Annette de la Renta
Annette de la Renta is an American philanthropist and socialite, the widow of the Dominican fashion designer Oscar de la Renta. She was named to the International [Best Dressed List] Hall of Fame in 1973.
Birth and childhood
Born in Nice, France, as Anne France Mannheimer and nicknamed Annette, she is the only child of a German Jewish banker, Fritz Mannheimer, who died before her birth, and his Roman Catholic wife, Mary Jane Reiss. Her German-born maternal grandfather, Hugo Reiss, was a German Jewish businessman in Shanghai, China, where he served as the Brazilian consul; and her maternal grandmother, Mary Ignatius Murphy, was a Roman Catholic of Irish descent from San Francisco.De la Renta attended the Foxcroft School in Middleburg, Virginia.
In 1947, after her mother moved to the United States and remarried, Annette Mannheimer was adopted by her stepfather, Charles W. Engelhard Jr., an industrial magnate, and became Annette Engelhard; she became an American citizen in 1966. She was raised in the Roman Catholic faith of her mother.
Marriages and family life
In 1960, she married private investor Samuel Pryor Reed in a Roman Catholic ceremony in Bernardsville, New Jersey. He was a vice president of Engelhard Industries, the minerals conglomerate; who later owned American Heritage magazine. Reed and Annette eventually divorced. The couple had three children, two daughters, Eliza Reed and Beatrice Morrison, and a son, Charles Reed.In 1989, she married fashion designer Oscar de la Renta in La Romana, Dominican Republic, becoming step-mother of his adopted son, Moises de la Renta.
In July 2006, Annette de la Renta and JPMorgan Chase were appointed temporary guardians of the 104-year-old Brooke Astor, a long-time friend, in the wake of elder abuse allegations being made against Astor's son, Anthony Dryden Marshall. In October 2006, de la Renta and JPMorgan Chase became permanent guardians. On 20 October 2014, her husband, Oscar de la Renta, died of cancer, at age 82.