Lily Safra
Lily Safra is a Brazilian-Monegasque philanthropist and social figure who attained considerable wealth after four marriages. Her net worth is estimated at $1 billion, ranking her as the 701st richest person in the world according to Forbes in 2009. She owns a $506 million house, "Villa Leopolda", in the French Riviera.[1]
Biography
Safra was born Lily Watkins [2] on December 30, 1934 in Porto Alegre, Brazil daughter of Wolf White Watkins, a British railway engineer who moved to South America and Annita Noudelman de Castro, a Uruguayan of Russian-Jewish ancestry.[3]: 17f She grew up in Rio de Janeiro. At the age of 17, she married Mario Cohen, an Argentine hosiery magnate. They had three children: Claudio (died in a car crash in Brazil ca. 1989.[4]), Eduardo, and Adriana.
Lily and Cohen divorced in the early 1960s. In 1965, she married Romanian immigrant Alfredo "Freddy" Monteverde[5] (formerly Greenberg[6]), a leader in the Brazilian household appliance distribution business after establishing the Ponto Frio brand. He and Lily had one child, named Carlos. In 1969, Monteverde died by suicide.[7] According to biographer Isabel Vincent, Monteverde's will left all his assets to her and, in concert with Monteverde's former banker, Edmond Safra, she took swift action to cut off the rest of his family.[3][page needed]
Lily and Edmond Safra dated for some time, but she married a businessman named Samuel Bendahan in 1972, then divorced him after about a year of marriage.[8]
In 1976, she married Safra, a prominent Brazilian-naturalized Jewish Lebanese banker, and the founder, among other achievements, of Republic National Bank of New York. The couple divided their time between homes in Monaco, Geneva, New York and Villa Leopolda on the French Riviera. In a crime that attracted extensive media interest, Safra was killed in a fire that was determined to be arson.[9] Edmond Safra "apparently felt so safe here that he did not have his bodyguards stay the night when he slept in Monaco".[10] Ted Maher's American lawyer, Michael Griffith, has said that Maher did indeed start the fire in order to gain acceptance from Mr. Safra and that "It was a stupid, most insane thing a human being could do,” says Griffith. “He did not intend to kill Mr. Safra. He just wanted Mr. Safra to appreciate him more. He loved Mr. Safra. This was the best job of his life.”[11] Safra left 50% of his assets to several charities, with the remainder divided up between his family members and wife who received $ 800 million.[12][13]
Philanthropy and art collection
Safra supports numerous foundations, organizations, and charities. Together with Edmond Safra and Nina Weiner, Safra founded the International Sephardic Education Foundation in 1977. She chairs The Edmond J. Safra Foundation [14] and which supports medical research and humanitarian relief. The Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics has been established at Harvard, most recently she donated over $12 million to create a cross-disciplinary research laboratory on institutional corruption.[15] She supports the American Red Cross and helped the Hurricane Katrina victims; she is on the board of the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's research and a member of the Chairman's Council of the Museum of Modern Art.[16] Through the Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation, she helped found the Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities at the University of Haifa.[17] The Foundation and Mrs. Safra also helped create the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences at the Hebrew University.[18]
Safra ensured the completion of the Edmond J. Safra Synagogue in Manhattan.[19]
In connection with the sale of furniture and art from her collection at Sotheby’s in 2005, Mrs. Safra donated $3 million to charities in New York she and her husband had supported for many years, along with a gift to Dillard University in New Orleans to help them rebuild after Hurricane Katrina [20] Sotheby's recently announced that an auction of Mr. and Mrs. Safra's collections, including furniture, artwork, silverware and decorative objects, will take place in October 2011 in New York City[21][22]
In 2009, she was honored by the Elton John AIDS Foundation with its “An Enduring Vision” award for her long-time support[23]
She established the Edmond J. Safra Family Lodge,[24] for patients battling illnesses, as well as their families, at the National Institute of Health near Washington D.C.
