Zizi lambrino

Magda lupescu photo
Carol ii of romania
Helen of greece and denmark

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Elena Lupescu: A Femme Fatale to Interwar Romania

When it comes to the most hated women in the history of Romania, she probably comes second only to the other greatly loathed Elena, communist dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu’s wife. Elena (Magda) Lupescu loomed large in Romania’s fatal course of destiny from the mid-1920s to 1940. Streaked with gossip, rumours, scandal, royal bedchamber secrets and the published recollections of friends and foes, her history is one of many guises: a seductress who perverted a king’s sacred sense of duty to his country; the grey eminence, the “power behind the throne” that rapaciously pulled the strings of Romania’s politics and economics for a whole decade of turmoil; a semi-prostitute who defiled the image and reputation of the Romanian Royal House; a loyal lifetime companion to a misunderstood afflicted king; a daring, self-confident, bossy chic woman who was too modern for her time. She was probably all of that, but above all she was King Carol II’s love of his life.

“Duduia” (“the Damosel”), as he nicknamed her, “Lupeasca” (“that

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Helen of Greece and Denmark

Queen Mother of Romania

Helen of Greece and Denmark (Greek: Ελένη, romanized: Eléni; Romanian: Elena; 2 May 1896 – 28 November 1982) was the queen mother of Romania during the reigns of her son King Michael I (1927-1930 and 1940–1947). Her humanitarian efforts to save RomanianJews during World War II, led to her being awarded by the State of Israel with the honorific of Righteous Among the Nations in 1993.

Daughter of King Constantine I of Greece and his wife, Princess Sophia of Prussia, Helen spent her childhood in Greece, the United Kingdom and Germany. The outbreak of World War I and the overthrow of her father by the Allies in 1917 permanently marked her and also separated her from her favorite brother, the young Alexander I of Greece. Exiled in Switzerland along with most members of the royal family, Helen then spent several months caring for her father, plagued by disease and depression. In 1920, the princess met Carol, Crown Prince of Romania, who quickly asked her hand in marriage. Despite the bad reputation of the prince, Helen

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Magda Lupescu was the mistress, and then third wife of King Carol II of Romania. The couple was married several years after Carol abdicated the Romanian throne.

King Carol II of Romania and Magda Lupescu; Credit – Wikipedia

Elena “Magda” Lupescu was born in Iaşi, Romania on September 15, 1899, to Nicolae Lupsecu and Elise Falk. Her father was born Jewish but he converted to Orthodoxy and changed his surname to Lupescu. Her mother was also born Jewish but converted to Roman Catholicism before her marriage. Magda had one younger brother Constantin. Raised Catholic, Magda attended a Catholic boarding school in Bucharest.

On February 17, 1919, Magda married Ion Tâmpeanu, an officer in the Romanian Royal Army. They had no children and were divorced by 1923. Sometime in 1923, Magda met Crown Prince Carol, and by early 1925 a relationship had developed. By this time, Carol had already been married twice, first to Zizi Lambrino, a marriage that had been annulled, and was currently married to Princes Helen of Greece with whom he had o