Pamela Beryl Digby

1920 - 1997  (76 years)    Has more than 100 ancestors and 3 descendants in this family tree.

• Name	Pamela Beryl Digby  [1, 2]
  Relationship	with Francis Fox
  Born	20 Mar 1920	Farnborough Park   [2]
  Gender	Female
  Died	5 Feb 1997	Paris, Île-de-France, Fr   [2]
  Person ID	I39749	Geneagraphie
  Last Modified	31 Mar 2002

  
  

  Father	Edward Kenelm Digby,   b. 1894, England ,   d. 1964, England  (Age 70 years)
  Mother	Hon. Constance Pamela Alice Bruce,   b. 14 Jun 1895,   d. Yes, date unknown
  Married	1 Jul 1919	England
  Siblings	2 siblings
  + 1. Living   2. Living
  Family ID	F32374	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 1	Randolf Federick Howard Spencer-Churchill,   b. 28 May 1911, London, Middlesex, England ,   d. 6 Jun 1968, England  (Age 57 years)
  Married	4 Oct 1939	St. John's, Smith Square   [1, 2]
  Divorced	1946
  Children	+ 1. Living
  Last Modified	20 Nov 2001
  Family ID	F16893	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 2	John Hay Whitney,   b. 17 Aug 1904,   d. 08 Feb 1982  (Age 77 years)
  Last Modified	29 Aug 2000
  Family ID	F66905	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 3	Bill Paley
  Last Modified	31 Mar 2002
  Family ID	F147604	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 4	Edward Roscoe Murrow,   b. 1904,   d. 1965  (Age 61 years)
  Last Modified	29 Aug 2000
  Family ID	F66904	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 5	Giovanni Agnelli,   b. 12 Mar 1921, Torino, Piemonte, It ,   d. 24 Jan 2003, Torino, Piemonte, It  (Age 81 years)
  Married	1948
  Last Modified	20 Aug 2004
  Family ID	F39117	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 6	Baron Elie de Rothschild,   b. 29 May 1917,   d. 6 Aug 2007  (Age 90 years)
  Last Modified	21 Sep 2001
  Family ID	F66908	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 7	Prince Aly Salomone Shah,   b. 13 Jun 1911, Torino, Piemonte, It ,   d. 12 May 1960, Paris, Île-de-France, Fr  (Age 48 years)
  Last Modified	29 Aug 2000
  Family ID	F66907	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 8	Stavros Niarchos,   b. 3 Jul 1909, Athens, Greece ,   d. 16 Apr 1996, Zürich, CH  (Age 86 years)
  Married	Type: Affair
  Last Modified	7 Nov 2012
  Family ID	F147608	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 9	Leland Hayward,   b. 1902, Nebraska City, Nebraska ,   d. 18 Mar 1971, Haywire  (Age 69 years)
  Married	4 May 1960	Carson City, Nevada
  Last Modified	20 Nov 2001
  Family ID	F32372	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 10	Governor William Averell Harriman,   b. 1891, New York City, NY, USA ,   d. 26 Jul 1986, Arden, Westchester County, New York  (Age 95 years)
  Married	27 Sep 1971	New York City, NY, USA
  Pamela had a reputation as a party girl and had many liaisons, one of them being with W. Averell Harriman, while he was still married. When Averell's wife died, he and Pamela linked up again; they were married 30 years after their earlier affair.
  Last Modified	20 Nov 2001
  Family ID	F32373	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Event Map	Click to display
  		Married - 27 Sep 1971 - New York City, NY, USA Died - 5 Feb 1997 - Paris, Île-de-France, Fr  = Link to Google Earth
  Pin Legend	: Address       : Location       : City/Town       : County/Shire       : State/Province       : Country       : Not Set

  
  

• Photos

  Pamela Beryl Digby

  
  

