Ongelooflijke verhalen achter de beroemdheden die de Rivièra hebben gemaakt

De show van rijkdom aan de Franse Rivièra is ronduit oogverblindend, vanaf de supercars die cruise langs de Croisette naar de enorme superjachten die zich voor de kust verzamelen. Maar het is de geschiedenis van beroemdheden die echt schittert aan de Côte d'Azur, met elke locatie barstensvol erfgoed op het witte doek: het paleis waar Grace Kelly prins Rainier ontmoette tijdens de Filmfestival van Cannes; het strand waar Brigitte Bardot tijdens het filmen in haar kleine bikini darteldeEn God schiep de vrouw. Het casino waar James Bond Baccarat speeldeGouden Oog, en de adembenemende Corniche-weg waar Carey Grant en Grace Kelly mee redenEen dief vangen, en dat Grace Kelly later omkwam.

The star-power of the South of France is almost palpable, and each year it is added to, with silver screen legends walking the Cannes red carpet to a riot of flashing paparazzi bulbs, pop stars lounging on their yachts offshore under buzzing helicopters, and tech billionaires throwing spectacular, jaw-dropping parties on their superyachts.

Summer on the French Riviera is the epicenter of the world’s celebrity vacation scene.

De geschiedenis van beroemdheden van de Franse riviera reads like a Who’s-Who of the last century. It is a riveting story of butcher kings and widow queens, sex sirens and princesses, scheming billionaires and socialite visionaries, hard-drinking writers and eccentric artists —all flocking to the Riviera to live lives full of decadence, intrigue, and debauchery under the Mediterranean sun.

Het is onmogelijk om de impact te overschatten die een paar sleutelfiguren hadden op de snelle opkomst van de Côte d'Azur, die het transformeerde van een slaperige 19e-eeuwse plaats met middeleeuwse dorpjes en rotsachtige schapenboerderijen in de ultieme bestemming voor beroemdheden en de geboorteplaats van de superjachtindustrie .

Laat ons u meenemen op een reis langs de Franse Rivièra en stoppen bij de verblijfplaatsen van de beroemdheden, socialites en royals die de Franse Rivièra voor altijd hebben veranderd.

The Lord Who Put Cannes on the Map

In the winter of 1834, a six-horse carriage arrived in Cannes. On board: the impressive and world-famous Grand Chancellor Henry Brougham, and his sick daughter Eléonore-Louise. They were heading to Italy where they hoped to cure her respiratory ailments (at the time, they didn’t know what the cause of ‘consumption’ was: tuberculosis). But the carriage was forced to stop, and Brougham was warned that they would not be able to enter Italy. An outbreak of cholera meant his route was blocked and he had to wait in Cannes for the quarantine order to be lifted.

They rented a room in the ‘Auberge Pinchinat’ — the only inn in town. Situated on the apex of the bay, looking out to the Îles de Lérins, sheltered by high ground to the west, north and south, Cannes was then a fishing-village called Le Suquet, with no more than three hundred inhabitants and two streets of very humble Provençal houses.

In the days that followed, Brougham fell in love with this small port at the foot of the Suquet tower. He toured the area, and the red rock of the Esterel captivated his heart. He was hooked. “In this enchanted atmosphere, it is a delight for me who loves dreams, to forget for a few moments the ugliness and miseries of life”, he wrote to a friend who remained in London. One day, two days, and then more… While discovering the surroundings, Brougham imagined the life he and his daughter could have if they settled there. 

Then, in a phenomenon that repeated itself to the extent that it became a critical factor in the development of the coast, Lord Brougham himself became an attraction. Brougham was one of the most well-known –and fascinating– celebrities of the time, and it wasn’t long before other intellectuals started visiting him on the French Riviera.

His enthusiasm for Cannes and its mild winters attracted the wealthy and powerful from across Europe. They, too, built spacious villas. His patronage of the town made it the talk of Europe; royalty and aristocrats from Queen Victoria to the Tsar of Russia made a point of holidaying there, and the town took full advantage of its newfound fame. As this word-of-mouth marketing spread, hotels were built. Gradually, the fishing village passed into history, and the glamorous Cannes as we know it was born.

Here’s the full story of who Lord Brougham was and how he influenced the development of Cannes.

A Widow Queen, a Prime Minister & Coco Chanel

De glorieus mooie badplaatsMenton may well be lesser known than its Riviera neighbors, but it was at Menton that the French Riviera as we know it truly began, when the widowed Queen Victoria came to stay in 1882, thus opening the floodgates for royals and high society to follow. Railways were built, grand villas replaced stone farmhouses, and ornate carriages carrying dukes and princes passed slowly along high coast roads above the sparkling sea.

