Goldsmith divorce - Zac and Scheherazade Goldsmith to divorce after 10 years

[Shinjinee]

The announcement was made last night. The couple married in 1999 when
Eton-educated and expelled (at age 17) Zac was just 24. His bride
Sheherazade Ventura or Bentley (nee Sharon Ventura-Bentley) was the
illegitimate daughter of Columbian socialite Viviane Ventura and asset-
stripper John Bentley. She was 25 at the time. [More on the family
background down the post]

The couple have three children - Uma (b 2000), Thyra (b 2002), and
James (b 2003).

Zac, then 31 (and now 34) began seeing his sister-in-law Alice
Rothschild (then 22 and now 25), sister of Kate Rothschild, wife of
his younger brother Ben [More on her family background down the road].
The couple were outed by the Daily Mail in 2006. Plenty of stories
back then.

http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/people/goldsmith_zac
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-406798/Goldsmiths-secret-visits-heiress.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-406989/Is-womanising-Zac-Goldsmiths-genes.html


Family backgrounds:

Zac Goldsmith is the second son of James Goldsmith, and his elder son
by his third wife Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart, then married to
Mark Birley. [Annabel was his mistress during his marriage to second
wife Ginette Lery, by whom he had a second daughter and an eldest
son. The eldest daughter Isabelle is by his first wife Bolivian-
Spanish tin heiress Isabel, not Isobella, Patino].

- Zac's father and his background -

James Goldsmith married three times. Firstly at the age of 21, he
married heiress Isabel Patino after eloping with her (she was
underage) and marrying her against the wishes of her parents - her
father was tin heir _ Patino and her mother a Spanish peeress. She
died in childbirth, and James raised their daughter Isabelle. He then
married his secretary and mistress Ginette Lery, and had two more
children with her - Alix and Manes (his eldest son). He then started
an affair with Lady Annabel Birley, a socialite with three children,
and had three children with her (most of them out of wedlock) - Jemima
Khan, Zac, and Ben. He then started an affair with Laure Boulay de la
Meurthe, a French aristocrat with an Orleans princess for grandmother
and sponsored her magazine Point de Vue. She bore him two children -
Charlotte and Jethro, but he didn't leave his third wife for her.
Goldsmith made popular a Sacha Guitry quote about a man and his
mistress.

In the Sixties and Seventies, Goldsmith was part of a ritzy gambling
set composed of himself, John Aspinall, the Earl of Lucan (now
missing) and some others.

More on the Goldsmith ancestry and descent here
http://www.angelfire.com/in/heinbruins/Goldschmidt.html
[Goldsmith's maternal ancestry is fairly ordinary I understand]

- Zac's mother and her background -

Lady Annabel is the younger daughter of the 8th Marquess of
Londonderry by his wife Romaine Combe, of a landed gentry family of
beerage origins with connections to the Marquesses Conyngham. She
first married entrepreneur Mark Birley (brother of the socialite and
artist's muse Maxime de la Falaise) by whom she had issue 2 sons and 1
daughter. The eldest son Rupert disappeared in a swimming accident.
The younger son Robin was mauled by a tiger at John Aspinall's zoo and
has married Lucy Ferry nee Helmore, ex-wife of singer Bryan Ferry and
mother of four sons by him including pro-hunt campaigner Otis Ferry.
He fell out with his father and sister over various family issues
(including his running of Annabel's and his setting a detective on the
alleged father of her child) and was excluded from Birley's will
IIRC. The daughter India Jane Birley was twice married without issue,
but has a child out of wedlock with another man. Interestingly, given
the printed comments about Lady Annabel's alleged feeling about the
unequal marriage of Zac and Sheherazade, the same comments were
allegedly made about her parents' marriage when her father the
Londonderry heir married a mere Miss Combe. [This from her memoirs].

Lady Annabel's brother Lord Londonderry (the 9th Marquess) was married
very young 1stly to a woman who gave him two daughters and then had a
son with a lover. The son is apparently excluded from the succession,
but I don't know the details. The younger daughter Lady Cosima Vane-
Tempest-Stewart turned out to be fathered by Robin Douglas-Home, of
the earls of Home, and an ex of Princess Margaret (he is also related
to Diana, Princess of Wales, through his Spencer mother). Cosima was
partly raised by Lady Annabel, and according to a very few reports was
the last mistress of her (step) aunt's husband James Goldsmith before
his death. Cosima has been twice married firstly to Cosmo Fry, son of
Jeremy Fry (the inventor, himself with a rather interesting swinging
marriage) and secondly to Lord John Somerset, himself yst son of the
present Duke of Beaufort. Two children by the second marriage. Cosima
was apparently a close friend of Diana, Princess of Wales (they are
second cousins via Cosima's real paternal grandmother), and her
complicated relationships are mentioned in several biographies of
Diana.

Lord Londonderry, her legal father, married 2ndly the ballerina Doreen
Wells (they later divorced) and had two sons. The younger son Lord
Reginald Vane-Tempest-Stewart is married to Chloe Guinness and has
issue. The elder sister Lady Jane Vane-Tempest-Stewart married Lord
Rayne (life peer) as his second wife, and had issue with him. AFAIK,
the elder son Viscount Castlereagh is not married nor engaged. [BTW,
the present marquess of Londonderry is not descended from the famous
Viscount Castlereagh who was prominent in British politics circa
1795-1822, but from his yr half-brother the 3rd Marquess of
Londonderry].

