107 - The Arts ¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶ a BUY Item#18 b c 22 23 24
		Returnˆ To Top'

107is Anastasia Did Anastasia, The Russian Princess
Really Exist? Yes she did and you can get the facts in - -

"ANASTASIA ! IS IT REALLY YOU . . . ? Both the Book and DVD will be released in July 2003.
The title of Patte's new book and DVD came from one of many suggested quotes from newspaper and magazine articles during Patte's and Maria Rasputin in depth search for the genuine Anastasia in the 60s,

"ANASTASIA ! IS IT REALLY YOU . . . ?"

"ANASTASIA RE-DISCOVERED" (An Intimate look)

"RASPUTIN MEETS ANASTASIA . . . sounds like the title of a spooky movie..

Chicago Daily News, August 19. 1968 (by Robert J. Herguth) - "WHEN YOU HAVE A RASPUTIN IN THE HOUSE . . . you have an albatross around your neck."

Washington Post, Saturday, August 24, 1968 (by Judith Martin Washington Post staff writer) - "ON A VISIT TO THE U.S. LAST WEEK, SHE FOUND AN IMPORTANT BACKER . . . Maria Rasputin, 69, daughter of the "Mad Monk" who held dark dominance over the Czarina."

TIME MAGAZINE, August 23, 1968 - "OFTEN CALLED THE MYSTERY WOMAN OF THE 20TH CENTURY" she claims to De the Grand Duchess Anastasia.

Washington Star, Monday August 12, 1968. (Brian Kelly) - "ANOTHER CHAPTER HAS BEEN ADDED, . . . to the "cloak and dagger" story of Mrs. Anna Anderson.

The Daily Progress, August 8, 1968 "In Charlottesville, Va. is Mrs. Anna Anderson, the woman who claims to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia. "

The News and Observer, August 11, 1968. (MarshailLancaster). "Only Miss Barham and Mrs. Anderson's benefactor witnessed the meeting last night between the two women who may have known each other intimately at the Czar's court."

The Evening Star, Washington, D.C. August 12, 1968 (Brian Kelly) "A 67 year old Russian woman who claims she is Grand Duchess. Anastasia, the sole survivor of the family of Czar Nicholas II massacred by Communist revolutionaries 50 years ago, is living in self-imposed secrecy . . .

Richmond Times Dispatch, August 9, 1968, "Maria Rasputin's full endorsement that Mrs. Anderson is Anastasia can be expected to have some bearing on history. . . "

The Daily Progress, August 14, 1968 (Rey Berry) - "More than a social visit is involved when the chief contender for recognition as Anastasia and Rasputin's daughter get together for the first time."

The Daily Progress, August 14, 1968 ( Rey Barry) - I WONDER WHATEVER HAPPENED TO . . . .. ANASTASIA?