Koningin Victoria was betoverd door 'het zonnige, bloemrijke zuiden' zoals ze het noemde, en keerde 8 keer terug om bloemen naar De slag om de bloemen van Nice, riding on donkeys up narrow medieval roads, and admiring the ‘very picturesque’ local shepherds, some of whom she said ‘are very handsome boys’. Her maidservant, observing the elderly Queen’s behavior on her visits, remarked that while on the French Riviera “she enjoys everything as if she was 17 instead of 72”.

Sommigen prijzen de liefde van de koningin voor Zuid-Frankrijk voor de verbetering van de relaties tussen langdurige vijanden Engeland en Frankrijk rond de eeuwwisseling - een verzachtende relatie die zou inbouwen in hun WW1-alliantie.

De bondgenoot van de koningin, premier Winston Churchill, bracht verschillende periodes van zijn leven door aan de Franse Rivièra. Hij en zijn vrouw en hij genoten vooral van de Villa La Pausa in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. The Villa was built by Coco Chanel and the Duke of Westminster and sold to multimillionaire Emery Reves, who was a friend of Churchill’s. Villa La Pausa was frequented by so many elites that their stays often coincided, resulting in gossip and anecdotes that spread worldwide. Famous guests included the Prince of Monaco and Grace Kelly, the Dukes of Windsor, Coco Chanel, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Wendy Russell, and Somerset Maugham, among (many) others.

Leer meer over the history of the Queen’s time on the French Riviera and how it led to the area becoming an international tourism destination.

Cap Ferrat’s ‘Butcher’ & the ‘Lizard of Oz’

The Queen may have given the Cote d’Azur her royal seal of approval, but it was her cousin, King Leopold of Belgium, who began the transformation of the coast in the late 19th century when he began buying up land and villas on Cap Ferrat. A regular visitor of the French Riviera, he acquired the Villa les Cédres in Kap Ferrat en Villa La Leopolda in Villefranche-sur-Mer, among others.

Unlike his moralistic cousin, King Leopold II was a cruel and immoral man, famous for his reign of terror over Congo during which he earned the name ‘The Butcher of Congo’. Leopold’s behavior in Cap Ferrat was also fairly scandalous with a secret relationship with a 16 year old prostitute who he kept trapped in a villa on Cap Ferrat and married only five days before his death.

Toch transformeerde hij Cap Ferrat in een plek met prachtige villa's en exotische tuinen, en zijn jachtclementijnwas the first of so very many to anchor off this stunning emerald headland dropping away into the blue-green sea. Leopold turned Cap Ferrat into a wealthy playground, leading the Rothschilds (who built the fabulous Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild) and the great families of Europe to follow.

Hier is het volledige verhaal about King Leopold, his mistress, and their villas.

The writer Somerset Maugham was another notable fellow to take up residence on Cap Ferrat, inviting Picasso, Kipling, Churchill, T.S Eliot, Ian Fleming, and many more to visit him for grand villa parties in the gardens and sunny days by the pool. It’s hard to know why they accepted, given that Maugham was notorious for writing rather nasty, thinly veiled descriptions of his friends and acquaintances in his books. But come, they did — although not all guests were fans, with Noel Coward calling him ‘The Lizard of Oz’, and Virginia Woolf likening him to ‘a dead man’.

Antibes’ Glittering Parties and Madness Under the Pines

Antibes is het meest bekend vanwege Picasso, die woonde en werkte in de Grimaldi-toren waar nu de Picasso-museum. Maar in werkelijkheid gaat de beroemde geschiedenis van Antibes veel, veel dieper dan dat, want het was op de Cap d'Antibes in de jaren 1920 dat de Franse Rivièra de zomerbestemming werd die we vandaag kennen.

Normally, high society deserted the French Riviera in the hot summer months, with grand hotels like the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc shuttering their doors from May to September. That is, until the Murphy’s, a wealthy socialite couple from New York, convinced the proprietor of Eden-Roc to stay open through one summer, beginning a trend which would forever change the way the wealthy enjoyed the Riviera.

They renovated a villa nearby, naming it Villa America , and cleared the pretty Plage de la Garoupe of seaweed, fishing line, and rocks. They then invited Picasso, Hemingway and an ultra-fashionable crowd for summers of sunbathing and swimming, picnics on the Cannes Islands, and glittering parties under the pines.

Their friend, F.Scott Fitzgerald’s Teder is de nacht is an amalgam of the sensuous and beautiful life of the Murphys on the Riviera and his own spiraling marriage problems. In 1925, he wrote De Grote Gatsby, zijn beroemdste roman, na een verblijf in St. Rafaël on the French Riviera. His wife Zelda Fitzgerald and he were regular clients of the Monte-Carlo Casino and several hotels and rental villas in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Cannes, Mooi en Juan-les-Pins.

