Serge Mdivani (1903-1936) married actress Pola Negri (1897-1987), in 1927. Negri was a world-famous actress and had had love affairs with Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino, but when she lost her fortune in the Stock Market Crash of 1929, Serge abandoned her and took up with opera singer Mary McCormic (1889-1981), one of the most famous sopranos of the 1920s and 1930s. She later divorced him in a highly publicized trial. In 1936, he married his former sister-in-law, Louise Astor Van Alen Mdivani (1910-1997; she had been his brother Alexei's wife from 1931 to 1932), but Serge died later that year in a polo accident in Florida.

(Illustration: Serge and Negri on their wedding day, 14 May 1927.)

Alexis Mdivani (1905-1935) married Louise Astor Van Alen, a member of the Astor family, in 1931, but divorced her a year later (she married his brother Serge in 1936). Alexis then married Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton (1912-1979), one of the world's richest women at the time, before divorcing her in 1935 and becoming involved with Salvador Dali's lover, 26-year-old Else Zarske, the divorced second wife of Heinrich Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon. Later that year, Alexis died at the wheel of his Rolls Royce near Mas Juny in Spain, aged only 30.

(Illustration: Alexis and Hutton in 1934.)

David Mdivani (1907-1984) married actress Mae Murray (1885-1965), a star of the silent screen, with whom he had a son, Koran David (1927-). David became her manager, and essentially destroyed her career by advising her to leave her contract with MGM. When he later bankrupted her, she divorced him in 1933, and they became involved in a fierce custody battle over their child. David then became involved with French actress, singer and model Arletty (1898-1992) before marrying Sinclair Oil heiress Virginia Sinclair (daughter of Harry Ford Sinclair) in 1944, with whom he had a son, Michael (1945-1990). David died in Los Angeles in 1984, having apparently talked of Arletty to the last.

(Illustration: Rudolf Valentino and Pola Negri, left, with David and Murray at their wedding in 1926.)

Isabelle Roussadana Mdivani (1906-1938), aka Roussie or Roussy. A sculptor, she married Josep Maria Sert (1874-1945), a Catalan Spanish muralist, the son of an affluent textile industry family and friend of Salvador Dalí, in 1928. She met Sert through her brother Alexis, who was a close friend of Dalí and his lover, Else Zarske (see above). She died ten years later in a hospital in Lausanne, aged only 32.

(Illustration: Serge Lifar posing for Isabelle Mdivani, 1930s.)

Nina Mdivani (died 1987) was married to international lawyer Charles Huberich from 1925 to 1936, then wed Dennis Conan Doyle, a son of Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. After his death, Nina married his secretary, Anthony Harwood, and she became concerned that the Conan Doyle literary estate was being badly run. Eventually, after a number of lawsuits between them, she bought out Conan Doyle’s widow Jean, his daughter, Jean, and Anna, the widow of his son Adrian, with a loan from the Royal Bank of Scotland, creating an Isle of Man corporation called Baskerville Investments. Literary agent Jonathan Clowes then went on to restore the income of the estate, but Nina and her husband quickly burned through the money without bothering to repay the bank. Baskerville went into receivership and was bought by Lady Etelka Duncan. The Conan-Doyle literary estate is still administered by Lady Duncan’s daughter, Andrea Milos-Plunket.

(Illustration: Dennis Conan Doyle and Nina.)