Lady Annabel Goldsmith
Encyclopedia
Lady Annabel Goldsmith (born 11 June 1934) is a British
socialite
and the eponym for a celebrated London
nightclub of the late 20th century, Annabel's
. She was first married for two decades to entrepreneur Mark Birley
, the creator of Annabel's, which she helped make a glamorous success as her husband's inaugural members-only Mayfair
club. Known in London as a society hostess, during the 1960s and the 1970s, she gained notoriety in gossip columns for her extramarital affair with Anglo-French financier Sir James Goldsmith
, who later became her second husband. A descendant and heiress of the Londonderry
family, her primary occupation has been as a mother of six children whose births span 25 years. She is also an author and founder of the Democracy Movement
, a Eurosceptic
pressure group. Her son Zac Goldsmith
is the Conservative
MP
for Richmond Park
.
into an Anglo-Irish
aristocratic family with its roots in Ulster
and County Durham
. Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart was born the daughter of Viscount Castlereagh, who later became the 8th Marquess of Londonderry, and Romaine Combe, who was the daughter of Major Boyce Combe from a middle-class family in Surrey
. She became Lady Annabel as a young girl in February 1949 when her father became Marquess on the death of his father, the famous Ulster Unionist politician the 7th Marquess of Londonderry. Her mother died of cancer in 1951, but the illness was kept a secret by her parents. She later said, "Cancer was such a taboo then - Mummy didn't even tell her sisters." Subsequently, her father became a chronic alcoholic and died from liver failure at 52 on 17 October 1955. "My father was a really wonderful man but after my mother died, we couldn't talk to him as we had done before. He couldn't face life without her and he turned into Jekyll and Hyde almost overnight," she explained.
She was named after her mother's favourite song, "Miss Annabel Lee", and grew up as a country child at her family's former estates of Mount Stewart
, Wynyard Park
, and Londonderry House
. She was educated at Southover Manor School
in Sussex
and Cuffy's Tutorial College in Oxford
. Awkward and shy, in her youth, she was an avid reader, equestrian
, and a Girl Guide for the Bullfinch Patrol. She transformed from an unconfident and self-described "skinny, gauche young girl" into a socialite during the 1950s and 1960s. As part of the London social circle, she is known for her sense of humour, down-to-earth personality, and love of children and dogs. Though never a drinker, she chain smoked until the age of 40.
and India Jane Birley
plus Jemima
, Zac
and Ben Goldsmith
. She has referred to herself as "an incredible mother, rather a good mistress, but not a very good wife". With six children and five miscarriages, her primary vocation was motherhood, which prompted her to say: "I'm not judgmental about women who work, but I was so besotted with my children I never wanted them out of my sight." She was also considered a mother figure by her nieces, Ladies Cosima and Sophia Vane-Tempest-Stewart, and the late Diana, Princess of Wales. As the wife and ex-wife of two unfaithful men, she explained her marriage philosophy to the Times
in 1987: "I can never understand the wives who really mind, the wives who set such store by fidelity. How extraordinary, and how mad they are. Because, surely, if the man goes out and he comes back, it's not actually doing any harm."
at the Caxton Hall register office in London. Birley famously paid tribute to her by naming in her honour his renowned nightclub, Annabel's
, which opened on 4 June 1963 and was run by Birley for more than forty years. During the 1960s, Lady Annabel was a constant presence at Annabel's, known as one of the grandest nightclubs of the sixties and seventies, where she entertained guests ranging from Ted
and Robert F. Kennedy
to Frank Sinatra
, Prince Charles
, Richard Nixon
, and Muhammad Ali
. "I used to be there every night, even when I had three small children to take to school the next day. It was like a second home to me," she recalled.
She raised her three children with Birley at Pelham cottage. Her eldest son Rupert, who was born on 20 August 1955, studied at Eton College
and Christ Church, Oxford
. In 1986, he disappeared off the coast of Togo
in West Africa
, where he was presumed drowned. "There really is nothing worse than losing a child - and there is something special about your first-born," she said, adding that, "Because I was so young when Rupert was born ... we were more like good friends than mother and son." Her second son Robin (b. 19 February 1958) is a businessman, whose face was disfigured as a child when he was mauled by a tigress at John Aspinall
's private zoo. Having let him go near the pregnant tigress, Lady Annabel said, "It was my own fault. I was, am, angry with myself." Her first daughter India Jane (b. 14 January 1961), the granddaughter of society portrait painter Sir Oswald Birley
, is an artist.
The Birleys separated in 1972 and later divorced in 1975 after the birth of her second child with James Goldsmith. "Our breakup was because of Mark's infidelities, not because I fell in love with Jimmy," she told Vanity Fair
writer Maureen Orth after Birley's death. Revealing that Birley had numerous other girlfriends from the beginning of their relationship, she added: "I think he was absolutely incapable of being faithful. He was a serial adulterer. Like a butterfly, he had to seduce every woman. Despite their divorce, the two remained best friends and soulmates, talking to each other every day and holidaying together until Birley's death in August 2007. Birley said they were "the true loves of each other's lives".
