Carol Mircea Lambrino

Carol Mircea Lambrino

Carol Mircea Lambrino (born January 8, 1920 in Bucharest , † January 27, 2006 in London ) was the firstborn son of the Romanian king Carol II. He comes from the liaison Carols with the ballerina Zizi Lambrino . Due to the improper marriage of his parents, Lambrino's claims to the throne of the House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen in Romania were not recognized.

Carol II, who had the reputation of being a playboy, married the Romanian ballerina Zizi Lambrino in 1918 in Odessa . A year later, the connection was canceled again, as the courtly rules introduced in the 19th century forbade heirs to the throne to marry Romanians. After the dissolution of their marriage, Zizi Lambrino emigrated with her newborn son and lived in Paris and London .

Lambrino's life was shaped by the struggle for recognition of his family origins. In the 1950s, courts in Portugal and France recognized him as the legitimate son of Carol II. In Romania it was not until 2003 that a court granted him his legitimacy . This decision challenged Michael , Lambrino's half-brother and Romanian king from 1927–1930 and 1940–1947. A final decision in the appeal proceedings before the Romanian Supreme Court is still pending.

Lambrino lived in London. He visited his home country only in 1938 for the funeral of his grandmother Marie of Edinburgh . A second trip took him back to Romania in 2005.

His first marriage was Helene Navagatzine (* 1925) in 1948. The marriage ended in divorce in 1958. Between 1960 and 1977 he was married to Thelma Williams (1930–1988). From 1984 until his death he lived with Antonia Colville (* 1939) in a marital union. He died on January 27, 2006 a few weeks after his 86th birthday after a long illness.

Web links

• The Daily Telegraph essay on Carol Lambrino
• Mircea Gregor Carol Lambrino, Prince of Romania on thepeerage.com , accessed October 4, 2015.
• Carol Lambrino, in Jurnalul Naţional