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MANNERS & MORALS

Almost before golden-haired hazel-eyed Joanne Connelley was old enough to tell time, her mother was ready to tell her fortune. Mother was Margaret Dorner Connelley Watts, an ex-debutante turned saleslady (after two faded marriages) in a Manhattan East Side dress salon. Conventtrained Joanne was her only daughter (by husband No. 1), and only passport back to the glittering world of Manhattan society. Nine years ago Joanne, a ripe, 18-year-old beauty, began to see the same dazzling future that her mother saw, began to understand that a radiant smile and a certain passive sophistication (plus society friends) could conquer the social whirl.

Cultivated like a hothouse orchid by Mother, Joanne was discovered by a smart young pressagent named Ted Howard. In Joanne, he saw another Brenda Frazier, fabled (later fate-buffeted) glamor debutante of the '30s. He taught Joanne to mingle with the right people in the right places--the Stork Club, El Morocco ,"21." She was a LIFE cover girl; the tabloids called her "the 1948 season's golden girl." Soon all the dreams came true: Joanne became engaged (after four proposals) to lanky British Millionheir Sportsman Robert Sweeny, 37, California-born wartime R.A.F. hero, onetime (1937) British amateur golf champion. Said the golden girl: "We're both so idealistic and romantic. We want everything just perfect."

Only Eighteen. Handsome Bob Sweeny had been around (as sometime playmate to Five and Dime Heiress Hutton and Lady Stanley), and he was twice Joanne's age. But Mother thought the match was just right: "Eighteen is a wonderful age to marry. I was married young. Age doesn't make any difference. Look at the Duke and Duchess--she's a few years older than he is,* and they're a divine couple." After the wedding, glitter returned to Mother's life; she quit the dress shop, rented a penthouse in Paris. Meanwhile, at home in Palm Beach, Bob Sweeny began spending more time on golf, less around the house. Despite the birth of two daughters and the gay social life, Society Matron Joanne soon felt "as if I had been missing out on life." She agonized over her diet, sought new companionship on the gaudier fringes of the Palm Beach sporting set. "Remember," Sweeney once explained, "she is young, very young." But in 1953, he won an uncontested divorce--and custody of the children--after naming International Playboy Porfirio Rubirosa as Joanne's lover.

Still young (23), still beautiful, Joanne flew to Switzerland, looking for new faces, new excitement. There she met sleek Bolivian Tin Heir Jaime Ortiz-Patino, 25, and her mother urged her to marry him. The night before the wedding in Paris, Joanne rebelled, cried: "You pushed me into this!" Mother won out, and the couple were married in her apartment. Patino gave his bride $250,000 in jewelry to show his affection, but the marriage was brief. After a 49-day honeymoon on Capri, Joanne disappeared, taking her money and jewels. Jaime found her in a dingy pensione, seriously ill after a sleeping-pill suicide attempt. He took her to Rome for treatment, and she fled again, led him a chase to Lausanne, Paris, London, then back to Rome. In July 1954 Patino filed suit for divorce on the grounds of desertion.

Only Mother. Testimony was bitterly sordid on both sides. Joanne called her husband a "drug-sodden wife beater" who so abused her that she "lay down to die." Patino in turn denounced her as an adulterous, "worthless" woman who "did everything for money," described her excessive drug-taking, demanded that she return his gifts of jewelry. With Mother on hand, Joanne holed up in a lush but lonely ten-room villa in Switzerland's Jura Mountains and waited for her attorneys to wring a financial settlement from Patino.

Three weeks ago the legal battle ended; Joanne had won $190,000 in insurance and jewelry. Said a Swiss friend: "She seemed relieved that it was all over. She was a kind girl, with a vivid interest in people and things. All she needed was a man who could really lead her." But Joanne had only Mother, and the lonely isolation (Joanne spoke no French or German) of her Swiss villa had only intensified her unhappiness. Over the months her drug intake increased alarmingly--sleeping pills to stop her "headaches," Dexedrine to wake her up, reducing pills to curb her appetite.

One morning last week the maid found Joanne Connelley Sweeny Patino, 27, unconscious and pale, breathing heavily. Two hours later, the rich little poor girl was dead--of a heart attack, the doctor said. By her bedside was her mother; her last decision on behalf of the golden girl had been to send for the priest.

*Poetic license; the Duke of Windsor is two years her senior.

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