. Attracted by his flashiness, she said, she was "Mad about Jimmy. Loved Mark desperately." Though both she and Goldsmith, who was then married to his second wife Ginette Lery, believed that the affair would be a passing fling, it soon gained her notoriety in London's gossip columns as a modern British mistress. For years, she repeatedly refused Goldsmith's suggestion of starting a family, stating, "I didn't want to hurt Mark any more than I had." She was eventually coaxed into having his children by their mutual friend John Aspinall, an estranged former friend of Mark Birley who introduced her to Goldsmith.
While still legally married to Birley, she gave birth to Jemima
(b. 30 January 1974), who later married cricketeer Imran Khan
; and Zac
(b. 20 January 1975), who is the estranged husband of writer Sheherazade Ventura-Bentley
. Her last child Ben Goldsmith
was born on 28 October 1980 at 46, after two consecutive miscarriages. The children were raised in Ormeley Lodge
in Ham, London
. The half-Jewish and half-Catholic
Goldsmith was an occasional presence in their lives as he divided time between three families. In 1978, Goldsmith and Lady Annabel married solely to legitimize their children. "We didn't marry as a great act of passion. More to make sure that the children's name would be Goldsmith when they went to school," she explained.
Goldsmith moved to New York with his new mistress Laure Boulay, Comtesse de la Meurthe in 1981 and spent the last years of his life mostly in France and Mexico. He became known for quoting Sacha Guitry
's words, "If you marry your mistress you create a job vacancy." Often wrongly credited with the quote, Goldsmith admitted, "I quoted him at dinner, and it was pinned on me. I don't mind. ... I just don't want to claim what's not mine." On his infidelities, Lady Annabel revealed that, despite her aversion to any form of confrontation, "I did feel jealous. I used to scream at him." In 1997, she and her youngest three children inherited a portion of Goldsmith's wealth, estimated varyingly at £1.6 or between $1.7-$2.4 billion.
, a 6 acres (24,281.2 m²) Georgian mansion on the edge of Richmond Park
, with two Grand Basset Griffon Vendeen
s, Daisy and Lily, and three Norfolk terriers, Barney, Boris and Bindy. In 2003, she remarked on her children's varied marital patterns by observing, "All my children with James marry young and breed, and my children with Mark do the opposite." She has nine grandchildren, including Robin Birley's non-marital daughter Maud. She spends part of each year at her 250 acres (1 km²) organic farm in the hills above Benahavis
and has a 1930s holiday home by the seaside in Bognor Regis
, West Sussex
. Asked about her regrets in life, in 2004, she confessed wishing that she had, instead of marrying twice, been "a one-man woman". "I wouldn't recommend anyone to do what I've done. To marry someone and grow old with them must be much better," she said.
, an environmental charity called The Soil Association, and African Solutions to African Problems (ASAP), which works to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS on orphans and vulnerable children in South Africa
. As an animal lover, she is also one of the patrons of the Dogs Trust and a supporter of the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, along with being Vice President of the British Show Pony Society
.
She had early interest in journalism but declined a low-level position at the Daily Mail
at age 19 to get married instead. She has since contributed opinion editorials to national newspapers such as the Sunday Times, the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, among others.
Inspired by Hungarian
Premier Imre Nagy
's radio address during the Hungarian Revolution, in November 1956, she and Mark Birley volunteered with the Save the Children
organization in Vienna
. She organized charitable donations and traveled daily to look after refugees who crossed the Austria
n border into the frontier town of Andau
. In May 1997, she campaigned with her second husband in Putney
, the constituency unsuccessfully contested by Goldsmith for his Referendum Party
. She continued to support her husband's ideas, like the single currency referendum, after his death as part of the Referendum Movement, which was headed by Paul Sykes and Lord McAlpine
and of which she became honorary President.
In January 1999, she launched the Democracy Movement
, of which she was President and her son Robin was chairman until 2004. Starting from 12 January 2001, the organization launched a £500,000 advertising and leafleting campaign to expose the parliamentary votes of pro-Brussels
candidates in 120 "target" seats before the May general elections. The Democracy Movement released two million pamphlets carrying gloom-ridden headlines about a European state and published full page local newspaper advertisements in the constituencies of 70 Labour
MPs, 35 Liberal Democrats
, six Conservatives
and three Scottish National Party
candidates. Describing the campaign as an effort "in memory of Jimmy", she said:
On 17 December 2007, she testified at the inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales
, where she denied the perception that the princess was in love with and/or pregnant by Dodi Fayed. "She was in love with Hasnat Khan. I felt she was still on the rebound from Hasnat Khan... She might have been having a wonderful time with him, I’m sure, but I thought her remark that she needed marriage like a rash meant that she was not serious about it," Lady Annabel told the jury. She also participated in a demonstration outside Downing Street
in November 2007 to protest against President Pervez Musharraf
's imposition of a state of emergency in Pakistan
.
published her memoirs Annabel: An Unconventional Life, which recounted her life from a pre-World War II
aristocratic childhood and her glamorous social circle of the 1960s to her current status as an active grandmother. The book was serialized in The Mail on Sunday
. On the promotion tour, she gave numerous interviews and participated in a discussion with historian Andrew Roberts
at the annual Cheltenham Festival of Literature in April 2004. A Daily Telegraph profile observed that, "What seems to have kept Annabel afloat is her almost naive ability to let bygones be bygones". Claudia FitzHerbert's review in the same newspaper denounced the autobiography as "woodenly hilarious" and "disappointingly vague".
