Background
George Weidenfeld was born on September 13, 1919 in Vienna, Austria, in the family of Max and Rosa Weidenfeld.
Sir George Weidenfeld after his marriage to Sandra Meyer in 1966
(Reveals the life story of Lord George Weidenfeld, chronic...)
Reveals the life story of Lord George Weidenfeld, chronicling his flight from 1939 Nazi Vienna, his efforts with BBC during the war, and his rise to a major figure in international publishing, business, and media.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006017286X/?tag=2022091-20
1995
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1848326440/?tag=2022091-20
2012
columnist philanthropist publisher
George Weidenfeld was born on September 13, 1919 in Vienna, Austria, in the family of Max and Rosa Weidenfeld.
Weidenfeld attended the University of Vienna and the city's Diplomatic College, also known as Konsular Akademie.
Following the Germany's annexation of Austria in 1938, he emigrated to London and began work with the monitoring service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). By 1942 he was a political commentator for the BBC and also wrote a weekly newspaper column, coming into contact with General de Gaulle and Tito as a result. Not long afterwards, from 1949, he was away for a year as the political adviser and Chief of Cabinet to Chaim Weizmann, the first President of Israel.
In 1948, Weidenfeld co-founded the publishing firm Weidenfeld & Nicolson with Nigel Nicolson. Intending to start an upmarket political magazine, they found that the post-war paper shortage made a book publishing concern more feasible, and the new firm was partly intended as a cover for the impractical magazine.
In 1985, Weidenfeld's publishing interests expanded to the United States, when he acquired the Grove Press in partnership with Ann Getty. Grove later merged with the New York division of Weidenfeld & Nicolson to form Grove Nicolson. In 1991 Weidenfeld & Nicolson's UK branch was sold to the Orion Publishing Group and became Orion's main non-fiction imprint, with Weidenfeld as non-executive chairman.
In 1993, the American company, Grove Nicolson, merged with the Atlantic Monthly Press to form Grove/Atlantic Inc. Weidenfeld was also Joint Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Blavatnik School of Government in Oxford; Adviser to the Board of Axel Springer AG Berlin and a columnist for the Berlin newspapers Die Welt, Welt am Sonntag and Bild Zeitung.
Weidenfeld served in many philanthropic capacities including Chairman of the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Governor of the Weizmann Institute, Vice-Chairman of the EU-Israel Forum, member of the Founding Council of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford, Trustee, Royal Opera House and Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery. He also established the "Weidenfeld Safe Havens Fund", which intends to support Christians fleeing the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, although its focus on Christians has caused some criticism.
(Reveals the life story of Lord George Weidenfeld, chronic...)
1995
Quotes from others about the person
The trouble with George... is that he has always been the great networker—and that sort of exercise always involves never treading on anyone’s toes. ... For all the dash Weidenfeld has cut on London’s social scene for half a century, the author of these memoirs has missed his vocation. ... What a wonderful ornament for the diplomatic profession he would have made.
Weidenfeld married Jane Sieff in 1952, daughter of Baron Sieff who was a part of the family that controlled Marks and Spencer. Before their divorce in 1955, they had one daughter Laura Weidenfeld. After their divorce, he married Barbara Skelton, the English memoirist, novelist and socialite, in 1956. His third marriage was to Sandra Payson Meyer in 1966. They divorced 10 years later in 1976. His fourth and final marriage was to Annabelle Whitestone, who was 25 years his junior, in 1992. They remained married until his death in 2016.
