In October 1960 she married Vincent Lee Hillyer, an American whose wife by a previous marriage had been a princess of the Iranian Pahlevi dynasty. Hillyer had converted to Islam and, as an honorary Iranian citizen, had close ties with the government in Teheran. In May 1961 he and Vitale sued the Pan American Petroleum Corp. of Tulsa, OK, for $30 million for allegedly reneging on an agreement to pay them an annuity of $25,000 and a 2-1/2 % share in net profits in exchange for Hillyer interceding with the Iranian government on an oil exploration contract.
