Sex Trumps Crime

When the obituary for Licio Gelli appeared in the UK's Telegraph I predicted it was unlikely the NYT would pick up on the decreased and run their own obituary. Even though Licio had led a long life of financial fraud going back to WW II, since his massive misdeeds were basically confined to Italy, I figured with no United States connection, he wouldn't get an American sendoff. So far, I've been right.

So when @obitsman Tweeted out the Telegraph's obituary for Fernande Grudet, a madame to the jet set, I again predicted there would be no NYT sendoff since her base of operation was France, with some time spent in Los Angeles, but that almost really doesn't count. It was in France that she pretty much invented the term "call girl," an escort service from a stable of women who passed the highest standards of love-making, intelligence, beauty, and of course discretion, whose assignations with the truly rich and famous were arranged with a phone call. Talk about a hot number.

Live to be 92, and you cover a lot of ground, and Ms. Grudet did, starting in WW II, when she herself was a Lady of the Evening. She was many things, but eventually felt her role was best served in the management of things. And did she ever manage.

Her client list was extensive, and the Telegraph reports it once consisted of half the French Cabinet. The other half must have been gay.

The client list reads a bit like a Who's Who. Amongst the bold face names of Marlon Brando, Moshe Dayan, King Hussein of Jordan, the Shah of Iran, Rex Harrison, Muammar el-Qaddafi, and many others, was JFK and Aristotle Onassis.

Perhaps the JFK connection is what got the obit in the NYT. I'll never know, but the reference to JFK is the same in both obituaries: He wanted someone who resembled his wife Jackie, but someone who was "hot."

Since the subject was 92 and the byline is not by Robert D. McFadden, the dean of the morgue obits that float up with people over 90, I have to think the NYT wrote their obituary based on having read of Ms. Grudet's demise online in the Telegraph.

The Telegraph's narrative is a bit spicier than that of the Times. The anecdote surrounding Onassis, not in the Times, is that on one occasion he came to the brothel with his mistress at the time, Maria Callas and requested something Ms. Grudet considered "depraved," and caused even her to blush. An adult imagination can easily guess what the Greek Tycoon and the soprano probably had in mind.

Poor Jackie. She wound up with two men in her life who shopped at the same emporium. Poor Caroline, JFK's and Jackie's sole surviving child, who even if in Japan as the United States Ambassador, might get wind of the obits and again be reminded of the past. Perhaps she's used it to it by now.

Not to outdone by the Telegraph's copy, the Times reports a client once asked for a fairly warm dead body. No names here. Request denied.

Personally, I think the best anecdote comes from the Telegraph surrounding Gianni Agnelli, the Italian car maker of Fiat. He was said to have requested a passel of girls who participated in an orgy, and then accompanied him to Mass afterwards. Pity the male parishioners who missed Mass that Sunday. Agnelli was Italian to the core.

As it goes with anyone who is making cash hand-over-fist, Ms. Grudet had tax problems. Somewhat like Al Caopne, the French got after her for not paying taxes and levied some hefty fines. Ms. Grudet was incarcerated a few times, but between the two papers the sentences vary. The Telegragh has her doing 5 years in a French slammer, along with some lighter sentences, also reported in the Times.

Online versions of stories vary in the way they're handled by different newspapers. Often, as in the case of the Times, the text is the same, along with the one picture that appears in the print version. This carries over to the online version.

The Telegraph weaves in more photos to accompany their online text. Thus, we treated to picture of 73 year-old cheese cake as Ms. Grudet poses for...something, I guess. A holiday card? A professionally taken studio shot that could easily have been in her portfolio if she was looking to cast herself as a spokeswoman for any of the erectile dysfunction drugs. Know your audience.

Ms. Grudet stated she was not adverse to plastic surgery, and admits she had everything but her breasts worked on. Here, she has the look of Helen Mirren with a set of Rockette legs.

But both papers lead off with nearly identical, more subdued photos of Ms. Grudet, looking very much like what she was: a demanding business woman who didn't always treat the help well.

Maybe it's not the JFK connection that got her into the NYT after all. Perhaps she reminded the editors of Carly Fiorina. There are similarities.

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