Former model and businessman Mario Jutard, who once shared the life of the Monegasque princess, was found dead on the island of Santo Domingo.
By Marc Fourny
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Trist news for Stephanie of Monaco. One of her childhood sweethearts died in dramatic circumstances in the Dominican Republic: Mario Oliver Jutard, 71, with whom she had a mad passion in the 1980s, was found murdered on October 26 in the seaside town of Las Terrenas, in the north of the island, where the former businessman owned a villa.
According to Deadline, it was a robbery gone wrong. The police discovered him with head injuries and strangulation marks around his neck, before realizing that several Rolexes and other valuables had disappeared from his safe…
Mario Jutard entered the life of Stéphanie of Monaco in the mid-1980s. At the time, the daughter of Rainier and Grace Kelly was Princess Ouragan, who suddenly became a figure in French showbiz with her famous eponymous hit which went on loop on the radios. Stéphanie scoured the nightclubs, collected boyfriends (Anthony Delon, Rob Lowe…), became the favorite target of the paparazzi and sold paper to the tabloid press… In 1986, she crossed paths with Mario Jutard, a settled Frenchman in Los Angeles, thirteen years her senior, who owns several nightclubs including Le Vertigo. A few months later, she moved in with him in a villa in Beverly Hills.
American dream
Begins an American parenthesis, where the Princess of Monaco can savor a quieter life, far from the hustle and bustle of Paris or Monaco. “I live a normal life, not the life of a star, she confided to the Los Angeles Times in 1987. Our favorite thing to do together is lie in the sun, see our friends, like normal people, and then have a barbecue at home. We have our very close friends, and that’s it…”
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Their romance lasts several months, the time of a few shots taken at the Roland-Garros tournament or during a romantic vacation in Tenerife, before seeing Stéphanie regain her freedom and her wandering life – she ends up falling in love with her bodyguard Daniel Ducruet , whom she married in 1995.
Mario Jutard has had both a reputation as a bad boy and as a prince of the night, Deadline recalls, with splendid women on his arm, a glass of champagne in hand, always in first class… This former model, who became a waiter, doorman , then a disc jockey, had gone to the United States to live his American dream and had managed to become one of the kings of Los Angeles nightlife by running several clubs and popular restaurants… Before suddenly dying on the paradisiacal coasts of the Dominican Republic.