The Rich Girl

Charlene Wrightsman was born to a milieu of multimillionaires, multiple marriages and many mansions. Her grandfather amassed an early fortune in the Oklahoma oil fields, and was the man credited with thinking up the oil depletion allowance, for which all U.S. oilmen still revere and praise him today. Her father, Charles B. Wrightsman, 67, was once the president of Standard Oil of Kansas, has massive oil holdings in eight states, and is one of America's least known rich men.

Born in 1927 in Los Angeles, Charlene grew up to be a pretty, placid brunette. All around were the shiny, if sometimes shattering, ways of vast wealth. But there was trouble at home, and her parents were divorced when she was ten. She was sent away to the very exclusive Foxcroft and Ethel Walker Schools, alternating vacations with each parent.

The Will. Perhaps to fill the family void, Charlene became a good golfer, an excellent horsewoman and a more than passable tennis player. Her sister Irene, four years older, chose quite a different form of compensation.

At 18, Irene burst forth in the playgirl mold, married an international socialite-sportsman named Freddie McEvoy, whose outdoor sport was bobsledding, and whose indoor hobby was cavorting with the Errol Flynn crowd. Charlene watched in wide-eyed wonder, but did not join in the fun. She went to Finch College in New York, where she won glowing good grades. At about the same time, her father was winning as a bride a California model named Jayne Larkin--only a few years older than Charlene.

In 1947, at 20, Charlene joined the parade and married Actor Helmut Dantine, who had made a career out of playing the more-or-less nice Nazis of World War II movies. She and Helmut had a son, but they wound up in an angry divorce in 1950. He married her, said Charlene, "only for the money that I expected to receive from my father." So bitter had Charlene become that years later, when she drew up a will, she inserted the explicit provision that Dantine "should not at any time" be given custody of their son, Dana, now 14.

The Jet Set. The summer of the divorce Charlene, for a brief time, stepped out of the racy world she was raised in. She enrolled in a West Palm Beach sec retarial school, attended regularly, earned high marks and was proud of them. Did she want to get a job? Did she long to be a "normal girl"?

Who knows? She met a man whose name was Igor Cassini. Everybody called him Ghighi. He loved society, in all its forms, and he made a living by chronicling its activities. He knew enough and he got around so fast that his column was very readable.

Ghighi, who was born in Russia and was twelve years older than Charlene, appealed to her, and in 1952 she became his third wife. His second, Austine ("Bootsie") Cassini, had divorced him, married William Randolph Hearst Jr., Cassini's boss. Ghighi was Hearst's top society columnist, using the pseudonym of Cholly Knickerbocker.

Ghighi and Charlene moved through all ranks of society, from those who want their names kept out of the papers, like Charlene's father, to those who want to get them in, like the top levels of the New Frontier. Charlene's father had long been a close friend of Joseph P. Kennedy. The two now have mansions on Palm Beach's North County Road, and warm neighborliness prevails. President Kennedy sometimes stayed at the Wrightsmans' home; when he hasn't, he and Jackie have gone to parties there. Jayne Wrightsman, who has made the latest best-dressed lists, is a good friend of Jackie's. She has advised the First Lady on White House refurbishing and accompanied her on art gallery shopping tours.

Ghighi and Charlene were close to that group. And Ghighi's brother, Oleg Cassini, is Jackie Kennedy's official dress designer. Even Ghighi admits that the Kennedys like Oleg better than they like him. But he insists he and Charlene rated high with the White House: "There is a good relationship between the President and Mrs. Kennedy and us." White House sources, on the other hand, insist that the Kennedys had socialized precious little with the Igor Cassinis since the inauguration.

The Tensions. But life with Ghighi was no champagne cocktail. His charm for women was always electric--and friends recall that Charlene, who seemed to love him deeply, was jealous of his attractions. Ghighi also had legal problems. A public relations firm that he was associated with took on the Dominican Republic as a client in 1959, when it was ruled by Dictator Rafael Trujillo.

Last winter, after an investigation by Bobby Kennedy's Justice Department (Ghighi is not nearly so fond of Bobby as he is of the other Kennedys), Cassini was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of failing to register as an agent of a foreign government. His trial is set for next month. After the indictment, Charlene's father, who never cared much for the columnist, seemed downright hostile to the Cassinis.

There were other tensions too. Charlene was in poor health recently. A few years ago, she suffered a painful leg injury while skiing in Vermont. At first she attended parties while swinging gaily between crutches. But the leg kept giving her trouble. Last year it buckled beneath her while she was standing on a stool changing a light bulb. She fell to the floor, suffered a broken nose and a concussion. From then on, she was plagued with blinding headaches.

Early this month one of her favorite people, Vermont Ski Instructor Peter Estin, 35, was found dead in a New York hotel room of what was officially described as "visceral congestion." His funeral was in Boston last week. Charlene did not go, but Ghighi flew up in the private plane of George Skakel, brother-in-law of Bobby Kennedy. He returned in the evening, stopped at his Fifth Avenue apartment to dress for a dinner party. Charlene complained of a toothache, so Ghighi went by himself. Charlene and her stepdaughter Marina, 14--Ghighi's daughter by his second wife--settled down to watch the Academy Awards show on a television set in Charlene's bedroom.

The Leave-Taking. Earlier that evening, Charlene had sent Marina out to the corner drugstore to get a new bottle of sleeping pills which her physician had prescribed. As the program began, Charlene rose from her bed, went to the bathroom. She returned to lie down on the bed while Marina sat near by. The youngster watched the show to the end, saw Gregory Peck, looking just like Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, make a touching little acceptance speech. When Marina looked at her stepmother, she realized that something was wrong. But it was too late. Charlene had swallowed all 30 sleeping pills. Ghighi arrived home from his dinner in time to accompany the unconscious Charlene to a New York hospital. Next morning she died without having regained consciousness. Cause: "visceral congestion."

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