Death on a Curve

Aly Khan's longest flirtation was with death.

His father, the late Aga Khan, spiritual leader of 20 million Moslems of the Ismaili sect, forced him to give up two hazardous pastimes: steeplechase riding and auto racing. But Aly continued his pursuit of speed and danger: three skiing accidents nearly cost him a leg; when he was only 21, and without a pilot's license, he took his turn at the controls of a light plane in an unprecedented 10,000-mile flight from Bombay to Singapore and back. Aly Khan slew quantities of lions, tigers and water buffalo, but always on foot and never from the safety of a tree platform. In World War II, he enlisted in the French Foreign Legion; after France fell he joined the British forces and served as a liaison officer with the U.S. Sixth Army group, winning the French Legion of Honor, the Croix de guerre with palms, the U.S. Bronze Star, and a citation for bravery under fire.

Tarts & Trollops. Women are traditionally the warrior's relaxation. Aly Khan had a fastidious dislike of tarts and trollops, which made things difficult for the married men of his acquaintance. His wedding to his first wife, Joan Guinness, came after a divorce action by her Member of Parliament husband, who named Aly as corespondent. His second marriage, to Rita Hayworth, involved a round-the-world courtship that was faithfully recorded in newspaper headlines. With his famed charm, his solicitous attentions, and cascades of flowers, telegrams, parties and tete-a-tetes, he laid siege to a notable clutch of beauties, including Gene Tierney, Joan Fontaine, Yvonne de Carlo, Lady Furness, Kim Novak, Merle Oberon and assorted French, Italian and Greek film stars. Said a marquise reminiscently: "Aly could handle more women simultaneously than most men can in a lifetime." He also understood the far more difficult art of letting women down gently, and is fondly remembered by nearly all his ex-wives and ex-mistresses.

Strangled Voice. Envious rivals complained that his success was due only to fabulous wealth (an estimated $800 million), a legendary name and a romantic background. Superficially they seemed right: Aly Khan was short (5 ft. 6 in.), balding, plump, and indifferent about clothes. His only physical assets were dark, liquid eyes and an almost Satanic vitality which could be refueled with as little as three hours' sleep.

He spoke with the "husky, strangled voice of an upper-class Englishman, overlaid with a slight French accent," but he seldom had anything intellectually provocative to say. He read little but listened well, and got most of his ideas from what people said; yet he could speak authoritatively on horses and modern painting ("They are my only loves"), and sometimes surprised acquaintances with a display of caustic humor.

Aly neither smoked nor drank. In one of his few ventures at self-analysis, he said, "I think the trouble with me was that I grew up too fast, among people who were all far older than I was." Rita Hayworth offered another diagnosis: "Aly is very nice, but he really doesn't understand family life."

Worst Blow. When the Aga Khan died in 1957, he named Aly's Harvard-educated son Karim, 23, as head of the Ismaili sect. Close friends say that Aly was crushed at being passed over, that it was "the worst blow he had received since his mother died." It seemed to effect a change in Aly's behavior: he soon appeared at the United Nations as the Ambassador of Pakistan, where thousands of Ismailis live. Canada's U.N. Ambassador

Charles Ritchie found it "extraordinary" how quickly Aly took hold, and "how conscientious he was about his job." But the job still left him time to check up on his ten stud farms and stables in France and Ireland, and for visits to his Paris mansion in the Bois de Boulogne, his manor house outside Dublin, his Riviera chateau and his villas in Normandy and Switzerland. His constant companion was a slim, tawny-haired French model known professionally as Bettina.

One evening last week Aly picked up Bettina in his new Lancia and headed for a country house in the Parisian suburb of Ville d'Avray, where they were expected for dinner. He waved the chauffeur to the rear and took the wheel.

As he rounded a gentle curve near St. Cloud race track, where his thoroughbreds had often been led to the winner's circle, a small, beat-up Simca came around the bend on the wrong side of the road. The collision flung Aly forward, and he was killed almost instantly by a broken neck (Bettina and the chauffeur were unhurt). Aly died as he would probably have wanted to: at the wheel of a low-slung car with a beautiful woman beside him.

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