David Chapman, reviewing the book for the Newsquest Media Group Newspapers, concluded, "This is a decidedly funny memoir that includes the scrapes and japes of nob culture." Lorne Jackson of the Sunday Mercury
was totally dismissive of what he called "a dull memoir", stating: "This could have all been explained in one page, possibly two if the type was particularly large." The Sunday Times commented that, "Annabel comes across as a decent woman ... but her writing is flat, with a few too many clumsy constructions, and her story lacks drama, even when terrible things happen to her." Biographer Selena Hastings called it "a well-ordered, decently written book," while the Evening Standard
wrote, "Goldsmith herself comes across as fun and warm, a good sport, if sometimes strangely submissive and a little overfond of her own breasts." Annabel became a No.1 London bestseller for non-fiction. Nationally, the memoirs reached the top ten non-fiction bestsellers in England, fluctuating from No. 7 to No. 4 and then No. 6.
She followed her autobiography, two years later in September 2006, by ghost-writing her pet dog Copper's autobiography in the name of Copper: A Dog's Life. Her daughter India Jane illustrated the book. Copper was originally bought by the Goldsmiths as a reward to their daughter Jemima for passing her Common Entrance Examination, but he remained in Lady Annabel's care for most of his life and had an adventurous time in Richmond. "Amid tough competition, he was probably the greatest character I ever knew," she told The Daily Telegraph. The mongrel, who died in 1998, was famed for traveling by bus, chasing joggers and visiting a Richmond pub, the Dysart Arms. Upon the release of the book, Lady Annabel declared, "My late husband and Copper had a lot in common," and then elaborated that, "Jimmy was not at all a doggy person, yet he was intrigued by Copper. I think he recognised that same free spirit in him. They certainly both had an eye for the ladies!"
Her literary efforts originated after the experience, according to her, of a life-defining moment on 29 December 2000. She, her son Benjamin, daughter Jemima and her two sons, plus her niece Lady Cosima Somerset and her two children were traveling to Kenya
, when a passenger on their British Airways plane stormed into the cockpit and tried to seize the controls. The autopilot on the flight to Nairobi
became temporarily disengaged and the jumbo was knocked off course, abruptly diving and plunging 17000 feet (5,181.6 m) below. "Nobody on that plane thought, 'am I going to die?'" she later recalled. "They all thought, 'we are going to die'. It was horrible, horrible." This near-death incident has been credited by Lady Annabel as the catalyst for her writings. "I had always thought that I would write a book," she claimed, "but writing my memoirs didn't really come into my head until after that flight." In the introduction to Annabel, she wrote:
Her third book, A Memoir, is set for a UK release on 10 September 2009. To be published once again by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, according to a promotional blurb, the book is composed of "intimate and perceptive essays [and] pen-portraits of some of the extraordinary figures that entered the Birley and Goldsmith circles - among them, Lord Lambton, Patrick Plunket
, John Aspinall
, Geoffrey Keating
, Lord Lucan
, Dominic Elwes
and Claus von Bulow
."
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
socialite
Socialite
A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....
and the eponym for a celebrated London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
nightclub of the late 20th century, Annabel's
Annabel's
Annabel's is a London nightclub, located at 44 Berkeley Square, London. It was founded by entrepreneur Mark Birley and named after Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart, then his wife.-Background:...
. She was first married for two decades to entrepreneur Mark Birley
Mark Birley
Marcus Lecky Oswald Hornby Birley , known as Mark Birley, was a British entrepreneur known for his investments in the hospitality industry...
, the creator of Annabel's, which she helped make a glamorous success as her husband's inaugural members-only Mayfair
Mayfair
Mayfair is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster.-History:Mayfair is named after the annual fortnight-long May Fair that took place on the site that is Shepherd Market today...
club. Known in London as a society hostess, during the 1960s and the 1970s, she gained notoriety in gossip columns for her extramarital affair with Anglo-French financier Sir James Goldsmith
James Goldsmith
Sir James Michael "Jimmy" Goldsmith was an Anglo-French billionaire financier and tycoon. Towards the end of his life, he became a magazine publisher and a politician. In 1994, he was elected to represent France as a Member of the European Parliament and he subsequently founded the short-lived...
, who later became her second husband. A descendant and heiress of the Londonderry
Marquess of Londonderry
Marquess of Londonderry is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1816 for Robert Stewart, 1st Earl of Londonderry. He had earlier represented County Down in the Irish House of Commons. Stewart had already been created Baron Londonderry in 1789, Viscount Castlereagh in 1795 and Earl...
family, her primary occupation has been as a mother of six children whose births span 25 years. She is also an author and founder of the Democracy Movement
Democracy Movement
The Democracy Movement is a crossparty Eurosceptic pressure group in the UK with around 150 local branches.-History:The Democracy Movement was founded by Lady Annabel Goldsmith in January 1999. She became its President and her son, businessman Robin Birley, served as the organisation's chairman...
