Wallis Huberta Annenberg (b.July 15, 1939, Philadelphia) is the daughter of the late Ambassador Walter Hubert Annenberg and his first wife, Bernice Veronica Dunkelman. Annenberg only had one sibling, Roger, who suffered from schizophrenia and died from an overdose of Seconal in a psychiatric institution in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.[1]
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Annenberg grew up in Philadelphia, where her father owned a 15-acre estate called "Inwood." When she was ten years old, however, her parents split up and her mother moved to Washington, D.C. and married Ben Ourisman, a Chevrolet car dealer.[1] Meanwhile, her father remarried in the year after the divorce. His new wife was Leonore "Lee" Cohn, now well-known as Lee Annenberg.
Annenberg attended the National Cathedral School, from which she graduated in 1957, and enrolled at Pine Manor College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. In 1959, Annenberg graduated fourth in her class from Pine Manor and was accepted at Columbia University. Her father and stepmother celebrated her academic success by taking her on a summer trip through Europe.[1]
While in Venice, she met Seth Weingarten. He had just completed his undergraduate education at Princeton University and was looking forward to Yale Medical School. They quickly fell in love and, after only one year of studies at Columbia, Annenberg dropped out of school and married Weingarten at Inwood.[1] Children followed in close succession: Lauren (b.1961) and Roger (b.1962), shortly after his namesake's death. (Sadly, Roger the second is also diagnosed with schizophrenia.)[1] During Weingarten's residency at New York Hospital, another son, George, was born, and finally, Charles was born in Roswell, New Mexico, where Weingarten was serving as a medical officer at Walker Air Force Base. Annenberg told Bob Colacello, who interviewed her for a biographical article in Vanity Fair (October 2009), that her two years of family life in New Mexico were the only happy years in her marriage. Eventually, she convinced her husband to go to work at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and so began the rest of her life in Los Angeles.
She divorced Dr. Weingarten in 1975. He sued for (and won) custody of the children in 1978, though just a year later, he offered to relinquish full custody to Annenberg.[2] In court, Weingarten had accused Annenberg of abusing drugs and alcohol and "having affairs with women."[1] Annenberg confessed as much to Bob Colacello: "I did it all. If you want to term it a wild phase, fine. I would prefer to say I'm grateful for every one of the life experiences that I had. And I had them."[1] She apparently spent time at the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage and enrolled in therapy to clean up her life. She also went to work for TV Guide, which her father owned at the time. She was committed to the magazine, on behalf of which she was an enthusiastic hostess to the television industry, and she even stayed for three years after its sale to Rupert Murdoch in 1988.[1]
Annenberg today carries on her father's legacy as a public benefactor. As chairman and president of the Annenberg Foundation, she donates the family name and fortune to philanthropic and charitable projects, largely to the benefit of Los Angeles County. She is on the board of trustees at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She is also a supporter of the Harlem Children's Zone, the Ojai Foundation's "Council project" for inner-city kids, and the Ocean Alliance.[1] There is the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and the "Wallis Annenberg" Concourse at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.
Annenberg admires Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Gang Camp. This, as well as an organization called "Forever Young Treehouses", inspired her (in 2006, when she was vice-president and her late stepmother was president) to fund the Universally-Accessible Treehouse in Torrance, California.[3] “It is thrilling to be able to make it possible for people of all ages and physical abilities to experience the world from a treehouse,” said Wallis Annenberg. “There's a sense of vision, fun and pure escape that only such a structure can provide.”[3]
Annenberg's children (Lauren Bon, Gregory and Charles) are included in the board of trustees of the Annenberg Foundation. They bring to the table their own interests. Ms. Bon, a graduate of Princeton and M.I.T., is passionate about art and environmentalism. Gregory Weingarten is a painter, Paris resident, and American Friend of the Paris Opera and Ballet. Charles Weingarten, a graduate of Duke University and USC Film School, is interested in projects to help underprivileged children and the female victims of human trafficking in India. Other trustees of the foundation include Lee Annenberg's two daughters, Diane Deshong and Elizabeth Kabler. However, the inclusion of them might be considered controversial, as the bylaws governing the Annenberg Foundation, as laid down by the Ambassador himself, specify that only his direct descendants, with the sole exception of his widow, could be trustees.[1]
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