Marlene Wagman-Geller

         In some scenarios, soap operas can play second fiddle to reality, especially when family fortunes and over-sized personalities are part of the dramatis personae. Fact triumphed fiction in the case of a surgically enhanced cat lady, a dynasty with Nazi associations, and a trove of treasures. 

       The Wildensteins are an obsessively secretive family of French Jewish art dealers stretching back five generations whose name has long been renowned as one of the most prestigious and powerful in international circles. When the Germans goose-stepped into Paris in 1942, they escaped the swastika and opened a Manhattan gallery where their paintings, including Old Masters and Impressionist canvasses, made it a miniature Louvre. Daniel, the family patriarch, valued his treasures and secrecy and kept his two sons, Alec and Guy, to his exacting standards by controlling the plentiful purse strings.

        Through an unlikely 1977 encounter, a woman left an indelible scratch in this rarified milieu. Jocelynnys (she preferred Jocelyn) Dayanns da Silva Bezerra Perisset was an only child, born in Switzerland, to a middle-class family. Her father, Armand, sold sporting goods in a department store, and his daughter made use of his products as she was an athlete: an ace shot and a plot.  At seventeen, she began dating Cyril Piguet, a Swiss movie producer, and through him, she traded laid-back Lausanne for Paris. On a vacation in Africa, she fell in love with the continent, drawn in by its exotic animals, and it was there she met big-game hunter Alec Wildenstein. Saudi-arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi had proved a matchmaker when he had invited the Swiss knock-out to stay at his ranch in Kenya where the Wildensteins had Ol Jogi, their 66,000-acre spread. Their first date occurred when Alec had to put down a lion at a neighbor’s ranch, and Jocelyn asked to accompany him. Afterwards, they rode a motorcycle to a hilltop and discovered they shared commonalities-love of the Serengeti and lions- and the mutual loss of their dogs, both of whom had been German short-haired pointers. On the scenic spot, they shared their first kiss, one Jocelyn called “quite intense.” Alec found her physically intoxicating, and she was equally intoxicated by Alec who was heir to his father’s five-billion-dollar fortune. Their romance was a love affair made in safari heaven.

       When Jocelyn returned to Paris, she visited her hair salon Karita, which she did every Tuesday, and Alec arranged for thousands of white orchids to fill every available spot. He flew in from his home base in New York, and on their fourth date, over dinner at Pied de Cochon, he proposed. She recalled, “He didn’t ask me; he told me. I was not about to argue with that.” The news of his oldest son’s engagement did not please papa patriarch-especially amidst rumors Jocelyn had worked as a courtesan and did not share their Jewish religion. Despite parental disapproval, a year later they eloped to Las Vegas, and a rabbi officiated at the ceremony in the Hilton Hotel. Daniel did not care to fly to the wedding in his private Gulfstream IV Jet and likewise absented himself from a second ceremony in Lausanne.

        The new Mrs. Wildenstein stepped into a world of unimagined luxury: they transformed Ol-Jogi into an African Versailles replete with a private zoo consisting of a giraffe, leopard, lion, white rhino. Two lions roamed in a bullet-proof glass-enclosed cage. Other refinements were fifty-five artificial lakes, a swimming pool with rocks and waterfalls, golf course, racetrack, and tennis court, maintained by a staff of 366. Other places to lay their hats were a private Virgin Island compound, a 150-year-old castle, Chateau de Marienthal, (reportedly the largest private residence in metropolitan Paris), and a house in Lausanne. Their marital base was a five-story New York City townhouse with an indoor pool inlaid with tiles of dolphins. A sitting room held ten Pierre Bonnard paintings, valued at a one hundred million dollars. Another decorating touch was a unique glass-topped coffee table whose base held antique swords and a velvet-handled rifle that had belonged to Marie Antoinette. The couple kept a menagerie that consisted of five Italian greyhounds, a pet lynx, a black leopard, and a monkey, May Moon. Two footed occupants were Alec Jr. and Dianne who, on her seventeenth birthday received a three-million-dollar home addition in Ol Jogi. Determined that his trophy wife should always eclipse her rivals at social events, Alec purchased for his Cinderella a one of a kind Chanel dress for a New Year’s Eve party that cost $350,000, and he dropped ten million dollars in visits to Cartier. Each household had a chef-Jocelyne claimed she was domestically-challenged; it was the lifestyle of the rich on steroids.

           After the children left for college, Jocelyn, fearful her husband’s eye was wandering to human big-game trophies, and as Alec loved exotic cats, in a bid to remedy her marital malady, she went under the knife to appear “more feline.” When she emerged from the doctor’s office, a patient fled from the waiting room. Similarly, after Alec saw his mutilated wife, he screamed in horror at her resemblance to the lions in Ol-Jogi. Her rubbery mask had journalists posing questions: Can she close her eyes to sleep? Do her ears wiggle when she smiles? (if she can smile) Bizarrely, rather than show nip-and-tuck remorse she became addicted to cosmetic surgery and spent four million dollars in her quest to appear purr-fect. Clinging to a version of fantasy that she may have mistaken for truth, she professed that she came by her looks through genetics, “If I show you pictures of my grandmother, what you see is these cat eyes and high cheekbones.” Her husband, who suffered from the public stares, bemoaned, “She has the impression you fix a face the way you fix a house. I must say I have trouble recognizing her up close.” Her mask-like facial features led the New York Post to dub the socialite The Bride of Wildenstein and New York Magazine to label her the Lion Queen. What Daniel labeled his daughter-in-law remains in the Wildenstein family vaults next to the Old and new Masters. Remarkably, Jocelyn’s other-worldly face was not to be the strangest thing in the Wildenstein saga.

