Socialite and movie-star wife Baroness Afdera Franchetti, 93, died recently, it was announced on March 21. Nicknamed “Lady Volcano,” Franchetti was descended from a wealthy Venetian family (there were a few Rothschilds in there as well). Her explorer father died in a plane crash en route from Ethiopia in 1935. Her friend Audrey Hepburn introduced her to Henry Fonda, to whom Franchetti was married from 1957-61 (don’t ask me why—her uncle was friends with Ernest Hemingway, so they must have had a predeliction for deeply unpleasant people). She reminisced for Italian Vogue about her one-time stepdaughter: “Oh, dear, dear Jane. She was four years younger than me when I became her stepmother. Even today, with her totally new face, she is so beautiful. She looks unrecognizable, like someone else, but so wonderful.” She also recalled her job writing for Vogue: “it was after the divorce from Fonda, I was in crisis, and Diana [Vreeland] – a divine, monstrous woman – called me. Of course, I did not even know how to write a telegram, and I had this biorhythm problem, in the morning it is known that I cannot stand up, I have low blood pressure. So I chose a secretary from Mexico who had a very similar accent to mine and did my voice with everyone. I then presented myself, all perky, at one-o’clock in the afternoon.”
