Onassis reportedly spent $20m on his honeymoon to the woman who became known as Jackie O and he owned the most fabulous yacht in history, named Christina after his daughter with his first wife, Athina. But his world was emptied when his son, Alexandros, died in a plane crash in Athens in 1973.

Christina did not get along with her stepmother and had a dysfunctional life. Each of her four marriages ended in divorce. When Aristotle Onassis died, she inherited 55% of his wealth, with the rest . . . apart from a reported $26m for his widow . . . going to a foundation to honour Alexandros.

But Christina's half of the Onassis empire declined in fortune. She pursued a decadent lifestyle, her weight oscillated unhealthily and she died, aged 37, in 1988, lonely and despairing, at a country club near Buenos Aires, apparently of a combination of slimming drugs and sleeping pills.

Her fortune was left to her three-year-old daughter, Athina. Her father endeavoured to give her a normal upbringing in Switzerland, where she attended state schools and shared ponies and mountain bikes with the toddlers of a children's home. Her father and four trustees . . . Onassis's former business associates . . .

wrangled over Athina's inheritance, until the courts handed control to KPMG Fides in Switzerland.

Last year Athina, who had recently married a Brazilian showjumper, finally inherited control of her fortune and the chairmanship of the Alexandros Foundation. At 22, she is now the sole surviving descendant of Aristotle . . . and one of the richest women in the world.