, a Eurosceptic
EuroSceptic
EuroSceptic is the second album of British singer Jack Lucien. It was released in October 2009.Due to being an album influenced by Europop, it features songs with parts in different languages...
pressure group. Her son Zac Goldsmith
Zac Goldsmith
Frank Zacharias Robin "Zac" Goldsmith, MP is an English environmental journalist, entrepreneur and Conservative Party politician. He has been the Member of Parliament for Richmond Park since winning the seat at the 2010 general election.Goldsmith is the middle child of the late financier Sir...
is the Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for Richmond Park
Richmond Park (UK Parliament constituency)
Richmond Park is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.-History and character:...
.
Background and Image
The second of three children, Lady Annabel was born in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
into an Anglo-Irish
Anglo-Irish
Anglo-Irish was a term used primarily in the 19th and early 20th centuries to identify a privileged social class in Ireland, whose members were the descendants and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy, mostly belonging to the Church of Ireland, which was the established church of Ireland until...
aristocratic family with its roots in Ulster
Ulster
Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial...
and County Durham
County Durham
County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...
. Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart was born the daughter of Viscount Castlereagh, who later became the 8th Marquess of Londonderry, and Romaine Combe, who was the daughter of Major Boyce Combe from a middle-class family in Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
. She became Lady Annabel as a young girl in February 1949 when her father became Marquess on the death of his father, the famous Ulster Unionist politician the 7th Marquess of Londonderry. Her mother died of cancer in 1951, but the illness was kept a secret by her parents. She later said, "Cancer was such a taboo then - Mummy didn't even tell her sisters." Subsequently, her father became a chronic alcoholic and died from liver failure at 52 on 17 October 1955. "My father was a really wonderful man but after my mother died, we couldn't talk to him as we had done before. He couldn't face life without her and he turned into Jekyll and Hyde almost overnight," she explained.
She was named after her mother's favourite song, "Miss Annabel Lee", and grew up as a country child at her family's former estates of Mount Stewart
Mount Stewart
Mount Stewart is an 18th-century house and garden in County Down, Northern Ireland, owned by the National Trust. Situated on the east shore of Strangford Lough, a few miles outside the town of Newtownards and near Greyabbey, it was the home of the Vane-Tempest-Stewart family, Marquesses of...
, Wynyard Park
Wynyard Park, County Durham
Wynyard Park, sometimes known as Wynyard Hall is a large country house in County Durham, England. The house used to be the family seat of the Vane-Tempest-Stewart family, Marquesses of Londonderry, an Anglo-Irish aristocratic dynasty, but it was sold in the 1980s.-The house:Designed by Philip Wyatt...
, and Londonderry House
Londonderry House
Londonderry House was an aristocratic townhouse situated on Park Lane in the Mayfair district of London, England.The house was the home to the Irish, titled family called the Stewarts who are better known as the Marquesses of Londonderry....
. She was educated at Southover Manor School
Southover Manor School
Southover Manor School was an independent boarding school for girls at Lewes, East Sussex, with a preparatory department.-History:The school was founded in 1924 at Lewes by Winifred Ponsonby. Initially a convent school, it was based at Southover Manor, which later became a Grade II listed...
in Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
and Cuffy's Tutorial College in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
. Awkward and shy, in her youth, she was an avid reader, equestrian
Equestrianism
Equestrianism more often known as riding, horseback riding or horse riding refers to the skill of riding, driving, or vaulting with horses...
, and a Girl Guide for the Bullfinch Patrol. She transformed from an unconfident and self-described "skinny, gauche young girl" into a socialite during the 1950s and 1960s. As part of the London social circle, she is known for her sense of humour, down-to-earth personality, and love of children and dogs. Though never a drinker, she chain smoked until the age of 40.
Family
Lady Annabel is the mother of Rupert, RobinRobin Birley (businessman)
Robin Birley is an English businessman and political activist. He is the son of Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart and nightclub owner Mark Birley...
and India Jane Birley
India Jane Birley
India Jane Birley is a British artist, heiress and businesswoman. She was a co-owner/manager of her father's famed London nightclub, Annabel's, in its later years, as well as some of her father's other establishments.-Biography:...
plus Jemima
Jemima Khan
Jemima Marcelle Khan is a British writer and campaigner. She is associate editor of the New Statesman and European editor-at-large for Vanity Fair. She has worked as a charity fundraiser, human rights campaigner and contributing writer for British newspapers and magazines...
, Zac
Zac Goldsmith
Frank Zacharias Robin "Zac" Goldsmith, MP is an English environmental journalist, entrepreneur and Conservative Party politician. He has been the Member of Parliament for Richmond Park since winning the seat at the 2010 general election.Goldsmith is the middle child of the late financier Sir...
and Ben Goldsmith
Ben Goldsmith
Benjamin James Goldsmith is an English financier and environmentalist.- Career :Goldsmith is a founding partner of a venture capital fund that invests in clean technologies, and of its sister company...
