THE FABULOUS ONASSIS: His Life and Loves

Cafarakis who signed up aboard the Christinia as maitre d' in 1957 doesn't have too much to say about Onassis (less actually than Frischauer -- 1968) except that he's indefatigable, meticulous, generous to his relatives and employees (even if the crew eats poorly while Jackie has ""darling-darling"" bread flown aboard for two hundred dollars), and apt to lose the voice he raises in anger. And there's a little about his early life and the notables who came to cruise along with him in the Tina-Callas days. Cafarakis has been in retirement since 1968 and it's probably just as well because his book is full of startling premarital (furtive rendezvous in his Paris apartment) and marital (the contract -- separate rooms de rigeur) revelations re Jackie, whom he and all the hired help dislike. She uses 12 towels per bath, has her stockings pressed, and had Chanel #5 air-delivered from Paris although it's hard to conceive of her using such a banal scent. But ever since Onassis threatened her with a divorce in 1970, she's been willing to share his bed. While Onassis may not be a hero to his maitre d' -- he eats his soup too noisily -- Cafarakis descants some irresistibly invidious gossip about America's former First Lady who became the world's most expensively kept woman.