She was born
Eleonora Hermina Gregor in
Görz, a town which then belonged to
Austria-Hungary, but is now part of Italy, to Austrian-Jewish parents. Her first husband was
Mitja Nikisch, a pianist and son of celebrated orchestral conductor Arthur Nikisch. They divorced circa 1934. In the mid-1930s, Gregor became the mistress of the married vice chancellor of Austria, the
Austro-fascist, nationalist politician
Prince Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg, with whom she had a son, Heinrich von
Starhemberg (1934–1997). On 2 December 1937, five days after the prince's marriage to his first wife (the former Countess Marie-Elisabeth von
Salm-Reifferscheidt-Raitz) was annulled, he and Gregor wed in Vienna. In 1938, the Starhembergs emigrated to France through Switzerland, and her husband joined the French Army; cut off from their money and 80 family estates, they were supported for a period by Starhemberg's close friend
Friedrich Mandl, the Austrian armaments magnate. In 1942, the Starhembergs moved to Argentina where they lived under humble circumstances. She was depressed by her exile to South America, and many sources claim her early death in Viña del Mar, Chile was a suicide. However, her biographer Hans Kitzmüller calls a suicide unlikely and notes that her death was probably from natural causes. ==Career==