedon was born in New York City to a Jewish Russian...

, John Rawlings
John Rawlings
John Rawlings was a Condé Nast Publications fashion photographer from the 1930s through the 1960s. Rawlings left a significant body of work, including 200 Vogue magazine and Glamour magazine covers to his credit and 30,000 photos in archive, maintained by curator Kohle Yohannan.Rawlings was in the...

, Horst P. Horst
Horst P. Horst
Horst Paul Albert Bohrmann who chose to be known as Horst P. Horst was a German-American fashion photographer.-Early life:...

, Slim Aarons
Slim Aarons
Slim Aarons, born George Allen Aarons , was an American photographer noted for photographing socialites, jet-setters and celebrities.-Photography career:...

 and Henry Clarke. Artist like René Bouché
René Bouché
René Robert Bouché was an artist and fashion illustrator, best known for his work inVogue during the 1930s and 1940s.-External links:...

, Kenneth Paul Block
Kenneth Paul Block
Kenneth Paul Block was one of the foremost fashion illustrators of the 20th century. For nearly forty years, he was an in-house artist for Fairchild Publications, owner of Women's Wear Daily, the garment industry trade paper, and its offshoot, W magazine...

 and Alejo Vidal-Quadras (1919–94) painted her. She appeared on the International Best Dressed List
International Best Dressed List
The International Best Dressed List was founded by fashionista Eleanor Lambert in 1940 as an attempt to boost the reputation of American fashion at the time.People who have been on the list include from A to Z:-The International Hall of Fame: Women:...

 in 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962 and 1963. The year after she was elevated into its Hall of Fame.

Donations

She gave an enormous number of items to Victoria & Albert Museum from Cristóbal Balenciaga
Cristóbal Balenciaga
Cristóbal Balenciaga Eizaguirre was a Spanish Basque fashion designer and the founder of the Balenciaga fashion house....

, Christian Dior
Christian Dior
Christian Dior , was a French fashion designer, best known as the founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, also called Christian Dior.-Life:...

, Yves Saint Laurent
Yves Saint Laurent (brand)
Yves Saint Laurent or YSL is a luxury fashion house founded by Yves Saint Laurent and his partner, Pierre Bergé. Today, its chief designer is Stefano Pilati. Yves Saint Laurent, founder of the brand, died in 2008.-History:...

, André Courrèges
André Courrèges
André Courrèges is a French fashion designer, known for his ultra-modern designs. At the age of 25, after studying to be a civil engineer, he went to Paris to work at Geanne Lafaurie fashion design house...

, Antonio Canovas del Castillo del Rey at Lanvin (clothing)
Lanvin (clothing)
Lanvin is a high fashion house founded by Jeanne Lanvin.-History:Lanvin made such beautiful clothes for her daughter that they began to attract the attention of a number of wealthy people who requested copies for their own children...

, 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...

, Hellstern and Jeanne Lafaurie, proving that she spread her commissions amongst many different couturiers.

Among the 17 outfits, 12 hats and pairs of shoes that she donated were a 1948 Balenciaga evening gown of organdie with flock flowers and evening gown from 1965 ], a 1949 hand-painted evening gown by Marcelle Chaumont (b.1892; house closed in 1953
and a 1950s evening gown by Jeanne Lafaurie, the only dress by that designer in the collection of Victoria & Albert Museum.

Some items by Cristóbal Balenciaga
Cristóbal Balenciaga
Cristóbal Balenciaga Eizaguirre was a Spanish Basque fashion designer and the founder of the Balenciaga fashion house....

 and Elsa Schiaparelli
Elsa Schiaparelli
Elsa Schiaparelli was an Italian fashion designer. Along with Coco Chanel, her greatest rival, she is regarded as one of the most prominent figures in fashion between the two World Wars. Starting with knitwear, Schiaparelli's designs were heavily influenced by Surrealists like her collaborators...

 were donated to The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Writing

Guinness wrote frequently for Harper's Bazaar
Harper's Bazaar
Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...

, most famously asserting, in the magazine's July 1963 issue: "Elegance is in the brain as well as the body and in the soul. Jesus Christ is the only example we have of any one human having possessed all three at the same time." She also wrote an appreciation to the catalogue The World of Balenciaga
Balenciaga
Balenciaga is a fashion house founded by Cristóbal Balenciaga, a Basque designer, born in the Basque Country, Spain. He had a reputation as a couturier of uncompromising standards and was referred to as "the master of us all" by Christian Dior. His bubble skirts and odd, feminine, yet ultra-modern...

held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 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...

 in 1973.

Death

Gloria Guinness died of a heart attack at her home, Villa Zanroc in Epalinges
Epalinges
Epalinges is a municipality in the district of Lausanne in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.It is a suburb of the city of Lausanne.-Geography:...

, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 at the age of 68.

See also

  • Fürstenberg (baronial family)
    Fürstenberg (baronial family)
    Fürstenberg is the name of a German noble family of Westphalia, descended from one Hermanus de Vorstenberg, a liegeman of the Archbishop of Cologne, who was among the prince electors of the Holy Roman Empire. Hermanus held a castle for his lord called "Fürstenberg" in Ense-Höingen in Soest; this...

  • Georges Geffroy
    Georges Geffroy
    Georges Geffroy was a post-war French interior designer.-Biography:"an eighteenth-century gentleman, a figure from another era, one of a breed of decorators that is extinct today,” remembers couturier Hubert de Givenchy,...

  • Louis Alexandre Raimon
    Louis Alexandre Raimon
    Louis Alexandre Raimon , better known as Alexandre de Paris, was a famous French hairdresser . He was responsible for creating Elizabeth Taylor's coiffure in the 1963 Hollywood epic Cleopatra . He also styled Greta Garbo, Audrey Hepburn and Lauren Bacall, among others...

  • Truman Capote
    Truman Capote
    Truman Streckfus Persons , known as Truman Capote , was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true crime novel In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At...

  • Noel Coward
    Noël Coward
    Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...

  • Babe Paley
    Babe Paley
    Barbara "Babe" Cushing Mortimer Paley was an American socialite and style icon. She was known by the popular nickname "Babe" for most of her life. She was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1958....

  • Marella Agnelli
    Marella Agnelli
    Marella Agnelli, born Princess Marella Caracciolo di Castagneto is an Italian socialite, style icon and wife of Fiat chairman Gianni Agnelli...

  • C.Z. Guest
  • Slim Keith
    Slim Keith
    Nancy "Slim" Keith, Lady Keith was a New York socialite and fashion icon during the 1950s and 1960s, exemplifying the American jet set...

  • Diana Vreeland
    Diana Vreeland
    Diana Vreeland was a noted columnist and editor in the field of fashion. She worked for the fashion magazines Harper's Bazaar and Vogue and the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Born as Diana Dalziel, Vreeland was the eldest daughter of American socialite mother Emily Key Hoffman...

  • The Rich: Having a Marvelous Time From Time (magazine)
    Time (magazine)
    Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

    1962
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