Olivier Chandon de Brailles was the only son of Frederic Chandon de Brailles, chairman of the Moët-Hennessy group and heir to the Moët & Chandon champagne fortune. A graduate of
Le Rosey in Switzerland, he served in the
French Air Force and later moved to New York City. There he attended
New York University to study marketing and worked in the sales department of
United Technologies. Earlier, he began racing cars in Europe at age 18, whereby he assumed the shortened name of Olivier Chandon. He later resumed his race car career in the United States. While in New York Chandon lived in the Chelsea Hotel. Chandon had a romantic relationship with model
Christie Brinkley. The two first met at
Studio 54 where she was holding a party to promote her 1982 calendar. They then became an "item" for the gossip magazines. Chandon had phoned her less than an hour before the accident to arrange to meet her in
Palm Beach that evening. When told of the accident, a distraught Brinkley stayed in California. Olivier Chandon is buried in the
Laferté-sur-Aube cemetery, in
Haute-Marne. ==References==