It would not end well for the four of them in real life, with the Murphy’s losing two of their teenage sons and most of their money, Scott losing his sobriety and writing brilliance, and Zelda losing her sanity and eventually dying in a sanatorium fire. But for a while, life was magical on the Cap d’Antibes, as they dined and drank in the garden, lazed about on the beach, and traversed the coast in their 100-foot sailboat.

Hier is het volledige verhaal about the Murphys, the Fitzgeralds, and the birth of summers and sunbathing on the French Riviera.

Monaco’s Prince his Screen Goddess

Als je nu naar Monaco kijkt, is het moeilijk voor te stellen dat deze magnifieke stad aan de kliffen met weelderige casino's en grote hotels in de jaren vijftig op de rand van een financiële ondergang stond en weinig invloed of roem had op het wereldtoneel. (Behalve zijn langdurige reputatie als 'een zonnige plek voor schaduwrijke mensen', zoals de beroemde bijtende Somerset Maugham het ooit noemde.)

That all began to change when screen goddess Grace Kelly met with the Prince at the palace during the 1955 Cannes Film Festival, and married in 1956. The glamorous marriage succeeded in reinvigorating Monaco’s fortunes as intended. Sadly, Princess Grace was killed in a car crash in 1982, driving on the same high, beautiful Corniche weg langs de kust dat ze met Cary Grant reisde in Hitchcocks 'To Catch a Thief', toen ze de beroemdste actrice ter wereld was.

Sinds die tijd hebben veel beroemdheden uit de sport en de industrie Monaco als hun thuisbasis gekozen. Misschien niet zo bekend als de internationaal erkende Karl Lagerfeld, die verlangde naar vrede en rust, en dat was te zien aan de plek die hij koos om thuis te noemen. Als echte liefhebber van Monaco viel hij voor de schoonheid van La Vigie, een van de mooiste en meest prestigieuze villa's aan de Côte d'Azur, bekend om zijn unieke architectuur. Het huis diende meer dan tien jaar als zijn verblijfplaats, waardoor hij perfecte privacy kon bieden aan de illustere vrienden die hij wilde ontvangen.

Leer meer over de geschiedenis van de koninklijke familie van Monaco, and the true story behind Grace Kelly and the Prince’s marriage.

St. Tropez & The Teen Sex Siren

In 1956, a young, relatively unknown sex siren called Brigitte Bardot cavorted on Pampelonne Beach in a skimpy bikini while filming En God schiep vrouwen—the story of an astonishingly beautiful 18-year-old orphan who seduces the men of the village. Saint Tropez and Brigitte Bardot would be forever changed by the movie, which catapulted both the town and actress to global stardom.

Natuurlijk was Bardot niet de eerste die de buitengewone charmes van Saint Tropez opmerkte; grote kunstenaars als Signac en Matisse waren vele jaren eerder verliefd geworden op het slaperige, pastelkleurige vissersdorpje en legden het buitengewone licht en de mooie haven vast in hun meesterwerken. Toch was Bardot degene die het dorp zijn naam gaf als een glamoureuze, libertijnse bestemming van feesten van beroemdheden, topless zonnebaden en lange, champagne-spuitende dagen aan zee.

Ze is ook verantwoordelijk voor de geboorte van de beroemdste strandclub van allemaal, Club 55, toen haar echtgenoot, regisseur Vadim, tijdens het filmen een strandhut aanzag voor een café en Bardot eropuit stuurde om wat eten te kopen voor de filmploeg. De man en vrouw die de hut bezaten waren zo vriendelijk om wat eten voor ze te koken, en zo werd Club 55 geboren.

Leren over Brigitte Bardot en het schandaal dat St Tropez beroemd heeft gemaakt.

More Stories

There are many more stories about celebrities spending time on the French Riviera, and each promoted the region through their presence and the resulting press coverage.

In the 1970’s, The Rolling Stones rented a villa in Villefranche-sur-Mer, and brought with them a constant flow of celebrities and musicians, including stars like John Lennon. Here’s the full, scandalous story that includes Nazi’s, copious amounts of drugs, and theft, and an arrest.

The French Riviera has a magic about it, as if all those glittering parties and illicit nights have somehow soaked into the very air of the place. Discover up this storied, magnificent coastline —from Queen Victoria’s Menton to Grace Kelly’s Monaco, and from the Murphy’s Cap d’Antibes down to Bardot’s St Tropez— through Iconic Riviera’s guides.