Word: goldsmith
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Goldsmith is eating quail as he speaks, washing it down with a vintage claret. He is entertaining a visitor at Laurent, an elegant one-star restaurant off the Champs Elysees. He happens to own the place. He bought it on impulse more than ten years ago, after a late-night party there...
...like their neighbors and relatives the Rothschilds, had been prosperous merchant bankers in Frankfurt since the 16th century. When Jimmy's grandfather Adolph came to London in 1895, he came as a millionaire and bought a mansion off Park Lane. Jimmy's father Frank, who changed his name to Goldsmith, went to Oxford, fought at Gallipoli, sat in Parliament, but found London's wartime anti-German emotions so painful that he moved to France, married a French wife and prospered in the hotel business. He lived in a world of yachts and limousines and casinos...
...with bright blue eyes, and his pursuit of romance soon led him to Maria Isabella Patino, 18. She was the beautiful daughter of Bolivian Tin Millionaire Don Antenor Patino, who had brought her to Paris to meet a prospective husband. Instead, she met and fell in love with Jimmy Goldsmith -- not exactly the sort of son-in-law Patino had in mind. "Young man, we come from an old Catholic family," said Don Antenor when Jimmy went to ask his consent for the marriage...
...Despite Goldsmith's youthful reputation as a scapegrace playboy, there are other patterns here: a determination to do exactly as he pleased, an insistence on living well, a readiness to fight anyone who opposed his wishes, a willingness to take risks, a confidence that more money could always be found. Such patterns, combined with shrewdness and luck, make a success in business all but inevitable. His pharmaceutical business grew rapidly, too rapidly. At one point, he was on the verge of bankruptcy, then discovered on the day that his notes came due that the Paris banks had all gone...
...raid on Diamond International, began eyeing St. Regis, the Continental Group, Colgate- Palmolive, Crown Zellerbach, Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Pan Am. He operated through a network of Panamanian and Caribbean holding companies, all ultimately controlled by an organization called the Brunneria Foundation, headquartered in Liechtenstein and entirely owned by Goldsmith and his family...