Goldsmith: Money, Women and Power - Hardcover

Hutchins, Chris; Midgley, Dominic

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1840180935 ISBN 13: 9781840180930

Publisher: Mainstream Publishing, 1998

Synopsis

This biography tells the story of an extraordinary family. Few businessmen in modern times have succeeded in generating such vast riches as Sir James Goldsmith. From winning a huge sum on a bet at Windsor races while still a schoolboy at Eton, he went on to build a personal fortune of more than a billion pounds through a series of audacious takeover deals in both Europe and the United states. That alone would be enough to guarantee his place as a prominent public figure. But the saga of the Goldsmiths does not end there. Goldsmith was a struggling entrepreneur of just 20 when he eloped with the teenage daughter of a Bolivian multimillionaire. Their dash to Scotland made headlines around the world but the marriage born of such heroic rebellion was to be shortlived. Months later, his bride, Isabel Patino, died within hours of their daughter's birth and, within weeks, Goldsmith was plunged into a bitter custody battle with his mother-in-law. To sublimate his grief, Goldsmith threw himself into his business and within years had laid the foundation of his first fortune. In the process he married his secretary, the daughter of a Paris Metro worker, who soon found herself supplanted by one of Britain's foremost noblewomen, the former Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart, a close confidante of Princess Diana. The man whose private life had taken on mythic status did not stop there and his mistress was French aristocrat Laure Boulay de la Meurthe. Of his eight children, his daughter Jemima has already found a place on the international stage following her marriage to the former Pakistani cricket captain, Imran Khan, who hopes one day to lead his country. Sir James had a string of fabulous homes scattered around the world and to shuttle between them he maintained a fleet of three aircraft. Naturally, his entry into politics was conducted on a similarly grand scale. In the run-up to the 1997 general election, he ploughed 20 million into his Eurosceptic Referendum Party in a bid to stamp his will on the government of the day.

About this title

About the Author:

THE writer and broadcaster Chris Hutchins is an established author of highly acclaimed biographies of the rich, the famous and the royals. His first, Fergie Confidential, was an intimate biography of the Duchess of York and chronicled her troubled marriage to the Queen's favourite son, Prince Andrew. He followed this with a revelatory biography of the late Princess of Wales, Diana's Nightmare: The Family, a book which soestablished him as an authority on the royals that he was invited to cover Prince Charles' subsequent marriage for American television. Books that followed include Elvis Meets the Beatles - a rendezvous he arranged during his close association with all five - ATHINA: The Last Onassis , which probed deeply into the world of the Onassis dynasty and GOLDSMITH: Money, Women and Power, the biography of the late billionaire entrepreneur, Sir James Goldsmith. More recently Hutchins turned his attention to matters Russian with fearless biographies of the country's leader, PUTIN, and best-known oligarch, ABRAMOVICH: The billionaire from nowhere. The author returned to the royal stage with a revealing book about Diana's son,HARRY: The People's Prince. As Prince Charles' former secretary Mark Bolland says of him: 'Chris Hutchins seems to have seen and done it all . . . '

About this edition

• Publisher: Mainstream Publishing
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1840180935
• ISBN 13: 9781840180930
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224