Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who died at 100 on Wednesday, left behind a legacy that included a Nobel Peace Prize and a lasting impact on US foreign policy – but the diplomat was also known as a ladies’ man in his youth on Capitol Hill.
Kissinger was married twice after divorcing his first wife in 1964 but before he tied the knot with Nancy, 89, he courted several celebrities and successful women — earning him the title of “Washington’s Greatest Swinger,” according to a WWD article from 1971.
“…When discussing his life as the ‘Playboy of the Western Wing,’ [Kissinger] lit up,” the piece deleted interviews with White House staffers at the time. “It was a subject that interested him.”
Kissinger had affairs with several famous women before his death. During her single days, she was seen with the likes of Candice Bergen, Shirley MacLaine, Jill St. John, Marlo Thomas, Liv Ullman, and Samantha Eggar, as well as Diane Sawyer, then a White House staffer, according to Reuters.
Kissinger reportedly dated actress Liv Ullman, with whom they appeared together in 2017, before he married his wife in 1974. Jason Kempin Kissinger also reportedly dated reporter Diane Sawyer who was on the White House staff at the time. Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
Those close to the diplomat, however, said that Kissinger’s playboy persona was mostly fabricated by the media, the outlet reported.
Still, in a 1972 Playboll Club Bunnies poll, Kissinger emerged as the bunny’s choice for “the guy I’d most like to go out on a date with,” according to the Associated Press.
In the WWD interview – in which Kissinger asked reporter Kandy Stroud if he was trying to “seduce” her, noting that she liked his HotPants “a lot” – the Nixon cabinet member reveled in his single image.
“In fact, if you ask Henry how he likes being called ‘Washington’s greatest swinger,’ he unabashedly replies, ‘That’s not a compliment. That’s faint praise’,” Stroud wrote.
Kissinger is also rumored to have secretly married actress and Bond girl Jill St. John (pictured here together at a party in 1970) — though both denied the rumours. Getty Images Other movie stars seen with Nixon’s staff include Shirley MacLaine, pictured with Kissinger above in 1975. Bettmann Archive
Kissinger was rumored to be dating – and even secretly married to – Bond girl Jill St. John at the time of the interview.
Both denied the rumours, with St. John told WWD that what they had was a “great friendship” and never and never would be a “great romance.”
The “sex symbol of the Nixon Administration,” as Stroud described him, eventually married Manhattan-born philanthropist and Rockefeller staffer Nancy Maginnes in 1974.
The couple met when Kissinger was a professor at Harvard, where Magginnes was a student.
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