. She has referred to herself as "an incredible mother, rather a good mistress, but not a very good wife". With six children and five miscarriages, her primary vocation was motherhood, which prompted her to say: "I'm not judgmental about women who work, but I was so besotted with my children I never wanted them out of my sight." She was also considered a mother figure by her nieces, Ladies Cosima and Sophia Vane-Tempest-Stewart, and the late Diana, Princess of Wales. As the wife and ex-wife of two unfaithful men, she explained her marriage philosophy to the Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
in 1987: "I can never understand the wives who really mind, the wives who set such store by fidelity. How extraordinary, and how mad they are. Because, surely, if the man goes out and he comes back, it's not actually doing any harm."
Annabel's and the Birleys
On 10 March 1954, at the age of 19, she married businessman Mark BirleyMark Birley
Marcus Lecky Oswald Hornby Birley , known as Mark Birley, was a British entrepreneur known for his investments in the hospitality industry...
at the Caxton Hall register office in London. Birley famously paid tribute to her by naming in her honour his renowned nightclub, Annabel's
Annabel's
Annabel's is a London nightclub, located at 44 Berkeley Square, London. It was founded by entrepreneur Mark Birley and named after Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart, then his wife.-Background:...
, which opened on 4 June 1963 and was run by Birley for more than forty years. During the 1960s, Lady Annabel was a constant presence at Annabel's, known as one of the grandest nightclubs of the sixties and seventies, where she entertained guests ranging from Ted
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...
and Robert F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...
to Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Prince Charles
Charles, Prince of Wales
Prince Charles, Prince of Wales is the heir apparent and eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Since 1958 his major title has been His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. In Scotland he is additionally known as The Duke of Rothesay...
, Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
, and Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist...
. "I used to be there every night, even when I had three small children to take to school the next day. It was like a second home to me," she recalled.
She raised her three children with Birley at Pelham cottage. Her eldest son Rupert, who was born on 20 August 1955, studied at Eton College
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
and Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...
. In 1986, he disappeared off the coast of Togo
Togo
Togo, officially the Togolese Republic , is a country in West Africa bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, on which the capital Lomé is located. Togo covers an area of approximately with a population of approximately...
in West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
, where he was presumed drowned. "There really is nothing worse than losing a child - and there is something special about your first-born," she said, adding that, "Because I was so young when Rupert was born ... we were more like good friends than mother and son." Her second son Robin (b. 19 February 1958) is a businessman, whose face was disfigured as a child when he was mauled by a tigress at John Aspinall
John Aspinall
John Aspinall may refer to:* John Aspinall , zoo owner and gambler* John Aspinall , engineer* John Thomas Walshman Aspinall , English Conservative Party politician, Member of Parliament for Clitheroe 1853...
's private zoo. Having let him go near the pregnant tigress, Lady Annabel said, "It was my own fault. I was, am, angry with myself." Her first daughter India Jane (b. 14 January 1961), the granddaughter of society portrait painter Sir Oswald Birley
Oswald Birley
Sir Oswald Hornby Joseph Birley, MC, RA was an English portrait painter in the early part of the 20th century.-Biography:...
, is an artist.
The Birleys separated in 1972 and later divorced in 1975 after the birth of her second child with James Goldsmith. "Our breakup was because of Mark's infidelities, not because I fell in love with Jimmy," she told Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
writer Maureen Orth after Birley's death. Revealing that Birley had numerous other girlfriends from the beginning of their relationship, she added: "I think he was absolutely incapable of being faithful. He was a serial adulterer. Like a butterfly, he had to seduce every woman. Despite their divorce, the two remained best friends and soulmates, talking to each other every day and holidaying together until Birley's death in August 2007. Birley said they were "the true loves of each other's lives".
Goldsmith affair and remarriage
In 1964, she embarked on a decade-long extramarital affair with the entrepreneur Sir James GoldsmithJames Goldsmith
Sir James Michael "Jimmy" Goldsmith was an Anglo-French billionaire financier and tycoon. Towards the end of his life, he became a magazine publisher and a politician. In 1994, he was elected to represent France as a Member of the European Parliament and he subsequently founded the short-lived...
. Attracted by his flashiness, she said, she was "Mad about Jimmy. Loved Mark desperately." Though both she and Goldsmith, who was then married to his second wife Ginette Lery, believed that the affair would be a passing fling, it soon gained her notoriety in London's gossip columns as a modern British mistress. For years, she repeatedly refused Goldsmith's suggestion of starting a family, stating, "I didn't want to hurt Mark any more than I had." She was eventually coaxed into having his children by their mutual friend John Aspinall, an estranged former friend of Mark Birley who introduced her to Goldsmith.
While still legally married to Birley, she gave birth to Jemima
Jemima Khan
Jemima Marcelle Khan is a British writer and campaigner. She is associate editor of the New Statesman and European editor-at-large for Vanity Fair. She has worked as a charity fundraiser, human rights campaigner and contributing writer for British newspapers and magazines...
(b. 30 January 1974), who later married cricketeer Imran Khan
Imran Khan
Imran Khan Niazi is a Pakistani politician and former Pakistani cricketer, playing international cricket for two decades in the late twentieth century. After retiring, he entered politics...
; and Zac
Zac Goldsmith
Frank Zacharias Robin "Zac" Goldsmith, MP is an English environmental journalist, entrepreneur and Conservative Party politician. He has been the Member of Parliament for Richmond Park since winning the seat at the 2010 general election.Goldsmith is the middle child of the late financier Sir...
