The last queen lives above a car dealership in a leafy residence in that exiled land of Italians known as South Kensington, with puppies who perish and who are buried in the park among the SUVs and moss-covered lifts. She has taken part in the grandest balls of the 20^th century, has been immortalized by Oriana Fallaci as one of her “disagreeables” and was transformed into the protagonist of the novel Penelope alla guerra. She married and later left Henry Fonda. She is 86 years old. Her doorman does not know who Afdera Franchetti is. Then a light goes on. “Ah, Mrs. Fonda!”
Fifty years on, the baroness still likes to be called Fonda.

“But dear, what should I do, let them call me Franchetti? Nobody knows how to pronounce it; they say ‘Francetti.’ It isn’t cute, is it?”

How did you meet Fonda?

“In Rome, it was 1956, I was walking along Via del Babuino with Audrey Hepburn and we entered a place because we saw two paintings in the window display, two strange paintings of nuns playing tennis. They told me that an American had reserved them, but I paid cash and took them. A few days later, at a small party at my house, Fonda, who was filming War and Peace, came up to me with Audrey. He was amazed to find his paintings there.
With him, it was a clandestine relationship in the beginning.
We had gone to Pamplona and there we met Hemingway, who was very close to my brother Nanuk, and he immediately told him. When he and I got back to Venice, he gave me a beating.

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Photo Vogue Festival 2018

by Francesca Marani

A day to dream

I was 22, Fonda 48, and my brother had no idea who he was. He simply thought he was some old man and he went for me.”

Incidentally, the Franchetti siblings, the Venetian Tenenbaums, were named Nanuk, Afdera, Lorian, Simba. It was a family of “merchants, Jewish blood of which I’m very proud.

I didn’t even know my father as he died when I was three. For this reason, I’ve always been enamored with him.” An explorer, he gave his children African names: Afdera, for example, is a volcano in Ethiopia.

Hemingway put her in the novel Across the River and Into the Trees. He was in love with her. “This was something that Fallaci made up. It was another Venetian woman that was his inspiration; her name was Adriana. Poor thing, she committed suicide. It’s unbelievable how many people commit suicide. Anyway, Hemingway did not even look at me; if he did he was looking at my sister, Lorian. Even Fonda did not take to me. You see, I wasn’t beautiful, the beautiful one was my sister (she used to say that with those emerald green eyes she just had to wait and see what effect they would have).”

You always belittle yourself. To Fallaci, you described yourself as a “fat-ass Roman.”

(Looking surprised) “Look, fat-ass maybe, but a Roman? Definitely not.”
You took part in all the grand balls of the 20th century.
“Not really. I hate parties. They make me anxious. I never go. I’m not the type.”
Did you go to the masked ball at Palazzo Labia in 1951?
“Ah yes, that one, of course; Dalí had designed the costumes for Christian Dior and vice versa.”
It was the ball of the century. The Duke of Windsor and Churchill were there. Cecil Beaton took photos.
“Ah yes, of course, I have a nice picture he took of me…But I don’t know, I don’t remember, it wasn’t my sort of thing.”
Did you get the chance to attend the ball of Baron de Redé in Paris?
“Of course, everyone thought he was an idler, but he worked in a bank and made a lot of money in Geneva. He had a mean face, immovable, had work done to it. The house was an entire palazzo on Île Saint-Louis. It felt like Versailles. It wasn’t cozy at all and was full of lit candles. It was stifling. As it happens, it went up in flames.”
The Rothschild’s Surrealist ball of 1972?

“Well, that one was a no-brainer. Those were my cousins. You see my great-great-grandmother Rothschild was the one who revived the family fortunes. At Ferrières, there was a train coming out of the kitchens to bring dishes to the table. At the ball, I visited at most two rooms because, you know dear, the balls made me anxious. I only talked to Liz Taylor and Richard Burton; they were relaxed, really good-humored, nice. However, I was so uncomfortable. The only balls I liked were those in Venice at the Volpi, the palazzo next to ours. I went to all of them.”
And Hollywood?
“Well, Fonda was always working. Everyone was old. In Malibu, a horrible, deserted, mortuary-like place, there was Marilyn, who was shooting Some Like It Hot. A bumpkin.”
You got bored of Fonda. You left him because he was a bore.
“Of course not, he was a wonderful man, fantastic, perfect. Who told you that?”
You said it to Fallaci in the famous interview.
“Well, I told Fallaci lots of nonsense. She came to see me in New York one afternoon and then I never saw her again. She then wrote that we went to the theater, out to parties together. She was a big liar. Nice, eh?”

Meanwhile, the cordless phone rings unceasingly. “Hello! Ah, fine, yes, perfect. But is it a funeral or a memorial? Did he suffer a lot? Ah, what a terrible thing…This is my friend X, Lord Y’s wife. She loves to tell me about all the deceased. She’s enthusiastic now that there’s a new death.”