                 In 1997, Jocelyn was at Ol-Jogi attending to her mother who was suffering from Alzheimer’s, and her father who was dying of pneumonia. Despite repeated pleas to help her through this rough patch, Alec did not join her, even for his father-in-law’s funeral. And what happened next can be viewed as From Russia With Sex. When Jocelyn and her two bodyguards stepped off her Manhattan home’s elevator that led to the third-floor bedroom, she saw Alec holding a towel around his waist with one hand and his pistol in the other—a  semi-automatic, not the Marie Antoinette model. She had walked in on him and a nineteen-year-old naked blonde Slavic model. Hubby grabbed his girlfriend, scared out of her wits-either by the weapon or the woman with the terrifying face, while Jocelyn phoned the police and screamed her husband was threatening her life. His explanation was he had mistaken the two bodyguards for burglars; he added that his wife had set up the whole scenario to portray him in a bad light as he was demanding a divorce.

        Despite his protestations, Alec departed his townhouse in handcuffs and spent sixteen hours in custody where cellmates gawked at the prisoner clad in an Armani suit. The following day the art world’s wealthiest, most secretive family became tabloid fodder. A further woe was the girl in his bed was not his girlfriend Yelena Jarikova, but rather another Russian model. When Yelena discovered this tidbit, she was so infuriated Alec had to buy her a Mercedes to calm her down; the gift proved a satisfying salve as Yelena had only recently immigrated, and in her country, she had been so impoverished she had never eaten fresh fruit or vegetables. Jocelyn told him she would forgive him, but Alec’s rejoinder dashed her hopes as he preferred his Russian paramour, “I don’t think I was ever in love till now.” Daniel was furious at the public fallout; although he had his share of extramarital activities, they had been discreet. He was beside himself that his son had been caught with his pants down, in his own home, by his wife- and for the scandal to hit the papers, (mainly because the press never missed a photo op of the eerily photogenic Jocelyn.) Daniel’s ire focused on his daughter-in-law, and he vowed she would walk away with nothing. He felt safe declaring economic war on Jocelyn as he held the purse strings.

         Alec, despite a lifestyle that rivaled that of a drug kingpin, on paper was merely an employee in the family empire, and hence the only way Jocelyn could get money was to sue her father-in-law, a legal impossibility.  Daniel blitzed her credit cards, cut her telephone lines, and locked most of the rooms in the house that was in his name. The socialite said she was not just cut off financially but socially as well. She groused erstwhile friends of the couple, such as financier Nathaniel de Rothschild and his parents, Liliane and Elie, kept her at arm’s length. There appeared to be no “Hakuna matata” in her horizon. However, Alec was wrong if he thought she would slouch away; after all, cats have claws. Jocelyn, who used to water-ski on Africa’s crocodile-infested Zambezi River, girded for battle. Of Alec’s proposal, she had said, “I was not about to argue with that,” but this time, she was going to argue and to fight for her spoils of war. Her method of attack was through the tabloids, the reclusive family’s Achilles Heel. After nineteen years of marriage, Jocelyn had a powerful trump card: dirt on the dynasty. Salacious tidbits were unpaid taxes-to the tune of millions-and information the Wildenstein fortune had derived from a Nazi collaboration that looted works of art from Europe’s Jews. Many priceless paintings that had vanished in the Holocaust had mysteriously resurfaced in the Wildenstein vaults. The art world was reviled and riveted. One collector commented, “Jocelyn could be the thread that unravels the whole sweater.”

    In court, the wife scorned claimed she needed a million a month to run her household because years of dependence on servants had left her bereft of the ability of how to light a stove, make toast, or boil an egg. Alec’s lawyer said as an employee of the family firm he only made a $175,000 annual salary. The amount contradicted his recent jaunt to Kenya to take a breather from his marital woes. In Ol Jogi, he had a craving for sushi, something not readily available in Africa, and he, along with Yelena, flew his Gulfstream IV jet to deliver Nobu Matsuhisa, a world-renowned Japanese chef, along with a week’s supply of raw fish, to the Serengeti. He made a point of missing his wife’s television appearance where she went to air the dirty laundry. He stated, “I never look at her. She’s crazy. You can’t stop crazy people.” Apparently not crazy like a fox, but crazy like a feline. After a lengthy court hearing, the Mrs. received $2.5 billion and $100 million annually for thirteen years. The judge, however, stipulated the money not be used for further facelifts and advised her to buy a microwave. Acrimonious about his alimony, in consolation Alec married a young Russian model, (not the one his wife had found in her bed or Yelena). He decamped to Europe to concentrate on Ecurie Wildenstein, the family’s extensive French racing interests. In answer to the question if Jocelyn was able to smile, after the judge’s ruling, presumably she did-at least as best she could considering her mask-like face.

       Post-divorce Jocelyn decided to remain in the States where she embarked on another of her allotted nine lives- as a cougar cat lady. She is currently in a relationship with thirty-year younger designer Lloyd Klein. They spend a lot of date nights in Hollywood, an appropriate playground as it is both the place where reality and fantasy blur and is the cosmetic capital of the world. And Jocelyn still attracts stares. The attention derives from her aging feline features and, though in her seventh decade, dresses in skin-tight black leather pants and sports a long blond mane. Hopefully, her new beau will not ultimately feel the same as her ex-husband: that Jocelyn Wildenstein can prove a feline, and facial, attraction.