Ira von Fürstenberg
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Princess Ira of Fürstenberg (German: Ira Prinzessin zu Fürstenberg) (born April 18, 1940) is a European socialite, actress, jewelry designer, and a former public relations manager for the fashion designer Valentino Garavani.
The daughter of Prince Tassilo Egon Maria Karl George Leo of Fürstenberg and his half-American first wife, Clara Agnelli, a Fiat heiress, she was born Princess Virginia Carolina Theresa Pancrazia Galdina of Fürstenberg in Rome, Italy. Her maternal great-grandmother was a Kentucky heiress, Jane Campbell (Princess di San Faustino), and her brother, Prince Eduard Egon Peter Paul Giovanni of Fürstenberg, was better known as the fashion designer Egon von Fürstenberg. Her former sister-in-law is the fashion designer Diane von Fürstenberg, and an uncle was Gianni Agnelli, the famous chairman of Fiat.
Princess Ira has been married twice and reportedly was a close companion and suspected lover of Prince Rainier III of Monaco after the death of his wife, the former Grace Kelly. She and the ruler of Monaco are both great-grandchildren of the Scottish-Bavarian aristocrat Lady Mary Victoria Hamilton, the wife of Prince Albert I of Monaco, though Ira is descended from her second marriage and Rainier from her first.
Her first husband, whom she married at Venice, Italy, on September 17, 1955, was Alfonso, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (1924-2003). At the time of the wedding, the bride was 15, the groom, 31. They were divorced in 1960, and the marriage was annulled in 1969. They had two sons. The prince founded the Marbella Club, a renowned Spanish resort.
Her second husband was Francisco Pignatari (1916-1977), a Brazilian industrialist known as "Baby" Pignatari. They were married in Reno, Nevada, on January 12, 1961, and were divorced in Las Vegas, Nevada, in January 1964. They had no children.
Known for her plush form, sloe eyes, and gift for light comedy, Ira von Fürstenberg was a sumptuous star of European-made B-movies in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, starring in such films as "Dolls for an August Moon" (1970), "The Fifth Cord" (1971), the spy spoof "Matchless" (1966, costarring Patrick O'Neal), and "J'ai tué Raspoutine" (1967), and "Dead Run" (1967, costarring Peter Lawford).
In 2005 she was taken to court by the Hotel Royal Monceau of Paris for failing to pay a €122,000 bill. Lawyers for the hotel accused her of concealing part of her possessions to avoid seizure by a bailiff acting on the hotel's behalf. Her lawyer, Emmanuel Trink, said she was unable to pay the hotel bill due to "financial difficulties". (The Scotsman, 15.9.05)
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