His mistresses included Maria Callas, his wives Jackie Kennedy, his friends Winston Churchill, and his tastes big pleasure boats, giant worry beads and whaleskin-covered tomes.
But 100 years after his birth and three decades after his death, Aristotle Onassis and his opulent success remain far from elusive for the average Greek.
So much so that this week, as prime minister Costas Karamanlis opened an exhibit celebrating the life and times of the world's most famous Hellene, he exhorted his compatriots to emulate the man who almost single-handedly put Greek shipping on the map.
"He was and remains the stuff of legends," the leader said in a televised speech at the Benaki Museum. "What I hope is that [his] dynamism, entrepreneurial genius and ardent desire to give to his homeland will continue to inspire Greeks in the future."
Inspired or not, Greeks, it seems, can't get enough of Mr O. Within minutes of Mr Karamanlis inaugurating the collection, members of the cocktail-swilling elite were lining up to get a glimpse of the tycoon's lavish lifestyle.
Among the highlights: the golden Greek's dressing gown, monogrammed shirts, books, paintings, furniture and a Steinway, custom-made to withstand the damp on his beloved yacht the Christina, and especially commissioned for Callas.
But it is a previously unseen letter from the usually no-nonsense Callas, capturing the couple's torrid eight-year-long affair, that promises to be the biggest crowd-puller.
Written in English and addressed to "Aristo my love," the powerful, three-page missive ends: "I am yours - do as you will with me. Your soul, Maria."
"We wanted to advance beyond the myth, to show the real Onassis," said Anthony Papadimitriou, president of the charitable Alexander S Onassis Foundation which organised the exhibit. "Onassis was a man whom women loved, and not only for his money."
No Greek has so captured the travails of his country, or embodied the razzmatazz of the international jet set, as much as the rags-to-riches Onassis. Born into wealth in cosmopolitan Smyrna (Izmir in modern Turkey), his family lost everything during the disastrous Asia Minor campaign, when Greeks were evicted en masse in 1922.
Emigrating to Argentina, the young Onassis traded in tobacco before launching his shipping business. From then, there was no looking back as he expanded his empire, branching out from the seas to the skies with the foundation of Olympic Airways in the 1950s.
"Onassis lived a dream," said Leonidas Spangouras, gazing at pictures of the tycoon's home on his private island, Skorpios. "He was a reveller who became rich and famous and had great success with women," he added, pointing to the spot where paparazzi snapped Jackie O bathing naked. "It's a source of immense pride to us Greeks that he managed to get JFK's widow. I tell you, we all want to be like him."