June Rose Bellamy
June Rose Bellamy | |
|---|---|
| ရတနာနတ်မယ် | |
 | |
| First Lady of Myanmar | |
| In role 24 December 1976 – May 1977 | |
| President | Ne Win |
| Preceded by | Ni Ni Myint |
| Succeeded by | Ni Ni Myint (remarried) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Yadana Nat-Mei 1 June 1932 British Burma[1] |
| Died | 1 December 2020 (aged 88)[2] Florence, Italy |
| Spouses | |
| Children | Michael Bellamy Postiglione Maurice Postiglione |
| Parent(s) | Herbert Bellamy Hteiktin Ma Lat |
| Known for | great-granddaughter of Prince Kanaung Mintha, ex-wife of Ne Win |
June Rose Bellamy, also Yadana Nat-Mei (Burmese: ရတနာနတ်မယ်; lit. Goddess of the Nine Jewels, 1 June 1932 – 1 December 2020)[3] was the First Lady of Myanmar as the fourth wife of the 4th President of Burma Ne Win.[4] She was a great-granddaughter of Crown Prince Kanaung.[5]
Early life and career
June Rose was born on 1 June 1932 in
Rangoon, Burma. After the war, as a teenager, she wrote an essay for a competition called "The World We Want", sponsored by the New York Herald Tribune, which won a prize to visit the US along with 30 international students. She became a TV host in the Philippines
and took up painting.
June Rose was offered a female lead role in the war film Ceylon. "It was so Hollywood, it was ridiculous; it was an insult to anything that had to do with Burma," she said.[6]
Marriage
First
A young Yadana Nat Mei and her mother Princess Hteiktin Ma Lat
June Rose was first married to Mario Postiglione, a physician and Senior Malaria advisor of
Rangoon, Damascus, Geneva and Manila. The couple divorced in 1954, after having two sons, Michael Bellamy Postiglione and Maurice Postiglione.[7]
Second
In 1963 June Rose met
CIA spy and divorced her.[8]
Later life and death
After she returned to Italy, June Rose taught International and
Italian cooking in Florence, as well as carrying on charitable work, through Rangoon-based doctors, putting young Burmese students through medical school. She has since written cookbooks, including The Soul of Spice, featured at the 2017 Turin Book Fair.[8]
June Rose died on 1 December 2020 at the age of 88.[9][10]
In popular culture
- Yadana Nat-Mei is the subject of Than Win Hlaing's historic book Yadana Nat-Mei or once First Lady, first published in 2015.[11]
- According to her son Michele Postiglione Bellamy, June Rose completed her memoirs before her death which is expected to be published in June 2021.[1]
- A documentary film about her life called Rhapsody in June is in the works.[1]
References
- ^ ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-02-05.
- ^ "ဦးနေဝင်း၏ ဇနီးဟောင်း ရတနာနတ်မယ် ကွယ်လွန်". Mizzima Daily (in Burmese). 2 December 2020.
- ^ Green, Penelope (3 February 2021). "June Rose Bellamy, Adventurous Burmese Princess, Dies at 88". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
- ^ Bayin, Anne (3 September 2019). "Lunch with a Myanmar Princess". The Irrawaddy.
- ^ "A Palace Assassination that Altered Myanmar's History". The Irrawaddy. 2 August 2019.
- ^ Hamish McDonald (4 January 2013). "Between two worlds". Griffith Review. Archived from the original on 4 January 2013.
- ^ "Yadana Nat-Mei, Myanmar princess and first lady, dies at 88". Coconuts. 2 December 2020.
- ^ a b "Hamish McDonald, "Between two worlds", Griffith REVIEW Edition 27: Food Chain". Archived from the original on 2010-06-13. Retrieved 2010-06-14.
- ^ "ကုန်းဘောင်မင်းဆက် ကနောင်မင်းသားကြီး၏ မြစ်တော်စပ်သူ ရတနာနတ်မယ် ကံတော်ကုန်လွန်". The Myanmar Times (in Burmese). 2 December 2020. Archived from the original on 5 June 2022. Retrieved 2 December 2020.
- ^ "Lunch With a Myanmar Princess". The Irrawaddy. 2 December 2020.
- ^ "ရတနာနတ်မယ် (သို့မဟုတ်) တခါတုန်းက သမ္မတကတော်". The Myanmar Times (in Burmese). 7 May 2015.