Onassis: The Novel of an Exceptional Life

Who was Aristotle Onassis ? The immediate answer is: one of the richest men of the 20th century. But it is a fatally reductive answer. He was a dreamer, a womanizer, an exile, a dishwasher, a shipowner, a Greek, a Turk, an unfaithful husband, a generous lover. Invincible and at the same time fragile and insecure in his lasting affections.

Born in 1906 in the Greek community of Smyrna, then part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, in his nearly seventy years of life he built an empire, bought an island, befriended some of the most powerful men in the world , Churchill above all, invented Monte Carlo, made women of extraordinary charm fall at his feet, he who was not handsome, first and foremost Maria Callas and Jacqueline Kennedy , he outlived a beloved son, knew the pinnacle of success and the abyss of loneliness of all unique men.

Aristotle Onassis had many lives, all lived to the full, and infinite desires, none of which remained an abstract dream, because they all became projects to be realized, money and power to be accumulated. The journalist Anna Folli in her Prendersi tutto (Neri Pozza, 2025, pp. 448, also e-book) paints the portrait of Aristotle Onassis in every nuance. She narrates his life as an extraordinary novel, or rather a classical tragedy whose hero is immortal and yet irremediably human.

Onassis wanted everything in life. And he certainly succeeded in his intent . Even if the price to pay in return was very, perhaps too high.

We asked Anna Folli how Aristotle Onassis could be defined in a few words:

"I would describe him as a strong and charismatic man who, thanks to his determination, managed to achieve extraordinary wealth and great power. After losing everything his family owned during the destruction of Smyrna by Turkish soldiers, shortly after the First World War, he decided that he would take back everything that had been taken from him and he succeeded. He was not yet eighteen when he left alone, with 50 dollars and a one-way ticket to Argentina. After a year, he had already managed to earn his first million with the tobacco trade."

What were his great virtues? What were his greatest limitations?

"He certainly had a great flair for business and the will and energy necessary to achieve his goals. He was willing to do anything to win and achieve his goals and he had no moral scruples. He knew how to be generous, but he was also ruthless with his enemies."

What did women mean to Onassis?

"He who was an ugly man, short and not very elegant, managed to make some of the most fascinating women of his time fall in love with him. Those he chose were all women of great charm, coveted and desired prey. Each of them, in a different way, represented the success he had managed to achieve. More than once, they also served to elevate him socially, ever since, in his early twenties, he made the daughter of a great Norwegian shipowner fall in love with him."

Who was more important between his wife Tina Livanos, Maria Callas and Jacqueline Kennedy?

"They had very different roles. He married Tina Livanos, the daughter of the great shipowner, when she was very young. In the early days they were happy and above all she gave him her two children: Alexander and Christina. This tied them together forever, even after the divorce. Maria Callas represented passion and what made them accomplices was also their common origin. Both felt deeply Greek: the two most famous Greeks in the world. Finally, Jacqueline was the living proof of his success. After the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963, she had become a sort of living myth: having her for himself was a great victory for him, but he realized very quickly that myths must be looked at from afar. Living with them can be very difficult."

Why can Onassis be considered a great protagonist of the twentieth century?

«Aristotle lived through the most important moments in the history of the twentieth century. He was a boy when in 1922 the Turks razed Smyrna and his family was decimated. During the crisis of 1929, while entire fortunes evaporated, he took advantage of the fall in prices to buy his first ships. In the Second World War, he moved to New York and became the magnate and great shipowner that everyone knows. Even the closure of the Suez Canal in 1956, which for many was a ruin, allowed him to accumulate millions, by employing his ships to transport oil that could no longer pass through the Strait. His intelligence and his unscrupulousness allowed him to exploit every opportunity to his advantage. But he paid dearly for his fortune with a series of terrible family tragedies that made the last years of his life dramatic».