• Ben Shirinian’s feature directorial debut, The Housewife, has had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival

  Ben Shirinian’s feature directorial debut, The Housewife, has had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Armenian Film Society writes…

Calouste Gulbenkian entered history as a brilliant entrepreneur and philanthropist. However, his personal archives, declassified in Lisbon, and detailed research by modern biographers (such as Jonathan Conlin) paint a portrait of a deeply flawed, tyrannical, and mentally unstable man. "Mr. Five Per Cent" stripped his intimate life of any human element, transforming it into a cynical conveyor belt for the exploitation of minors, fueled by clinical paranoia, superstition, and total financial coercion. In this story, there is no room for romance or "complex Oriental traditions"—it is a narrative of cold-blooded, perverted consumption.

"Rejuvenating Tonic": Sex with Teenagers as Therapy

At the core of Gulbenkian’s sexual activity lay a primal, panic-driven fear of old age, decrepitude, and death. A ultimate hypochondriac, he blindly trusted his personal physician, Dr. Kemhadjian, who indoctrinated the tycoon with a pseudoscientific theory: an aging male body could extract vital energy and "rejuvenate" itself exclusively through regular intimate contact with prepubescent or barely mature girls. Sex was reduced to the level of an injection or an enema.

In Gulbenkian’s personal encrypted diaries, the names of women, descriptions of their appearance, or any emotional reflections were entirely absent. Instead, he kept a rigorous ledger of sexual acts. The billionaire meticulously maintained a "health chart," recording the exact date and time of intercourse, the age of the next victim (a metric for the "quality" of the material), and his physiological indicators the following morning (blood pressure, pulse, bowel movements, and energy levels).

If a therapeutic effect in the form of a surge of energy failed to occur, Gulbenkian would reprimand his secretaries and procurers, demanding a replacement for the "defective product," arguing that he had paid vast sums of money and the "medicine had not worked."

Age Thresholds and Legal Slavery Under NDAs

The darkest and most criminal aspect of Gulbenkian’s life—which people long attempted to hush up—was the age of his concubines. Archival documents reveal that his agents in Paris and London deliberately targeted girls aged 15 to 18, with some records indicating an interest in even younger nymphets. By the criminal law standards of even the first half of the 20th century, this constituted a crime; thus, the operation functioned under absolute secrecy.

The tycoon’s primary procurer in Paris was Madame Thompson, the housekeeper of the Hotel Ritz. She organized a fully functional department for sourcing "live cargo." Madame Thompson sought out girls from severely impoverished provincial families or desperate corps de ballet dancers. Before entering Gulbenkian’s bed, these minors underwent humiliating, detailed physical examinations by his personal physicians to verify virginity and the absence of diseases.

The girls' families were paid sums that were astronomical for that era, effectively purchasing their silence and consent to the child's exploitation. Unconscionable contracts with draconian Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) were signed with the young women themselves (or their guardians). The slightest mention of Gulbenkian’s name or the terms of their "employment" triggered immediate financial ruin—the contract was canceled, and the mogul’s lawyers destroyed the family through lawsuits.

The assembly line operated seamlessly. As soon as a concubine reached 22 to 25 years of age, Gulbenkian deemed her "old" and unfit for rejuvenation. The legal disposal protocol was then enacted: the woman was paid a final lump-sum buyout (equivalent to modern-day $200,000–$300,000) or provided a modest apartment, subject to one condition—she was required to immediately marry a man designated by Gulbenkian’s lawyers (typically minor clerks or impoverished accomplices) and leave the city permanently. The tycoon fastidiously erased these women from his life like discarded medical instruments.

Clinical Paranoia: Sex Espionage and a Golden Wash-Bay for Intimate Hygiene

Gulbenkian placed zero value on human life and trusted no one. His paranoia bordered on madness. He harbored a obsessive dread that his underage mistresses might secretly meet with peers or other men at his expense. To control his "harem," he hired a professional detective agency. Spies maintained round-the-clock surveillance on the apartments where the girls lived, logging everyone who approached their doors.

It was on these grounds that the dirtiest family scandal unfolded. Detectives reported to Calouste that his own son, Nubar Gulbenkian, had secretly slept with one of his young favorites. The tycoon viewed this not as betrayal or family drama, but as the theft of his personal property. Enraged beyond measure, he publicly cursed his son, stripped him entirely of funding, initiated ruinous lawsuits against him, and wrote him out of his will. His son had encroached upon the father's "biological resource," and Gulbenkian retaliated with dictatorial cruelty for the rest of his life.

The intimate encounters themselves resembled preparations for a surgical procedure in an isolation ward rather than romantic dates. The tycoon was obsessed with cleanliness and had a maniacal fear of contracting infections. In his Paris home, a specialized shower niche fully lined with pure gold was constructed. Before entering bed and immediately after ejaculation, Gulbenkian would stand naked in this niche while servants blasted him under pressure with disinfectant solutions and hot water at precisely calibrated temperatures. A medical kit containing ointments, powders, and antiseptics was always kept bedside. Before intimacy, the girls were forced to wash with specialized soap under the supervision of servants, and the act itself was aborted if the mogul noticed the slightest draft—he would instantly panic, scream at the staff, and terminate the "therapy session."

Using His Wife for Business and the "Rich Turk" Lifestyle

Attempts by certain historians to whitewash Gulbenkian through his relationship with his wife, Nevarte Essayan, collapse upon detailed document examination. Their marriage was a cynical business and social alliance in which his wife served as a convenient facade. Nevarte was fully aware that her husband slept with underage girls, but turned a blind eye in exchange for blank checks, jewelry, and the freedom to conduct extramarital affairs.

Gulbenkian treated his wife as a valued corporate asset. Within the corridors of the European elite, it was common knowledge that the tycoon used Nevarte’s sexual allure and emancipation as "bait" to advance his oil interests. He personally encouraged her flirting and close contact with influential ministers, bankers, and competitors if it helped him secure another 5% share of profits. Her body and charm were bargaining chips in his business, no different from the bodies of his underage concubines.

To Gulbenkian, women occupied the same status as material objects. This is underscored by his attitude toward his Cartier and René Lalique jewelry collection. Spending millions on the world's finest diamonds, he strictly forbade his wife or mistresses from touching or wearing them under pain of death. Locking the gems in safes, he declared these jewels his true, pure "immaculate concubines" that belonged solely to him. The maximum permission granted to the women in his orbit was to sit on the floor of the room while Gulbenkian personally retrieved the stones to admire their brilliance in complete solitude.

Even his famous final gesture—ordering every rose in his estate cut to cover Nevarte's coffin following her death in 1952—is categorized by biographers not as a display of love, but as the ultimate demonstration of a despot's possessiveness. He showered roses not upon a beloved woman, but upon a valuable asset leaving his balance sheet.

Calouste Gulbenkian lived to be 86 years old, purchasing the bodies of young girls and calculating the efficiency of their use in his encrypted notebooks until his final days. His lifestyle was not the eccentricity of a genius, but pure, refined sociopathy. Armed with absolute financial power, he constructed an ecosystem of legalized violence, espionage, and exploitation around himself—proving that given enough money, any crime against morality and human dignity can be transformed into an efficiently operating business process.

Liana Aghajanyan

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