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Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Manuel Basil (Bluey) Mavroleon 1927-2009

Manuel Basil (Bluey) Mavroleon, who died 16 Feb, 2009, aged 81, was a 
ship owner, Grenadier Guardsman, yachtsman, pilot, patriot, a good 
shot and a famously generous host. He was born 17 April 1927, the son 
of Basil Mavroleon and his English wife Violet (née Withers). 
Mavroleon's first wife, Ruth, was a London policeman's daughter. They 
married in 1951 and divorced three years later. In 1956 he married 
Gioconda de Gallardo y Castro, with whom he had two sons, Carlos (d 
1998) and Nicholas. The marriage was dissolved in 1961, and he married 
thirdly, in 1963, Camilla Paravicini, later Countess Frédéric Chandon 
de Brailles, dau of Lt.-Col. Vincent Rudolph Paravicini, by his wife 
Mary Elizabeth Maugham (later Lady John Hope (see Linlithgow) & then 
Baroness Glendevon), dau of the playwright Somerset Maugham and niece 
of the 1st Viscount Maugham (extinct 1981). They had two daughters, 
(i) Syrie Mavroleon (engaged now married (?) to Mark R.A. Swire, scion 
of that LG family, eldest son of the late Humphrey Roger Swire (b 17 
Oct 1934, d 3 Jan 2004) by his 1st wife, the former Philippa Sophia 
Kidston-Montgomerie, scion of that LG family (now Marchioness 
Townshend, of Raynham), & (ii) Sacha Mavroleon, before this marriage 
too was dissolved. In 1982 Mavroleon married Caroline Tomé, who 
survives him together with his son Nicholas (a former husband of the 
actress Barbara Carrera) and his two daughters. His son Carlos, a 
journalist working for CBS who had converted to Islam, died in 
mysterious circumstances in a hotel room in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 
1998. 

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4 comments:

Unknown said...

I am deeply saddened to hear about Bluey's passing. He was a great man and a great father. Can anyone help me out and tell me a little bit more about Carlos, his son, there is very little info. on the web about him, what was he like as a child?, was he a good student? is it true he suffered from tuberculosis? Please do tell.

Unknown said...

I am deeply saddened to hear about Bluey's passing. He was a great man and a great father. Can anyone help me out and tell me a little bit more about Carlos, his son, there is very little info. on the web about him, what was he like as a child?, was he a good student? is it true he suffered from tuberculosis? Please do tell.

ahmad said...

I am deeply saddened to hear that Carlos has died and deeply saddened that his father has died too.

Carlos (karimullah) was a good friend of mine and he will be missed and will be always remembered in Afghanistan by whom he cameup in interface with.

Carlos was a kind, friendly and respectful person, he had gained a nick name among Mujahideen in Afghanistan as a "the good man".

I new him from Mujahideen time in Afghanistan, i would like to know what has happened to his death as in the website there are news of drugs using which i don't believe Carlos would have taken that much drugs to kill himself. I met him in London too at his warwick road apartment. I would like to meet his brother Nicky or his mother Giaconda if i could. i am reachable via newsalert@hotmail.co.uk

Ahmad

Unknown said...

I am another person who feels that Carlos was a marvelous friend of mine. We were students together at Harvard in the late 1970s. Many of the observations and anecdotes about Carlos that I have read on the web bring me back to our intense moments of togetherness. Yet the complexity and the contradictions of his story remind me of the same in our own, small story (the small but extraordinary story I shared with him). 30 years after our close encounter (of a year or two) I love him still, and I see in all the traces on the Internet that he was beloved by others in just the same way. How to understand now that I subscribed the planting of a tree in Jerusalem dedicated to "January 1980" - a month of particular communication with Carlos. I sense that each of us who writes - there are so many empassioned stories on the web - shares the same deep feeling for this darling friend. In some way, we are all together. I wish here to salute Elizabeth ARROT, who was his beloved during this same period. Claire Mays, Paris.