Dimitri Jorjadze
Prince Dimitri Aleksandrovich Jorjadze was a Georgian nobleman, Ambassador Hotel executive and race car driver.Biography
He was a member of the Georgian nobility of Tbilisi from the Jorjadze family, who became exiled after the overthrow of Tsarist Russia and the subsequent Bolshevik takeover.
The 6'3" Prince was probably best known in racing circles. In early July 1931, he won the Touring Car Grand Prix, 24 Hours of Spa, in Belgium. He covered the greatest distance, 1,580.7 miles at a speed of 65.8 miles per hour, in a Mercedes-Benz SSK with Goffredo Zehender.In June 1940, he bought the historic South Carolina plantation known as Boone Hall, eight miles from Charleston in the US, from Thomas A. Stone of Canada. He raced Thoroughbreds under the nom de course, Boone Hall Stable. Most notable of his horses was Princequillo, who in 1943 was the fastest distance runner in the United States and who became a two-time Leading sire in North America and a seven-time Leading broodmare sire in North America.
Jorjadze was associated with Prince Serge Obolensky in the hotel business in New York City.Private life
He was married twice. His first wife was Audrey Emery, the American-born former wife of Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia; he married her in March 1937 in Maidstone, England). The marriage ended in divorce. He married, secondly, in 1954, to Sylvia Ashley, a onetime English showgirl who was the former wife of Major Lord Anthony Ashley-Cooper and Clark Gable, and the widow of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.
