Word: claretta
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...Claretta Petacci was the exception to the general rule. Mussolini made love to her in his usual perfunctory way ("He doesn't even take his boots off," she once complained), but he showed his affection by installing her in his private apartments a few steps away from his office, where she would "lie for hours on end, waiting for a visit from her master, reading and daydreaming." From childhood on (she was 29 years his junior), Claretta had slept with Mussolini's photograph under her pillow; to be his mistress had been her sole ambition...
...still mum on Beinto Mussulinis whereabouts. But now it urged the controlled Italian press to talk volubly on Benito Mussolini's love life. Practically every paper added details to a tale familiar to gossips: Quite by chance in a Roman swimming pool, Benito Mussonlini met voluptuous curly haired Claretta Petacci, daughter of an obscure but ambitious Roman family...
...Latin fancy was fired. Swiftly he put aside his other mistresses,* enthroned Claretta ina resident villa linked by private phone to the Palazzo Venezia. The new favorite flaunted her power. She managed the Duce's fan mail, dragged him on shopping tours, hired & fired officeholders in what Corriere della Sera called the manner of a "second-rate Maintenon," responsible for the "intellectual degradation of her passionate friend...
Infatuated Benito Mussolini often followed Claretta's counsel on foreign policy. During the Spanish Civil War General Francisco Franco petitioned Rome for two more divisions. "What shall I do?" the Duce asked his paramour. "Bimbo," she replied, "do send the divisions. General Franco is so simpatico." When the time came to attack Greece, Claretta approved because the Greek Ambassador had snubbed her at diplomatic receptions...
...Petacci family prospered, moved to a palace on Monte Mario. Claretta's physician brother became well-to-do. Claretta's mother became unofficial autocrat of Italian movies. Her sister Maria pleased the Duce, too. She became a radio and film star...