The Monaco Touch

In 1838, when Chopin wintered there with piano and Mistress George Sand, Majorca was a Mediterranean Bali Ha'i far off the beaten tourist track. Since then, thanks to cut-rate package vacations and a climate even kindlier than Spain's Costa Brava, the island has become a kind of Costa Coney (436,000 visitors last year), where the local patois in peak season is more Cockney than Catalan.

Last week a campaign to lure the carriage trade back to Majorca was launched by Monaco's Prince Rainier, a resort operator whose flair for free publicity is the despair of rivals from Cairo to the Catskills. On a visit to Majorca last year. Rainier was impressed by plans initiated by two U.S. promoters to convert a magnificently battlemented castle (vintage 1900) into a luxury hotel and country club and bought into the venture. Called Son Vida (Life Estate), the castle is now an air-conditioned, lavishly plumbed hotel, boasts its own swimming pool, a golf course abuilding, 1,000 acres of well-kept grounds, and a minimum rate ($10) high enough to discourage the cut-rate crowd.

One Up for Elsa. To open the Son Vida in approved International Set style, Rainier invited a task force of names and name droppers and sailed on Aristotle Onassis' yacht Christina. Besides his beautiful wife Princess Grace, the guests included the sari-clad Maharani of Baroda, Hollywood Columnist Hedda Hopper and Partygiver Elsa Maxwell, and, of course, Onassis' great and good friend, Maria Callas. There was some worry about the propriety of Rainier's and Princess Grace's traveling on Onassis' yacht, since Ari and Maria are not married--a condition that Princess Grace, as a good Catholic, finds distasteful*- But at least the Rainiers were spared the embarrassment of having Ari and Maria register at the hotel with them; Ari and Maria stayed on the yacht.

The hotel-warmers attended a bullfight, at which the stocky Prince gamely assisted a matador and took a royal pratfall as the bull charged. No press cameras were permitted, but Princess Grace dutifully filmed her husband's moment of truth. "You should see what a terrible stare these beasts give you when you get close to them," confided Rainier breathlessly. At one dinner Elsa got one up on Hedda by taking over the piano to play Cole Porter tunes, accompanied by Rainier on drums. Then Ari bellowed the theme song (in Greek) from the movie Never on Sunday, while La Callas rattled the maracas but declined requests for an aria.

Revenge for Hedda. Next day, Hedda got her revenge when a reporter asked if she had launched more movie stars than Elsa. Snapped Hedda: "The only thing Elsa knows how to launch are boats." The big party reached its climax with a dinner for 125 cosmopolites, at which island dancers and singers performed for the guests and Hedda announced grandly that she would try to land them Hollywood contracts.

All in all, Rainier allowed, beautiful Majorca "is a wonderful escape place," adding hastily: "It will never compete with my principality."

* Also distressed: Giovanni Battista Meneghini, Maria's estranged husband, who, after seeing pictures of Callas with Onassis on the cruise, vowed to "pursue her to the end of the world, if necessary, to get a legal separation," added: "I feel pity for the poor girl, who is behaving improperly for a woman of her standing."

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