In July 2010, Safra donated 8 million euros to the Institute for Brain and Spinal Cord Injuries in Paris.[25]
Safra is a Patron of Hope and Homes for Children in the UK [26] and a supporter of its work for children in Romania [27]
L'Homme qui marche I, a life-sized bronze sculpture of a man, was acquired by Lily Safra becoming one of the most expensive works of art and the most expensive sculpture ever when she bought it at Sotheby's auction in London for £65 million (US$104.3 million) on February 3, 2010. [28][29]
Empress Bianca
Lady Colin Campbell published a novel Empress Bianca, that was declared by Safra's lawyer to be "defamatory". Reacting to legal threat the publisher, Arcadia Books, withdrew the book after its publication in the United Kingdom and destroyed its unsold copies.[3]: 265f A revision of the book was later published in the US.[3]: 265f
Honors
- Legion d'honneur, Chevalier (2005)[3]: 287f
- King's College London, Honorary Fellow[3]: 287f
- Honorary chair, International Sephardic Education Foundation.[30]
- Honorary Doctorate from Haifa University [17]
- Courtauld Institute of Art, Honorary Fellow [31]
- Honorary Doctorate from Imperial College London [32]
- Honorary Doctorate from Brandeis University [33]
References
- ^ "The 10 Most Expensive Homes in the World", The Times On-line Money Central, 6 March 2010
- ^ "Gilded Lily faces her husband's 'killer'". The Daily Telegraph. London. 22 November 2002.
- ^ a b c d e f Isabel Vincent (2010). Gilded Lily. Lily Safra: The Making of One of the World's Wealthiest Widows. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-113393-0.
- ^ The Mail on Sunday, 21 September 2008
- ^ Uri Dan (December 5, 1999). "Widow's life full of tragic heartbreak". The New York Post. Retrieved April 12, 2008.
- ^ Dominick Dunne, Vanity Fair, "Death in Monaco", December 2000.
- ^ The Mail on Sunday, "Reissued in America: the murder plot novel that was pulped over feud with Gilded Lily", 21 September 2008
- ^ Dunne, Dominick, Vanity Fair, "Death in Monaco", December 2000
- ^ The mystery of the billionaire banker, Dateline NBC, March 23, 2008.
- ^ Daley, Suzanne (7 December 1999). "Nurse Is Said to Admit Arson That Killed Banker in Monaco". The New York Times.
- ^ "Murder In Monaco: An American On Trial". CBS News. 8 July 2003.
- ^ http://archives.bilan.ch/BI/BILAN/actualite/article-2002-12-42/dossier-finance-de-7-milliards-a-100-millions
- ^ http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-109684267.html
- ^ http://www.edmondjsafra.org/
- ^ Kaplan, Thomas (19 October 2010). "With Gift, Harvard to Study Institutional Corruption". The New York Times.
- ^ http://www.michaeljfox.org/about_people_board_bio.cfm?ID=90
- ^ a b http://newmedia-eng.haifa.ac.il/?p=487
- ^ http://www.hunews.huji.ac.il/articles.asp?cat=3&artID=980
- ^ "Safra Synagogue, an island at the center of the world", article by Jared Harary, Jewish Image Magazine, March 1st 2010
- ^ “3M GIFTS BY WIDOW” by PAUL H.B. SHIN; 15 October 2005; New York Daily News
- ^ "Safra collections sale expected to raise $40 million". Reuters. 20 June 2011.
- ^ http://www.artisandcollections.com/index.php?/auction/378
- ^ "I'm Still Standing: Slimline Elton John makes first appearance since illness". Daily Mail. London. 18 November 2009.
- ^ ", The Edmond J. Safra Family Lodge at NIH
- ^ http://www.europapress.es/comunicados/noticia-comunicado-unprecedented-donation-made-by-mrs-lily-safra-to-the-institute-for-brain-and-spinal-cord-disorders-in-paris-20100708100146.html
- ^ http://www.hopeandhomes.org/aboutus/index.html
- ^ http://www.hhc.ro/en/about-us/testimonials/#lily-safra
- ^ "Giacometti sculpture fetches £65m at Sotheby's auction". BBC News. February 5, 2011. Retrieved June 15, 2011.
{{cite news}}: Unknown parameter|source=ignored (help) - ^ Deirde Wollard (March 1, 2011). "Lily Safra Named As Byer Of World's Most Expensive Sculpture". Retrieved June 15, 2011.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|source=ignored (help) - ^ [1]
- ^ http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/newsletter/autumn_2007/p03director.shtml
- ^ http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_9-7-2007-9-17-5
- ^ http://www.brandeis.edu/trustees/hdr.html