Pamela Harriman
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Pamela Churchill Harriman (20 March 1920 – 5 February 1997) was an English-born socialite who was married and linked to important and powerful men. In later life, she became a political activist for the Democratic Party and a diplomat. Her only child, Winston Churchill, is named after his famous grandfather.
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[edit] Early life
Christened Pamela Beryl Digby in Farnborough, Hampshire, England, the daughter of Edward Digby, 11th Baron Digby, and his wife, Constance Pamela Alice, the daughter of Henry Campbell Bruce, 2nd Baron Aberdare, a peer in the House of Lords, Pamela was educated by governesses in the ancestral home at Minterne Magna in Dorset, along with her three younger sisters. Her great great aunt was the nineteenth-century adventurer and courtesan Lady Jane Digby, notorious for her exotic travels and scandalous personal life.
At age seventeen, she was sent to a Munich boarding school for six months. Whilst there she was introduced to Adolf Hitler by Unity Mitford. She subsequently went to Paris where she took some classes at the Sorbonne. By 1937, she had returned to England.
[edit] Marriage to Randolph Churchill
In 1939, while working at the Foreign Office in London doing French to English translations, Pamela met Randolph Churchill. They got married in October 4, 1939. When she became pregnant three months later, she went to live with her in-laws at 10 Downing Street. Two days after Randolph Churchill took his seat in the House of Commons, their son Winston was born. The baby and Pamela were photographed by Cecil Beaton for Life Magazine.
Of considerable note is the strong relationship she had with her esteemed and renowned father-in-law who much preferred her company to that of his own son, infamous for his drinking, gambling, womanizing, and anti-social antics. Pamela was with Churchill when the news of the Pearl Harbor came to them for instance.
In February, 1941 Randolph was sent to Cairo for military service, where he accrued large gambling debts. His letter to Pamela asking her to make good on his debts shattered the marriage. Eventually, she filed for divorce on December, 1945 on the grounds that he had deserted her for three years. Later, after having converted to Catholicism, she even obtained an annulment from the Catholic Church.[1]
[edit] Romantic involvements and affairs
Harriman was pretty, intelligent, and ambitious. Beside two additional marriages, she had numerous affairs with men of prominence and wealth during her lifetime. During her marriage she had romantic involvements with Averell Harriman (who would much later become her third husband), Edward Roscoe Murrow (1908 – 1965), broadcast journalist; John Hay "Jock" Whitney (1904 – 1982), and others. Notable consorts after her divorce include Prince Aly Khan (1911 – 1960), son of Aga Khan III and Therese Magliano; Gianni Agnelli (1921 – 2003), son of Eduardo Agnelli and Virginia dei Marchesi Bourbon del Monte Santa Maria; Alfonso de Portago; and Baron Elie de Rothschild (born 1917), son of Baron Robert Philippe de Rothschild, and Nelly Beer.[2][1]
Harriman became well known for her attentions to detail with men. When involved romantically with a man, she paid extremely close attention to his desires, his preferences, and went to any lengths necessary to satisfy their needs during the affair. Bill Paley, briefly a consort during the war, said: "She is the greatest courtesan of the century", meaning it more as a compliment than a detraction.[1]
After her divorce from Randolph Churchill, she moved to Paris and in 1948 began her five-year-long affair with Gianni Agnelli. She described this as the happiest period of her life. Agnelli, however, was not faithful in this relationship. In 1952, Pamela surprised him with a young woman, Anne-Marie d'Estainville, and threw a rare fit. Agnelli sustained a severe leg injury in a car accident while bringing d'Estainville home. Pamela nursed him through his injury, and later became pregnant (although it was never confirmed that this was by Agnelli), but had an abortion in Switzerland. Later, Princess Marella Caracciolo di Castagneto became pregnant by Agnelli, and Harriman ended the affair[2]
Her next significant relationship was with Baron Elie de Rothschild, who was married. He supported her financially, and she was schooled in art history and wine-making during this clandestine and short relationship[3]. During this time she also entertained an affair with the writer Maurice Druon and with the shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos.[1]
[edit] Marriage to Leland Hayward
In 1959, she met Broadway producer Leland Hayward who was still married to Slim Hawks. He proposed to her, and after her marriage ultimatum to Rothschild was rejected, she accepted Hayward's offer and moved to New York. The day Hayward's divorce was final, she became the fifth Mrs. Hayward with the ceremony taking place in Carson City, Nevada on 4 May 1960. He was rich from income of his productions, notably the very successful "The Sound of Music", allowing for a lavish and luxurious life style mostly between their residence in New York City and the Westchester County estate "Haywire." Haywire is also the name of the bitter memoirs of her step-daughter Brooke Hayward. Pamela Hayward stayed with her husband until his death on 18 March 1971.
[edit] Marriage to Averell Harriman
In the same year, Pamela met her former lover Averell Harriman, now 79 years old, and they got married on 27 September 1971. With this marriage her social focus was moved to Washington. Harriman was wealthy and bought an estate in Virginia and a private jet to support her way of life. With Harriman's involvement and links in the Democratic Party, her political career got started. Her last marriage lasted until his death in 1986. In later years, she had significant legal problems with Harriman's children concerning the inheritance. [1].
[edit] Political life
As Pamela Churchill Harriman she became a United States citizen in 1971 and became involved in the Democratic Party, creating a fund-raising system, - a political action committee - , named "Democrats for the 80's", later "Democrats for the 90's", and nicknamed "PamPAC", that helped return that party to the White House. In 1980, the National Women's Democratic Club named her the Woman of the Year. U.S. President Bill Clinton appointed her United States Ambassador to France in 1993. The Dayton Agreement was signed in Paris in 1995 while she was the US ambassador.
She died in Paris, aged 76, after suffering a massive stroke while taking her customary morning swim in the pool of the Paris Ritz.
The morning after her death in Paris, President Jacques Chirac of France placed the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor on Mrs. Harriman's flag-draped coffin. She was the first female foreign diplomat to receive this honor. President Clinton, in further recognition of her qualities and significance (she had been one of the first Democrats to nurture the potential of the then-Governor of Arkansas in the 1980s), spoke movingly at her state funeral in Washington DC.
[edit] Titles and styles
- The Honourable Pamela Beryl Digby
- The Hon. Mrs. Randolph Churchill
- The Hon. Mrs. Leland Hayward
- The Hon. Mrs. W. Averell Harriman
- The Honorable Pamela Harriman
She was usually styled as Pamela Churchill Harriman.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e Bedell Smith S. Reflected Glory. The Life of Pamela Churchill Harriman. Simon and Schuster.
- ^ a b Divathesite
- ^ From icqurimage
[edit] Sources
- Reflected Glory:the Life of Pamela Churchill Harriman, Sally Bedel Smith, 1996. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-80950-8
- Life of the Party:the Biography of Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman, Christopher Ogden, 1994.
[edit] External links
| Preceded by Walter J. P. Curley |
U.S. Ambassador to France 1993–1997 |
Succeeded by Felix G. Rohatyn |
