Filis Frederick (Courtesy of Meher Baba Travels)

Heroines of the Path:

Princess Norina Matchabelli

By Filis Frederick

 . . .  As I described above, I first "saw" Norina inwardly and felt a strong inner connection with her. She was born Norina Gilli, in Florence, Italy, in 1880. Her family was in business there. When just a young girl, she developed a severe case of TB and was sent to Switzerland to recover. On a home leave -- supposedly her last -- she was resting in her family's garden where Max Reinhardt, the famous stage director, Englebert Humperdinck, the composer and Karl Vollmoeller, the author of Das Mirakel [The Miracle], were discussing the difficulty of finding a woman to play the mime role of the Madonna in the stage play. It was Karl, Norina told me, who looked over at her and said, "Max, there is a Madonna."  

Mr. Reinhardt had been looking for two years. He did not want a professional actress, but someone with an authentic spiritual aura. Norina certainly had the right classic Renaissance beauty. Later she was called "one of the six great beauties of Europe."

The miracle of The Miracle was that this frail untrained girl went to London, under the stage name of Maria Carmi, endured the trying climate and exhausting rehearsals to become the hit of the play when it opened in 1912. She was not only healed of the TB, others were healed through her. The play had a long run and toured Europe. It was revived in 1924 to tour America. Norina played the role of the Madonna over 1,000 times. On the American tour she alternated nightly, not too amicably, with Lady Diana Manners, another international beauty. (It was after this tour she left the stage and for a short while opened an acting school in New York City, concentrating on mime.) 

Norina Matchabelli as Maria Carmi in Das Mirakel, 1912

On the first run of the play, she had married the author of The Miracle, Karl Vollmoeller. She took up a career in silent Italian films, many of them comedies. I saw one in which she played a neglected bride; the husband was played by an Italian comedian from whom it was said Charlie Chaplin copied some of his famous mannerisms -- the duck walk, top hat, cane. One critic called her acting "intense, sensitive, carefully measured, especially in Sperduti Nel Budo and Teresa Raquin." During the war, because her husband was German, she had to leave Italy and return to Germany where she made several films. Later she divorced Vollmoeller; and in 1917 married a Russian émigré, Prince Georges Matchabelli, who, before the Revolution, had been ambassador to Italy. For generations his had been the ruling family of the province of Georgia. It was a real love match.

Norina Matchabelli, 1932 -- From Elizabeth Chapin Patterson Photo Archives. 

In 1924 they moved to America where together they founded the well-known perfume business. The Prince was an amateur chemist and had an amazing ability, Norina told me, to smell an "astral" perfume, then duplicate it chemically. I well recall the exquisite scent, Ave Maria, he dedicated to her. It was she who designed the bottle after the Matchabelli crown. The firm was very successful.

But there were inner stirrings in Norina, and a longing for the spiritual life was beginning to make itself felt. She also was developing some alarming kinetic and psychic abilities. Claude Bragdon, the architect and pupil of Ouspensky, helped her a great deal at this time. Then, through her friend, Elizabeth Patterson, she heard of Shri Meher Baba who was shortly to arrive in America.

But Norina scoffed at the idea of a spiritual Master and refused at first to meet Him. She said to Jean Adriel, "How can you worship at the feet of any man, even though he calls himself a 'Master'? Women like ourselves who have had such deep inner experiences need no man to show us the way to God." When Jean told Norina of the phenomenon of tears people shed on meeting Baba, she said, "Well, when your 'Master' arrives, I must meet him. I, too, would like to weep!"

As soon as Baba's boat touched American shores, she did begin to weep, uncontrollably. Finally, she gave in and drove with her friend Elizabeth to Harmon on the Hudson. Her surrender was immediate and complete. Apparently Baba gave her some exalted inner experiences and a glimpse of past lives with Him. She told me He had said to her, "You have been My mother twice and My father once." She used to say later He told her she had been Joseph, the father of Jesus. He asked her if she would obey Him and she answered Yes, unhesitatingly. He asked her to stand at the bottom of the stairs and ask each one who came down from meeting Him for a monetary contribution. She obeyed 100%. One man gave his last bit - his bus fare back to New York, tied in a kerchief. Another man, head of a Theosophy group, refused indignantly. Baba later pointed out how the poor man gave his all and the so-called spiritual leader refused. (Of course Baba had the first man repaid generously at once). It was Norina's first lesson in obedience, probably a difficult one for a well-known princess. Since Baba does not ordinarily ask for money, it was perhaps a test devised for her benefit.

 1931 Harmon : ( L-R ) Anita de Caro, Elizabeth Patterson, Princess Norina Matchabelli and Malcolm Schloss. Courtesy of Beloved  Archives

Now her life began to change. The Prince also met Baba, but could not accept Him in the same way. Baba told him that just before he died, he would experience who Baba is. And this came to pass. He had a beautiful experience of Baba as the Christ just before he passed away (1935). He and Norina had been divorced in 1933, after sixteen years of marriage. Their worlds had grown apart.

Later the perfume corporation was sold, and I believe she spontaneously gave her share to Baba.** Her life revolved around Him more and more and she participated in the Master's many trips to the West. She went to India with the very first group of women in 1933 and also endured the publicity blast. Great capital was made of her title of Princess actually she had asked Baba if she could give it up, but Baba had said it would be useful in His work.

Norina sold the Matchabelli Perfume company to Saul Ganz for $US 250,000 in 1936

Next week we will continue this unfolding of the life of Princess Norina Matchabelli

from The Awakener Magazine, Volume 20, Number 2