(b. 20 January 1975), who is the estranged husband of writer Sheherazade Ventura-Bentley
Sheherazade Goldsmith
Sheherazade Bentley Goldsmith is an English environmentalist, author and socialite.During the 1990s, Goldsmith worked in the fashion industry, first as a model and then as a marketer...
. Her last child Ben Goldsmith
Ben Goldsmith
Benjamin James Goldsmith is an English financier and environmentalist.- Career :Goldsmith is a founding partner of a venture capital fund that invests in clean technologies, and of its sister company...
was born on 28 October 1980 at 46, after two consecutive miscarriages. The children were raised in Ormeley Lodge
Ormeley Lodge
Ormeley Lodge is a 1715 built Grade II* listed Georgian house set in on the edge of Richmond Park in Ham, London, where Lady Annabel Goldsmith raised her children.- External links :*...
in Ham, London
Ham, London
Ham is a district in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames on the River Thames.- Location :Its name derives from the Old English word Hamme meaning place in the bend in the river. Together with Petersham, Ham lies to the east of the bend in the river south of Richmond and north of Kingston...
. The half-Jewish and half-Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
Goldsmith was an occasional presence in their lives as he divided time between three families. In 1978, Goldsmith and Lady Annabel married solely to legitimize their children. "We didn't marry as a great act of passion. More to make sure that the children's name would be Goldsmith when they went to school," she explained.
Goldsmith moved to New York with his new mistress Laure Boulay, Comtesse de la Meurthe in 1981 and spent the last years of his life mostly in France and Mexico. He became known for quoting Sacha Guitry
Sacha Guitry
Alexandre-Pierre Georges Guitry was a French stage actor, film actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright of the Boulevard theatre.- Biography :...
's words, "If you marry your mistress you create a job vacancy." Often wrongly credited with the quote, Goldsmith admitted, "I quoted him at dinner, and it was pinned on me. I don't mind. ... I just don't want to claim what's not mine." On his infidelities, Lady Annabel revealed that, despite her aversion to any form of confrontation, "I did feel jealous. I used to scream at him." In 1997, she and her youngest three children inherited a portion of Goldsmith's wealth, estimated varyingly at £1.6 or between $1.7-$2.4 billion.
Present
She resides in Ormeley LodgeOrmeley Lodge
Ormeley Lodge is a 1715 built Grade II* listed Georgian house set in on the edge of Richmond Park in Ham, London, where Lady Annabel Goldsmith raised her children.- External links :*...
, a 6 acres (24,281.2 m²) Georgian mansion on the edge of Richmond Park
Richmond Park
Richmond Park is a 2,360 acre park within London. It is the largest of the Royal Parks in London and Britain's second largest urban walled park after Sutton Park, Birmingham. It is close to Richmond, Ham, Kingston upon Thames, Wimbledon, Roehampton and East Sheen...
, with two Grand Basset Griffon Vendeen
Grand Basset Griffon Vendéen
The Grand Basset Griffon Vendéen is a long-backed, short legged hunting breed of dog of the hound type, originating in the Vendée region of France. They are still used today to hunt boar, deer, and to track rabbit and hare, but are more commonly kept as a domestic pet.They are pack dogs, so owners...
s, Daisy and Lily, and three Norfolk terriers, Barney, Boris and Bindy. In 2003, she remarked on her children's varied marital patterns by observing, "All my children with James marry young and breed, and my children with Mark do the opposite." She has nine grandchildren, including Robin Birley's non-marital daughter Maud. She spends part of each year at her 250 acres (1 km²) organic farm in the hills above Benahavis
Benahavís
Benahavis is a Spanish mountain village situated between Marbella, Estepona, and Ronda, where it is located seven kilometers from the coast. Renowned for its restaurants, it is often called the dining room of the Costa del Sol....
and has a 1930s holiday home by the seaside in Bognor Regis
Bognor Regis
Bognor Regis is a seaside resort town and civil parish in the Arun district of West Sussex, on the south coast of England. It is south-south-west of London, west of Brighton, and south-east of the city of Chichester. Other nearby towns include Littlehampton east-north-east and Selsey to the...
, West Sussex
West Sussex
West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...
. Asked about her regrets in life, in 2004, she confessed wishing that she had, instead of marrying twice, been "a one-man woman". "I wouldn't recommend anyone to do what I've done. To marry someone and grow old with them must be much better," she said.
Activism and philanthropy
Lady Annabel is president of the Richmond Park branch of The Royal Society of St George, a patriotic outreach society aimed to motivate youth. She is a donor and supporter of the Countryside AllianceCountryside Alliance
The Countryside Alliance is a British organisation promoting issues relating to the countryside such as country sports, including hunting, shooting and angling...
, an environmental charity called The Soil Association, and African Solutions to African Problems (ASAP), which works to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS on orphans and vulnerable children in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. As an animal lover, she is also one of the patrons of the Dogs Trust and a supporter of the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, along with being Vice President of the British Show Pony Society
British Show Pony Society
The British Show Pony Society , formed in the autumn of 1949, is an organisation which oversees affiliated show pony, hunter pony and working hunter pony competitions for children's ponies in the United Kingdom. The Society offers three scholarships each year to help young riders develop their...
