Background
Of Portuguese, French, and American descent, she was born Donna Maria Beatrice Olga Alberta Caracciolo in London, England. Her father was Neapolitan nobleman Gennaro Caracciolo Pinelli, Duke Caracciolo (1849-?), eldest son of the 4th Duke of Castelluccio, while her mother was the former Marie Blanche Sampayo (1849-1890), a daughter of Antoine François Oscar Sampayo, a French diplomat who served as that country's minister to Portugal, and his American wife, Virginia Timberlake. Her great-grandmother Margaret O'Neill Eaton was the central figure in the Petticoat affair, a scandal that plagued President Andrew Jackson. Another great-grandparent was a Marshal of France, Count Auguste Regnaud de Saint-Jean d'Angély.
To many individuals who observed the arc of Olga's early life the most distinguished familial connection was her relationship with Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales and later King Edward VII. Though officially her godfather, the British royal was known to be one of Blanche Caracciolo's lovers and, consequently, suspected of being her daughter's actual father. Most stories related about Olga's youth describe her as illegitimate, though surely this means her legal father, the duke, was not her biological father. According to French historian Philippe Jullian, the British king believed that Olga was his child and therefore went to great lengths to ensure that she and her mother had sufficient material comforts. Other potential fathers have been identified, however. The strongest candidate to many was Stanislaus Augustus, 3rd Prince Poniatowski and 3rd Prince of Monte Rotondo (1835-1908), a married former equerry of Napoleon III, whom Olga reportedly resembled and with whom the newlywed Duchess Caracciolo reportedly eloped on 1 September 1869, the very day her arranged marriage with the duke took place.
The duke and duchess separated soon after Olga's birth, and the child spent her youth in Dieppe, France, at a house called Villa Olga, where she lived with her mother and maternal grandmother. (Since the duchess's father-in-law, the Duke of Castelluccio, was still living, she used the title Duchess Caracciolo.)
In 1916 Olga de Meyer took the forename Mahrah upon the advice of an astrologer.
Read more about this topic: Olga De Meyer
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