But she doesn’t hang up the phone and on the other end one hears a “halloo?” They heard everything. A TV is on, photos scattered about, ripped, lots of them of Agnelli.
The Lawyer used to call her somewhat harshly Miss Pushy.
“Oh, Gianni. I was at Villa Leopolda on the Côte d’Azur when he had the infamous car crash. He looked after everything, even the menus. Marella was always in her own world. He would change his mind in an instant. One day he said to us, ‘Tomorrow you all have to get up by eight o’clock.’ He had decided to sell the house and a buyer came that day and bought it.”
Did you have an affair with Agnelli?

“Not on your life. In fact, I was very close to Domietta del Drago, who came to see us in New York to get over

Gianni when he left her. She was one of the most beautiful women of the 20^th century, with those eyes set far apart, almost like Jackie. One of them here and one there.”
You mean Jackie Kennedy?

“Oh, yes, look here. Here, in this photo, I’m dancing with Stash Radziwill, who married Jackie’s sister. What a mess I am, I look like a whore don’t you think?”
I would not say that Baroness. But let’s get back to Fonda. If he was so great why did you leave him?

“Oh, well, that’s my business. I will not say a word. Look, I was spoiled. You see, I didn’t realize how lucky I was.”

Jane Fonda said you were the only woman to have made her father suffer.

“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’s like that, chameleonic. Goes through phases.”
Do you keep in touch?
“Every once in a while, the last time we saw each other was years ago. I was with a conservative minister, she with some hipster, it was her groupie phase. We were dining together here in London at her place, and she had a child in the other room that was making really loud farts the whole time.”

You left Fonda for another.
“Yes, Henry Cubitt. He was a mere boy who had started to make a buzz in my life. He was horrible, but he danced very well, but I then left for Nasso because I had already decided to divorce Fonda. I was tired.”
Nasso in Greece?
“No dear, Nasso in the Bahamas.”
Ah, Nassau.
“Nasso, Nasso (Baroness Fonda has this strange pronunciation, according to Fallaci, ‘a torrent of chewed words left in her throat.’ She says, “It is because I was raised with German, and then I’m dyslexic.” She emphasizes the ‘x’ in dyslexic). In short, I met this little man who for a while was interested in me. It was, above all, a phone courtship. Then I did not hear from him anymore. The maid told me about these repeated calls from a certain Lord Ashcombe, and I had no idea who he was, instead he was the one who had changed his name when he inherited the title. It happens all the time in England.”
It turned out he was the uncle of Camilla Parker Bowles.
“Oh, but what does it matter. Poor, poor Henry, when he was about to die his wife did a divine thing. She called me to spend the last few days with them and he died holding both of our hands. I thought it was very considerate. So I named my poodle Henry Henry, like the two Henrys in my life. He’s buried here in the park; we made him a tomb. Are you recording dear? Will you write everything I say?”
Yes, Baroness.

“It’s a terrible thing. Do you want something? A whiskey? Then we go out?”
First, let’s finish the interview. You also worked for a while as a journalist.
“Oh, yes, at Vogue, it was after the divorce from Fonda, I was in crisis, and Diana (naturally Vreeland) – a divine, monstrous woman called me to her. 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. But it didn’t last long. They sent me to write a piece with Ugo Mulas in Italy and we had to photograph this new designer, a certain Roberta Camerino.”
Roberta Di Camerino?

“Yes, that’s what I said, Roberta Camerino. But we arrived in Venice with Mulas and said that we didn’t care about this Camerino and he started to take pictures of me. We decide to go to Rome, to photograph artists, much more interesting. First, there was Fontana, then Schifano, and then we wanted to do the Pope, John XXIII. So I called Aspreno (Don Aspreno Colonna, principal assistant to the Holy Father) and he tells me no, the Pope in Vogue seems a bit too much. We went back to New York with these gorgeous photos and an absurd bill for expenses. Then Diana – what a wonderful woman – calls me. ‘Afdera, dear, what sign are you?’ I say: ‘Cancer.’ And she says: ‘I’ve read that for Cancer it’s a moment of great change.’ Wasn’t she an extraordinary woman the way she fired me?”

With Schifano there were some problems.

“Oh, yes, I ended up in Rebibbia for four days. He had instructed me to bring him a package from New York and inside there were three joints, but I obviously did not know.”
How was the experience?
“Very disappointing. You know, prisoners have great respect for murderers. For me, with three joints, they didn’t even bother to talk to me.”

You have also written an autobiography, Never Before Midday.
“Ah, it’s a terrible thing, embarrassing. My publisher friend George Weidenfeld asked me to do it. According to him, I had to cram it full of gossip about my family so it would sell a lot and to sort me out financially. Instead, I did not say anything, it seemed unseemly, and then I cannot write, I’m…”
Dyslexic?
“Exactly, dyslexic.”

Michele Masneri, Vogue Italia, December 2017, n.808, pag. 220