Vere Harmsworth, 3rd Viscount Rothermere
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Vere Harold Esmond Harmsworth, 3rd Viscount Rothermere (April 27, 1925 – September 1, 1998) became the 3rd Viscount Rothermere in 1978, having been widely known as Vere Harmsworth. He controlled large media interests in the United Kingdom and United States. He may be considered the founder of the Mail on Sunday.
[edit] Business Life
Rothermere became the Chairman of Associated Newspapers in 1971 and was responsible for the relaunch of the Daily Mail as a tabloid, after which its circulation increased greatly under editor Sir David English. After the death of his father, Esmond Cecil Harmsworth, 2nd Viscount Rothermere, he also became chairman of parent Daily Mail and General Trust plc though he was unsuccessful in an attempt to combine the companies in a manner calculated to avoid taxation. An artifact of this plan was the ownership of Associated Newspapers being vested in Associated Newspapers Holdings, ownership of which was split 50.2%-49.8% between DMGT and its wholly owned subsidiary Daily Mail & General Holdings. (Since then DMGH's name has been transferred to ANH and the old DMGH become Derry Street Properties).
In 1992 English succeeded him as chairman of Associated Newspapers (but not of Associated Newspapers Holdings or the parent companies). When English died in mid-1998 Rothermere resumed the chairmanship of Associated Newspapers and replaced his protege as president of the Commonwealth Press Union, only to die himself some months later, still chairman of DMGT, being fatally stricken with a heart attack, while dining with his son (and successor) Jonathan Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere.
In politics he began as a Conservative, drifted to the cross-benches and shortly before his death not only began to sit on the Labour benches in the House of Lords, but pronounced himself a firm republican in an interview.
[edit] Family Life
- 1) On 21 March 1957 Vere Harmsworth married Pamela Brooks (who was nicknamed "Bubbles"). They had three children:
- Geraldine Theodora Gabriel Harmsworth (born 25 July 1957)
- Camilla Patricia Caroline Harmsworth (born 1964)
- Harold Jonathan Esmond Vere Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere (born 3 December 1967)
- 2) While the conservative Mail preached monogamy and traditional family values to its readers in the 1980s, Rothermere was engaged in a long-term adulterous affair with Korean-born hand model Maiko Joeong-shun Lee. Following the death of Bubbles on 12 August 1992, Rothermere married Ms Lee in December 1993.
[edit] References
| Preceded by Esmond Cecil Harmsworth |
Viscount Rothermere | Succeeded by Jonathan Harmsworth |
