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In such circumstances, it was unlikely that either would fall in love with the boy next door. They didn't. With Anne, it was Giancarlo Uzielli, 31, a handsome Florentine who moved to New York 22 years ago and whose father bought him a seat on the Stock Exchange in 1962 (estimated price: $175,000). The elder Fords were not overjoyed with the match, partly because Uzielli is a divorced man whose marriage has not yet been annulled. A modest civil ceremony was set for Dec. 28 in the Ford apartment, to be preceded by a big party the night before atop the RCA Building.
Urging Finesse. Though it didn't appear in the gossip columns, Niarchos had been cruising on the horizon of Charlotte's new life for more than a year. During the summer of 1964, he sailed into Villefranche aboard his three-masted schooner, Creole, which is the world's largest yacht. Only a couple of waves away was the Fords' yacht Santa Maria. Soon Niarchos' launch was running a veritable shuttle between the two yachts.
Niarchos is celebrated for his personal charm. The mere fact that he had been married to two other ladies and was currently married to a third was of no great significance in the jet set.* It was also nice that though he might not have quite as much money as Father Henry, he spent it with more style. This was a man who handed out gold cigarette boxes as if they were match books, ordered his suits 16 at a time. The salon of the Creole was furnished with Van Goghs, Renoirs, a Gaugin and a Rouault.
Last summer the Creole trailed the Fords' yacht all over the Mediterranean. When the season was over, Charlotte announced to her parents that she was going to marry Niarchos. The Ford family handled it well, and not a word leaked out. Explained one member of the family: "The worry wasn't that they would get married—we accepted that. We were urging finesse in handling the whole affair."
The plan was to release a statement to the press after the couple had already taken off on their honeymoon It almost worked, except for Manhattan's alert pseudonymous Columnist Suzy, who had the whole story the day after the wedding.
Upstaged? Having heard none of the drawing-room rumors, most of the pres. played up the wedding as an elopement, hinted darkly that Charlotte had beaten her sister to the altar by two weeks so as not to be upstaged. The truth of the matter was that Niarchos and Charlotte were simply waiting for his divorce—which finally came through (in Juarez, Mexico) a few days before the wedding.
Once it had, Niarchos swung into action, and with characteristic style. Charlotte and Niarchos' lawyer flew from New York to Juarez on a Ford company plane. Niarchos himself flew from Canada on another. The wedding party was installed in a spanking new Juarez motel, and a judge came to marry the happy couple in their motel suite. Another Ford plane took them to Nassau in the Bahamas. Waiting there was a Boeing 707 that Niarchos had chartered from BOAC to take them to Zurich (price: roughly $40,000). From there, they boarded his own Lear jet for the last leg of the trip to St. Moritz. When they got there, they headed straight for a hotel instead of Niarchos' own mountainside chalet. Why? Because in the chalet was Eugenie Livanos, his newest exwife, and their four children.