Lily Safra: wealth, travel & culture Brasil

The book Gilded Lily: Lily Safra: The Making of One of the World's Wealthiest Widows by Isabel Vincent (Harper, 2011) was the unauthorised biography of the one of the world's richest international philanth­ropists and socialites. Even though Vincent spent 5 years researching her sub­ject in Brasil, Lily's nephew, Leonardo Watkins, asked a Brasilian court to block the book’s rel­ease, alleging it defamed his deceased father. It WAS banned in Brasil!   

Lily and Edmund Safra 

cover of Isabel Vincent's book

Now examine her complex life. Born Lily Watkins in 1934 in Porto Aleg­re Brasil, to Czech-British rail engineer Wolf Ganz Watkins & Russian-Uruguayan Annita Noudelman. Lily grew up in Rio and Montevideo.

She was first married in 1952 to Arg­en­tine hos­iery magnate Mario Cohen. They lived in Uruguay, had three children and divorced in the early 1960s. [Her son and grandson with Cohen tragically died in a car crash in Brasil in 1989].

A 2nd marriage in 1965 to multi-millionaire businessman Alfredo Greenberg, later changed to Monteverde. He was the founder of the Brasilian home appliances chain Ponto Frio. According to Vin­c­ent's book, in 1969 Mon­t­everde (with bi-polar disorder) was planning to divorce Lily when he was suddenly found dead with two shots into his chest. Bras­ilian auth­orit­ies ruled it a suic­ide and Monteverde's will left Lily all his Ponto Frio assets. The Monteverde family always disputed the suicide verdict, constantly asking how a suicide could shoot himself twice in the heart and then hide the gun. Thus they had the Vincent book banned.

Lily sold her 70% of the company in 2009 to a retail giant controlled by Brasilian bill­ionaire Abílio dos Santos Diniz, for $351 million.

Her 3rd marriage in 1972 was to English businessman Samuel Bendahan, but this marriage ended in divorce in a year.

The fourth marriage in 1976 was to banker Edmond J Safra who’d grown up in Aleppo before moving to Milan at 16 to learn the banking busin­ess and then on to Brasil, where he set up his first bank. This multi-national man was fluent in French, English, Italian, Portuguese, Arabic and Hebrew.

They married in 1976 at a glamorous society wedding attended by Ronald & Nancy Reagan and the Aga Khan. By 1981 they sett­led in New York, bec­oming key members of Manhattan’s social elite and friends of shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, Mikhail Bar­yshnikov and Frank Sinatra.

The couple split their time between New York, Mon­aco, Geneva and the French Riviera, happily married unt­il his 1999 death. Edmund Safra died when a fire swept through his Monte Carlo dup­lex penthouse. But Mrs Safra, who had her own suite of rooms separated from her husband’s by reinforced doors, escaped unscathed. His death in a bizarre arson case was solved when one of Edmund­’s nur­ses, an Am­erican ex-Green Beret soldier Ted Maher, was tried and convicted of start­ing the fire.

It made worldwide news and started con­spiracy theor­ies everywhere. Half the critics attacked Edmund’s drug competitors and half thought Lily was responsible because she bought a huge Bel­gravia mansion, fitting it a bombproof basement, armour­ed windows and 35 security cameras. 

                          

Elton John, Camilla Parker Bowles and Lily Safra 

London in 2002. 

NY Post

Edmund left half his fortune to char­it­ies and left $800 million to Lily. For decades she was known as a leading world philanthropist, devoted to her late husband’s legacy. But her rift with Edmund’s brothers never healed. They did not attend the reception after Edmund’s funeral, made worse by her decision to bury him in Switzer­land, rather than in the Is­r­aeli family-owned plot. None the less Lily contin­ued to focus on education and research on brain dis­eases, especially Parkinson’s which so  harmed her last husband.    

Her life-long connection to culture also saw her regularly mentioned in the fashion world. At a 2003 dinner in her New York home she hosted the former British Prime Minister Marg­aret Thatcher and New York’s former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. At the 2004 Sidaction AIDS benefit dinner, she sat at Karl Lager­feld’s table.

In 2012 she put her large jewellery collection, including a 32-carat ruby ring by Chaumet, up for auction at Christie’s Geneva. The Jewels for Hope sale netted $38 million, with all proceeds distributed to 32 charities including Elton John AIDS Foundation; Paris Opera; Paris Ballet; Royal Opera House London and Henry St Settlement in New York. After the 2019 fire devastated Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, Lily gave 10 million euros for its restoration.

Natalie Portman, Lily Safra and Benjamin Millepied,
reception honouring Millepied's appointment Director of Paris Opera Ballet, 2013
Haute Living

 
Her major Israeli commitments were Israel Museum; Sheba Med­i­c­­al Centre Tel Hashomer; Hadassah University-Medical Centre Jerus­alem; Brain Research Centre, Uni­v­er­sity of Haifa; Yad Vashem and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

Edmond J Safra Foundation published a biography stating Lily Safra received honorary doctorates from prominent higher education instit­ut­ions including Imperial Col­lege London and Hebrew Univ­er­sity Jerus­al­em, and honorary fellowships from King’s College London, Court­auld Institute of Art and France’s Legion d’Honneur. She was also a board member of Michael J Fox Parkinson’s Foundation.

Safra’s Villa Leopolda at Villefranche-sur-Mer in Monaco 

Wiki

There is a photo section in the Vincent book that readers found esp­ec­ially helpful, given the husbands moved on quick­ly and the home count­ries changed even more quickly over the years. Luckily they spoke many lang­uages fluently

In July 2022 Lily Watkins Safra died in Geneva at 87. Her death from pancreatic cancer was revealed (in WWD) by the Edmond J Safra Found­at­ion in a statement about their late chairwoman. Thank­ you to the obit­uaries in Tatler, Forbes, Australian Newspaper and WWD.