Alexandre-Athenase Noghès, 1st Husband of Princess Antoinette of Monaco

by Scott Mehl
© Unofficial Royalty 2021

Alexandre-Athenase Noghès was the lover and first husband of Princess Antoinette of Monaco, with whom he had three children. The couple married three months after their last child was born, but divorced three years later.

Alexandre-Athenase Noghès was born in Monaco on June 15, 1916, the son of Antony Noghès and Marie Markellos-Petsalis. His father, Antony, served in the Monegasque government, responsible for the procurement, manufacturing, and sale of tobacco in the principality. An avid racing fan, he served as Commissioner-General of the Monte Carlo Automobile Club (his own father was the club’s first president), and organized the first Monaco Grand Prix which took place in 1929. He later succeeded his father as President of the club in 1940. Alexandre had one sister and one half-brother from his father’s second marriage:

  • Bathilde Noghès (1913-2002) – married Grégoire Livieratos, had issue
  • Gilles Noghès (born 1947) – married (1); Martine Peyret, no issue, divorced; (2) Florence Leroux, had issue, divorced; (3) Ellen Van Faasen, no issue. Gilles has worked in the Monegasque government since 1979, and in 2006, he became the Principality’s first Ambassador to the United States and served as Ambassador to the United Nations.

Aleco (as he was known) became a tennis player, playing in tournaments around Europe and representing Monaco in the Davis Cup. He later became a lawyer. He was married three times. His first wife was Marie Angèle Bastel, who he married in Monaco.

The couple had one son before divorcing:

  • Lionel Noghès (born 1941) – race car driver for several years until suffering serious injuries in a crash at Le Mans. He has since had several businesses including a home furnishings company and published an autobiography in 2016.

Princess Antoinette of Monaco, Baroness de Massy. photo: AP

In the mid-1940s, he began a relationship with Princess Antoinette of Monaco, the elder sister of Prince Rainier III of Monaco.

The couple had three children together:

  • Elizabeth-Ann de Massy, born January 13, 1947 – married Baron Bernard Alexandre Taubert-Natta, had issue, divorced; (2) Nicolai Vladimir Costello, had issue, divorced. Elizabeth-Ann died on June 10, 2020
  • Christian Louis de Massy, born January 17, 1949 – married (1) María Marta Quintana y del Carril, had issue, divorced; (2) Anne Michelle Lütken, no issue, divorced; (3) Julia Lakschin, no issue, divorced; (4) Cécile Irène Gelabale, had issue, divorced.
  • Christine Alix de Massy, born July 8, 1951 – married (1) Charles Wayne Knecht, had issue; (2) Leon Leroy, no issue. Christine Alix died on February 15, 1989.

As they were illegitimate, the children all had the surname Grimaldi, until October 1951, when Antoinette was created Baroness de Massy, and they began using de Massy as their surnames. On December 4, 1951, Aleco and Antoinette were married in a civil ceremony held at the Monegasque Consulate in Genoa. The marriage legitimated their children and them places in the line of succession at the time. The marriage only lasted three years, and the couple divorced in 1954. Antoinette retained full custody of the children, and limited their contact with their father.

Aleco spent several years living on his yacht in Monaco before moving to the United States. There, he met his third wife Margaret “Margot” James. The couple married in Las Vegas on June 13, 1970, and eventually settled in California. Alexandre Athenase Noghès died in Los Angeles on February 16, 1999, just three months before his 83rd birthday.

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