Nadine de Rothschild
Nadine de Rothschild (née Nadine Nelly Jeannette Lhopitalier; born 18 April 1932) is a French author and former actress. She is the widow of banker Edmond Adolphe de Rothschild, a member of the Rothschild family.
Nadine de Rothschild
Actress and author
Edmond Adolphe de Rothschild
(m. 1963; his death 1997)
Benjamin de Rothschild (1963–2021)
Biography[edit]
Nadine Lhopitalier was born in Saint-Quentin, Aisne, France. She never met her father. At 14 years-old, she left her mother's house and worked in a Peugeot factory.[1]
2 years later, at 16, she became the model of the painter Jean-Gabriel Domergue,[2] a socialite who opened the door for her to the worlds of theater and film. In 1952, she began her acting career under the pseudonym of Nadine Tallier and played various roles from 1952 to 1964.
In 1958, she started a romantic relationship with Lance Callingham, the son of British socialite Norah Docker.[3]
In 1962, two years before ending her career in film, she married Edmond Adolphe de Rothschild of the French branch of the Rothschild family. At the time, Edmond was chairman and principal owner of the Edmond de Rothschild Group, a private banking group headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Although she was raised Roman Catholic, she converted to Judaism stating: "It would not have been possible to have the name Rothschild and be a Catholic... Nor would it be right for the son of a Rothschild to be half-Jewish and half-Catholic." They had one son born in 1963, Benjamin de Rothschild (1963-2021), shortly after their marriage.[4][5][6] Following her husband's death in 1997, David Rockefeller proposed to her but she refused.[1]
Lhopitalier used the noble title of her husband (Baroness), issued to the Rothschild family by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. She wrote a book about manners (Le Bonheur de Séduire l'Art de Réussir) and her autobiography (La baronne rentre à cinq heures). In addition, Lhopitalier provided some reviews in the press on the same subject.[7] In 2004, she opened the Nadine de Rothschild International Way of Life Academy in Geneva, Switzerland.[2]
In 2014, she held 17% of the holding's capital and 7% of the voting rights of Edmond de Rothschild Group. In disagreement with her daughter-in-law Ariane de Rothschild, she transferred her share of the family fortune to the Swiss private bank Pictet in 2014 and 2019.[8][9]