.
She had early interest in journalism but declined a low-level position at the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
at age 19 to get married instead. She has since contributed opinion editorials to national newspapers such as the Sunday Times, the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, among others.
Inspired by Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
Premier Imre Nagy
Imre Nagy
Imre Nagy was a Hungarian communist politician who was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary on two occasions...
's radio address during the Hungarian Revolution, in November 1956, she and Mark Birley volunteered with the Save the Children
Save the Children
Save the Children is an internationally active non-governmental organization that enforces children's rights, provides relief and helps support children in developing countries...
organization in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. She organized charitable donations and traveled daily to look after refugees who crossed the Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n border into the frontier town of Andau
Andau
Andau is a village in Burgenland, Austria, near the border of Hungary. It is situated in the flat, lake-studded Seewinkel region which is part of the Little Hungarian Plain.- Name :...
. In May 1997, she campaigned with her second husband in Putney
Putney
Putney is a district in south-west London, England, located in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is situated south-west of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London....
, the constituency unsuccessfully contested by Goldsmith for his Referendum Party
Referendum Party
The Referendum Party was a Euro-sceptic, single issue party in the United Kingdom formed by Sir James Goldsmith to fight the 1997 General Election. The party called for a referendum on aspects of the UK's relationship with the European Union.-Policy:...
. She continued to support her husband's ideas, like the single currency referendum, after his death as part of the Referendum Movement, which was headed by Paul Sykes and Lord McAlpine
Alistair McAlpine, Baron McAlpine of West Green
Robert Alistair McAlpine, Baron McAlpine of West Green , is often known as Alistair McAlpine.He became a life peer in 1984 as Baron McAlpine of West Green of West Green in the County of Hampshire. In the 1990s he had a high-profile business collapse in Australia.McAlpine was a prominent...
and of which she became honorary President.
In January 1999, she launched the Democracy Movement
Democracy Movement
The Democracy Movement is a crossparty Eurosceptic pressure group in the UK with around 150 local branches.-History:The Democracy Movement was founded by Lady Annabel Goldsmith in January 1999. She became its President and her son, businessman Robin Birley, served as the organisation's chairman...
, of which she was President and her son Robin was chairman until 2004. Starting from 12 January 2001, the organization launched a £500,000 advertising and leafleting campaign to expose the parliamentary votes of pro-Brussels
Brussels and the European Union
Brussels is considered to be the de facto capital of the European Union, having a long history of hosting the institutions of the European Union within its European Quarter...
candidates in 120 "target" seats before the May general elections. The Democracy Movement released two million pamphlets carrying gloom-ridden headlines about a European state and published full page local newspaper advertisements in the constituencies of 70 Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
MPs, 35 Liberal Democrats
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats are a social liberal political party in the United Kingdom which supports constitutional and electoral reform, progressive taxation, wealth taxation, human rights laws, cultural liberalism, banking reform and civil liberties .The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the...
, six Conservatives
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
and three Scottish National Party
Scottish National Party
The Scottish National Party is a social-democratic political party in Scotland which campaigns for Scottish independence from the United Kingdom....
candidates. Describing the campaign as an effort "in memory of Jimmy", she said:
On 17 December 2007, she testified at the inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales
Diana, Princess of Wales
Diana, Princess of Wales was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, whom she married on 29 July 1981, and an international charity and fundraising figure, as well as a preeminent celebrity of the late 20th century...
, where she denied the perception that the princess was in love with and/or pregnant by Dodi Fayed. "She was in love with Hasnat Khan. I felt she was still on the rebound from Hasnat Khan... She might have been having a wonderful time with him, I’m sure, but I thought her remark that she needed marriage like a rash meant that she was not serious about it," Lady Annabel told the jury. She also participated in a demonstration outside Downing Street
Downing Street
Downing Street in London, England has for over two hundred years housed the official residences of two of the most senior British cabinet ministers: the First Lord of the Treasury, an office now synonymous with that of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and the Second Lord of the Treasury, an...
in November 2007 to protest against President Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf , is a retired four-star general who served as the 13th Chief of Army Staff and tenth President of Pakistan as well as tenth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Musharraf headed and led an administrative military government from October 1999 till August 2007. He ruled...
's imposition of a state of emergency in Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
.
Books
In March 2004, Weidenfeld & NicolsonWeidenfeld & Nicolson
Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd is a British publisher of fiction and reference books. It is a division of the Orion Publishing Group.-History:...
published her memoirs Annabel: An Unconventional Life, which recounted her life from a pre-World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
aristocratic childhood and her glamorous social circle of the 1960s to her current status as an active grandmother. The book was serialized in The Mail on Sunday
The Mail on Sunday
The Mail on Sunday is a British conservative newspaper, currently published in a tabloid format. First published in 1982 by Lord Rothermere, it became Britain's biggest-selling Sunday newspaper following the closing of The News of the World in July 2011...
. On the promotion tour, she gave numerous interviews and participated in a discussion with historian Andrew Roberts
Andrew Roberts
Andrew Roberts is an English historian and journalist.-Background:Roberts was born in London, England, the son of Simon from Cobham, Surrey, and Katie Roberts...
at the annual Cheltenham Festival of Literature in April 2004. A Daily Telegraph profile observed that, "What seems to have kept Annabel afloat is her almost naive ability to let bygones be bygones". Claudia FitzHerbert's review in the same newspaper denounced the autobiography as "woodenly hilarious" and "disappointingly vague".