• Notes

  Pamela Digby was born to an aristocratic family in England and was determined to marry well. Aged seventeen, Pamela Digby was sent to a boarding school in Muenchen and later maintained that, in the six months spent there, she was introduced to Adolf Hitler by Unity Mitford. In 1939 she went to work at the Foreign Office in London, doing translations from French for which she was paid £ 6 a week. While being shown the flat she was going to rent, the phone rang. When she answered, it was Randolph Churchill who asked her out to dinner. Within ten days they were engaged and a week later they were married. With the exception of Winston and Clementine Churchill, Randolph's parents, everybody was against the marriage. One reason for the objections was their lack of money, to which Winston remarked: "Nonsense! All you need to be married is champagne, a double bed and a box of cigars!" However, married life began on the wrong footing when Randolph, wanting to improve her education, began to read in bed to her Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". Hilaire Belloc would have been fine, she maintained, but Gibbon was too much. When Pamela became pregnant, to be close to a doctor she went to live with her parents-in-law at 10 Downing Street, where she spent many nights in the air-raid shelter. On 8 October 1940 Randolph took his seat in the House of Commons and two days later their son, Winston, was born. In 1941 Randolph went with the army to Africa; but while on board the ship taking them there, he gambled and lost £ 3,000. From Cape Town he sent Pamela a telegram which shattered their marriage. Never having been in debt before her marriage, she was already worried about bills, debts and people threatening to sue for payment; now she had to find another £10 per month to pay off this debt. Accordingly, she sold all her wedding presents and took a £12-a-week job at the Ministry of Supply. Pregnant again but, with all the tension, she miscarried. She paid off the debts but security in her marriage was gone. When Averall Harriman, a representative of the American President, was introduced to her they started an affaire. Pamela regarded him "the most beautiful man I had ever set eyes on". When he had to go to Cairo, it was Randolph who showed him around Egypt. In July 1941 when Harriman returned to England, Randolph asked him to take a letter to Pamela in which he jokingly referred to Harriman as his rival in her affection. It took until 1942 before Randolph realised what was going on. He then had a furious row with his father as he maintained that his parents had condoned Pamela's affaire. After this his mother banned him from their home for the rest of the war, fearing Winston might have a seizure. At the suggestion of Brendan Bracken, Pamela established a social club to enable professional men and women from the U.S.A. and Canadian forces, while off duty in London, to meet their British counterparts. As agreed, after the war in 1946 Pamela and Randolph divorced. Pamela then moved to Paris and her son spent his school holidays with his grandparents. In 1948 she began a five-years affaire with Gianni Agnelli which would be the happiest period of her life. Then Baron Elie de Rothschild came into her life and, as he was married, discretion was required. She spent much of her time learning about art, history, techniques of wine-making and furniture. However, this relationship did not last. In 1959, in search of a husband, Pamela went to live in New York and, already having renewed their acquaintance, on 4 May 1960 married the Broadway producer, Leland Hayward. This prompted her remark: "Theatre and politics are alike; they're both made up of triumphs and disasters". In the spring of 1971 she married Averell Harriman. who maintained that marrying Pamela had been the best thing he ever had done. As Pamela Churchill Harriman she became involved in politics and created a fund-raising system which helped to return the Democratic party return to the White House. In her opinion, when Clinton was copying President Kennedy, "Where Jack Kennedy was born to power, Bill Clinton got there all by himself." In September 1992 she opened up her Virginia estate for a ten-thousand-dollar-a-head Day in the country for Clinton and Gore and raised $3.2 million. Many people were surprised when President Clinton appointed her U.S. Ambassador to France. In 1997 when she died President Clinton praised her as "one of the most unusual and gifted people I ever met". Her last husband, a former New York governor and ambassador to Britain and the Soviet Union, got his bride interested in politics and the Democratic party, which during the Reagan years had lost its drive and its direction. She hosted dinner parties to mend her husband's party, with grace and skill. "Almost anybody who was asked was going to come to one of the gatherings at her spectacular house," said political analyst Norman Ornstein. "She had an ability to attract people around her, and a willingness to try to be a catalyst for the Democratic party." She spoke at the 1984 convention, supported the Michael Dukakis campaign and Al Gore's 1992 presidential campaign, then worked hard raising money -- $12 million -- for young governor Bill Clinton when he won the party's nomination. Her reward for her constant support was the ambassadorship to France. According to former State Department official Richard Holbrooke, she was a natural for the post. "She spoke the language, she knew the country, she knew its leadership. She was one of the best ambassadors that ever served the United States," he said. Not many women could have journeyed so far -- from the English countryside to diplomat in Paris -- with a formal education that ended at the age of 16. But, says historian Michael Beschloss, "She was very graceful, and graceful in a lot of different worlds," a woman just as able to move through Winston Churchill's world during a world war as to maneuver through diplomatic life in Paris. (Medical):While swimming in the pool at the Ritz Hotel as a part of her regular exercise, she had a stroke and drowned.

  
  

• Sources

  [S106] Churchill: A Life, Martin Gilbert, (Henry Holt & Company, New York ,). [S14] University of Hull Royal Database (England), Brian Tompsett, (copyright 1994, 1995, 1996 , , Repository: WWW, University of Hull, Hull, UK HU6 7RX bct@tardis.ed.ac.uk).