"ANASTASIA ! IS IT REALLY YOU . . . ?
Introduction MORE

One day when Patte Barham and I were thumbing through a photograph album, she pointed, "Here's a picture of me with Maria Rasputin and Mrs. Anderson. Can you imagine anyone believing this woman was once a grand duchess? But she had us fooled for a while. My little escapade cost me a few thousand dollars."
•••• Patte had already written a memoir of Rasputin, the alleged "Mad Monk" from Siberia, who was the power behind the Russian throne for a time. The collaboration with his daughter, "RASPUTIN, THE MAN BEHIND THE MYTH", was published in 1977 by Prentice-Hall and the paperback editions by Warner Books in 1980.
••••• "But, Patte," I asked, "if you have written a manuscript about your personal experience with Mrs. Anna Anderson, why haven't I heard about it? Why hasn't it been published?
••••• "Because it doesn't have a happy ending!
••••• "People want to read books with happy endings, you know that. Everything that's ever been done about Anna Anderson has a happy ending, . . . the play, the movies, . . . There she is, the Grand Duchess Anastasia, . . . the lights dim slowly as she walks off into the purple and red sunset to Zurich, to a special numbered account at the Banque Suisse.
••••• "Well, that's not the way it happened. She appeared to be confused -- other times quite lucid -- and now and then she would go into complete withdrawal. I did feel sorry for her, and so did Maria Rasputin, . . . but a lot of unscrupulous people who seemingly trained her could have been involved in a 'Pavlov' experiment. When Mrs. Anderson said, "I AM ANASTASIA", she believed it. She had learned that when she said, "I am Anastasia", everyone listened. Of course, they didn't really care about her. However, if it could be proven that she was the real Anastasia, she might come into all the money her father had placed in those foreign banks, and that is what they wanted. Not her, . . . they wanted the money."
••••• After lunch, I went upstairs and found the manuscript. I took it home and started reading it when I went to bed. I could not put it down. The sun was streaming through my bedroom window when I finished. It was six in the morning, and I had just lived through a few brief weeks in the life of Patte Barham, Maria Rasputin and Mrs. Anna Anderson.
••••• Book II is Patte Barham's manuscript as she had written it in 1968. Little has changed, except for the addition of this introduction which Patte asked me to write.
••••• This is the real story -- and it is a better story for want of the happy ending. It focuses on the greed and ingenuity of people. People who have learned to take tragedy and failure and turn it into success.
••••• Who is to say that the means do not justify the end? They might well have been successful. Certainly they cannot be faulted for trying.
••••• It isn't really the story about a Russian Grand Duchess, . . . it's a story about people, . . . and to what lengths they will go for fame, fortune and security.
••••• On the one side of the drama were those persons who tutored and manipulated Mrs. Anderson, trying thereby to lip their way into the vaults of the Banks of England, China and Switzerland. On the other side were those who mined the drama for all it was worth and who sincerely believed in this woman's story and took up her cause to the bitter end. Of course, poor Mrs. Anderson never received a dime from the endeavors of others -- either way.
••••• It isn't really an unhappy story. It's a story of survival, and the lengths to which people will go to survive.
••••• But the denouement of this story has yet to be written, while that treasure of the Romanovs remains in foreign lands -- and it could stay there forever, unless someone can find and literally dig up the Czarina's personal jewels and gold from the burial place beneath the sands of the Gobi Desert.
••••• From the information that I have seen, I am convinced that it is there. And I am not the first. One would have to be naive in the extreme to attempt to pull the wool aver the eyes of William Randolph Hearst, but he too was convinced enough to begin to mount an expedition into the Gobi. His plans, unfortunately, were thwarted by World War II and ultimately, his death.
••••• ay when Patte Barham and I were thumbing through a photograph album, she pointed, "Here's a picture of me with Maria Rasputin and Mrs. Anderson. Can you imagine anyone believing this woman was once a grand duchess? But she had us fooled for a while. My little escapade cost me a few thousand dollars."
••••• Patte had already written a memoir of Rasputin, the alleged "Mad Monk" from Siberia, who was the power behind the Russian throne for a time. The collaboration with his daughter, "RASPUTIN, THE MAN BEHIND THE MYTH", was published in 1977 by Prentice-Hall and the paperback editions by Warner Books in 1980.
••••• "But, Patte," I asked, "if you have written a manuscript about your personal experience with Mrs. Anna Anderson, why haven't I heard about it? Why hasn't it been published?
••••• "Because it doesn't have a happy ending!
••••• "People want to read books with happy endings, you know that. Everything that's ever been done about Anna Anderson has a happy ending, . . . the play, the movies, . . . There she is, the Grand Duchess Anastasia, . . . the lights dim slowly as she walks off into the purple and red sunset to Zurich, to a special numbered account at the Banque Suisse.
••••• "Well, that's not the way it happened. She appeared to be confused -- other times quite lucid -- and now and then she would go into complete withdrawal. I did feel sorry for her, and so did Maria Rasputin, . . . but a lot of unscrupulous people who seemingly trained her could have been involved in a 'Pavlov' experiment. When Mrs. Anderson said, "I AM ANASTASIA", she believed it. She had learned that when she said, "I am Anastasia", everyone listened. Of course, they didn't really care about her. However, if it could be proven that she was the real Anastasia, she might come into all the money her father had placed in those foreign banks, and that is what they wanted. Not her, . . . they wanted the money."
••••• After lunch, I went upstairs and found the manuscript. I took it home and started reading it when I went to bed. I could not put it down. The sun was streaming through my bedroom window when I finished. It was six in the morning, and I had just lived through a few brief weeks in the life of Patte Barham, Maria Rasputin and Mrs. Anna Anderson.
••••• Book II is Patte Barham's manuscript as she had written it in 1968. Little has changed, except for the addition of this introduction which Patte asked me to write.
••••• This is the real story -- and it is a better story for want of the happy ending. It focuses on the greed and ingenuity of people. People who have learned to take tragedy and failure and turn it into success.
••••• Who is to say that the means do not justify the end? They might well have been successful. Certainly they cannot be faulted for trying.
••••• It isn't really the story about a Russian Grand Duchess, . . . it's a story about people, . . . and to what lengths they will go for fame, fortune and security.
••••• On the one side of the drama were those persons who tutored and manipulated Mrs. Anderson, trying thereby to lip their way into the vaults of the Banks of England, China and Switzerland. On the other side were those who mined the drama for all it was worth and who sincerely believed in this woman's story and took up her cause to the bitter end. Of course, poor Mrs. Anderson never received a dime from the endeavors of others -- either way.
••••• It isn't really an unhappy story. It's a story of survival, and the lengths to which people will go to survive.
••••• But the denouement of this story has yet to be written, while that treasure of the Romanovs remains in foreign lands -- and it could stay there forever, unless someone can find and literally dig up the Czarina's personal jewels and gold from the burial place beneath the sands of the Gobi Desert.
••••• From the information that I have seen, I am convinced that it is there. And I am not the first. One would have to be naive in the extreme to attempt to pull the wool aver the eyes of William Randolph Hearst, but he too was convinced enough to begin to mount an expedition into the Gobi. His plans, unfortunately, were thwarted by World War II and ultimately, his death.

Patte Barham
Senior Editor of Television International Magazine™
-----Patte Barham was a protege of the powerful newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst and spent much of her youth at San Simeon (Hearst's Castle). It was her early experiences at the castle, where she first heard of Anastastia and her Royal family, t;he Czar of Russia.