David Chapman, reviewing the book for the Newsquest Media Group Newspapers, concluded, "This is a decidedly funny memoir that includes the scrapes and japes of nob culture." Lorne Jackson of the Sunday Mercury
Sunday Mercury
Sunday Mercury is a Sunday tabloid published in Birmingham, UK, and owned by Trinity Mirror.The first editor was John Turner Fearon , who left the Dublin-based Freeman's Journal to take up the position...
was totally dismissive of what he called "a dull memoir", stating: "This could have all been explained in one page, possibly two if the type was particularly large." The Sunday Times commented that, "Annabel comes across as a decent woman ... but her writing is flat, with a few too many clumsy constructions, and her story lacks drama, even when terrible things happen to her." Biographer Selena Hastings called it "a well-ordered, decently written book," while the Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
wrote, "Goldsmith herself comes across as fun and warm, a good sport, if sometimes strangely submissive and a little overfond of her own breasts." Annabel became a No.1 London bestseller for non-fiction. Nationally, the memoirs reached the top ten non-fiction bestsellers in England, fluctuating from No. 7 to No. 4 and then No. 6.
She followed her autobiography, two years later in September 2006, by ghost-writing her pet dog Copper's autobiography in the name of Copper: A Dog's Life. Her daughter India Jane illustrated the book. Copper was originally bought by the Goldsmiths as a reward to their daughter Jemima for passing her Common Entrance Examination, but he remained in Lady Annabel's care for most of his life and had an adventurous time in Richmond. "Amid tough competition, he was probably the greatest character I ever knew," she told The Daily Telegraph. The mongrel, who died in 1998, was famed for traveling by bus, chasing joggers and visiting a Richmond pub, the Dysart Arms. Upon the release of the book, Lady Annabel declared, "My late husband and Copper had a lot in common," and then elaborated that, "Jimmy was not at all a doggy person, yet he was intrigued by Copper. I think he recognised that same free spirit in him. They certainly both had an eye for the ladies!"
Her literary efforts originated after the experience, according to her, of a life-defining moment on 29 December 2000. She, her son Benjamin, daughter Jemima and her two sons, plus her niece Lady Cosima Somerset and her two children were traveling to Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
, when a passenger on their British Airways plane stormed into the cockpit and tried to seize the controls. The autopilot on the flight to Nairobi
Nairobi
Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The city and its surrounding area also forms the Nairobi County. The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyirobi, which translates to "the place of cool waters". However, it is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun" and is...
became temporarily disengaged and the jumbo was knocked off course, abruptly diving and plunging 17000 feet (5,181.6 m) below. "Nobody on that plane thought, 'am I going to die?'" she later recalled. "They all thought, 'we are going to die'. It was horrible, horrible." This near-death incident has been credited by Lady Annabel as the catalyst for her writings. "I had always thought that I would write a book," she claimed, "but writing my memoirs didn't really come into my head until after that flight." In the introduction to Annabel, she wrote:
Her third book, A Memoir, is set for a UK release on 10 September 2009. To be published once again by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, according to a promotional blurb, the book is composed of "intimate and perceptive essays [and] pen-portraits of some of the extraordinary figures that entered the Birley and Goldsmith circles - among them, Lord Lambton, Patrick Plunket
Robin Plunket, 8th Baron Plunket
Captain Robin Rathmore Plunket, 8th Baron Plunket, is a descendent of prominent Irish lawyer and Whig politician William Conyngham Plunket for whom the Peerage of the United Kingdom was created in 1827....
, John Aspinall
John Aspinall (zoo owner)
John Victor Aspinall was a British zoo owner and gambler. He was born in Delhi, India, but was a citizen of the United Kingdom.-Biography:...
, Geoffrey Keating
Geoffrey Keating
Seathrún Céitinn, known in English as Geoffrey Keating, was a 17th century Irish Roman Catholic priest, poet and historian. He was born in County Tipperary c. 1569, and died c. 1644...
, Lord Lucan
Richard Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan
Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan , popularly known as Lord Lucan, as Lord Bingham before 1964, and sometimes colloquially called "Lucky" Lucan, was a British peer, who disappeared in the early hours of 8 November 1974, following the murder of Sandra Rivett, his children's nanny, the previous...
, Dominic Elwes
Dominic Elwes
Bede Evelyn Dominick Elwes was an English portrait painter whose much publicized elopement with an heiress in 1957 was a scandale célèbre.-Biography:...
and Claus von Bulow
Claus von Bülow
Claus von Bülow is a British socialite of German and Danish ancestry. He was accused of the attempted murder of his wife Sunny von Bülow by administering an insulin overdose in 1980 but his conviction in the first trial was reversed and he was found not guilty in both his retrials.-Biography:Born...
."
External links
- Woman's Hour: Leading Women interview, audio appearance during promotional tour for Annabel
- The Peerage: Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart, family background
- Democracy Movement, a non-party and anti-EU pressure group founded by Lady Annabel