--Sheherazade's family background -

I know little of her family background, but she was apparently born
Sharon Ventura-Bentley in March 1974, and her paternity was
established when she was almost a year old. The name Sheherazade
comes from her acting and writing career. (I don't know if she made
the name change legally). Her father is asset-stripper John Bentley
(well, he has that in common with Goldsmith!) who became a millionaire
at age 28. He never married her mother Viviane Ventura, a former
actress and PR person, whose acting career stalled after her first
marriage. Since then, she has been associated with a series of wealthy
men including Adnan Khashoggi (who gave her a house in Florida).
Viviane is said to have had a gambling problem in the 1990s.
Sheherazade has an older sister Jasmine Joanna Duggan (b 29 Feb 1968)
by her mother's first and only marriage to producer Frank Duggan.

Ventura's own website gives her parents as Michael Ventura-Pauly (b
Durban, South Africa, d ??) and Barbara Burin (b Derby fl London
2009), who was Miss England in 1939. Her grandparents were born in
Smyrna, Turkey as Sephardic Jews from Cordoba, and then moved to Cuba
and finally to Colombia. Her father served in the RAF and then in
intelligence services, met and married his wife in England, had his
first child (Viviane) in England, and then moved to Colombia. His son
Michael was born in Medellin in 1947/8; the family then moved to other
places before settling in Bogota.

http://vivianeventura.com/home.php
"Viviane's father, Michael Ventura-Pauly was in the RAF, during WWII,
then part of the Secret English Intelligence Service. He was born in
Durban South Africa.
Viviane Ventura's grand parents were born in Smyrna, Turkey. Sephardic
Jews who originated from Cordoba, Spain dating back to the Spanish
Inquisition.
Her father and grand parents moved to Cuba, then [to] the Colombia,
South America, where the family set up the first National
Pharmaceutical laboratory, Lafrancol, that today is among the First
three National Pharmaceutical Laboratories of Colombia.
Viviane's mother, Barbara Burin, was born in Derby, North England. She
was Miss England in 1939, then she joined the War effort as a landing
officer at Biggin Hill airport, where most flights on bombing missions
to France came into landing. It was there that she met Michael Ventura
when he was landing his plane on one of those missions.

Viviane Ventura was born in London, England, on the 5th of December
1945. .. Soon after her birth, Viviane, with her parents moved to
settle in Colombia.
Viviane lived in Medellin for a short period, where her brother,
Michael Ventura Jr. was born two years later, then the family moved to
Barranquilla, then Cali and finally settled in Bogota. "

According to Viviane's site, her mother Barbara is still alive and
lives in London. [There is no mention of her father's subsequent life
and death]. Her brother Michael Ventura-Pauly is now a jeweller in
London. Both Viviane and her elder daughter Jasmine are in Public
Relations. Jasmine is married and has a son. Viviane gives little
information on her younger daughter's birth-name or birthdate.

-- Comments --
I feel sorry for the wife and three young children in this story, and
hope that a settlement is decided soon. When I saw Zac and Alice
linked, I realized that the writing was on the wall for the
marriage.

Some sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Annabel_Goldsmith
[all her surviving children and her three daughters-in-law all have
their own Wikipedia articles as well]

http://www.geneall.net/U/per_page.php?id=109630
Picture of Jimmy Goldsmith etc

Printed sources:
Maureen Orth "Hurly Burley" in Vanity Fair
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/02/birley200802

Some Wikipedia articles related to this group's interests:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Vane-Tempest-Stewart,_8th_Marquess_of_Londonderry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zac_Goldsmith
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheherazade_Goldsmith

Other sources
http://vivianeventura.com/home.php

From Hein Bruin's file "Descendants of Salomon Benedict Goldschmidt
and Reichle Cassel" (a great source of information, as is his entire
website)
http://www.angelfire.com/in/heinbruins/Goldschmidt.html

3.Hayum Salomon Goldschmidt (1772-1843), m.1797 Gelchen Gans
(1779-1847)
3.1.Benedict Hayum Salomon Goldschmidt (1798-1873) [banker], m.1820
Jeanette Kann (1802-1848) [their 12th child was]
3.1.12.Adolf Benedict Hayum Goldschmidt (1838-1918) [banker], m.1866
Alice Emma (Merton) Moses (1843-…) [their third son was Frank
Goldsmith MP]
3.1.12.4.Frank Adolph Benedict Hayum Goldsmith (1878-1967), m.
Marcelle Mouiller (1903-1985)
3.1.12.4.1.Edward René David Goldsmith (*1928), m.1st 1953 (div)
Gillian Marion Pretty [she remarried Jean-Baptiste de Laborde de
Monpezat (*1944), brother-in-law of Margrethe II, Queen of Denmark], m.
2nd 1981 Katherine Victoria James
3.1.12.4.1.1.Dido Goldsmith (*ca 1955), m.1st (div) Roberto Shorto
[brother-in-law of Heinrich, Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon
(1921-2002)], m.2nd 1980 Peter Whitehead
[[issue]]
3.1.12.4.1.2.Clio Goldsmith (* ca 1957) [actress], m.1st 1982 (div)
Carlo Alessandro Puri Negri [General Manager of Pirelli], m.2nd 1990
Mark Roland Shand [brother of Princess Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall,
née Shand] (*1951)
3.1.12.4.1.2.1.Talita Puri Negri
3.1.12.4.1.2.2.Ayesha Shand [Camilla's niece]
3.1.12.4.2.Sir James Michael Goldsmith (1933-1997) [industrial,
financier], m.1st 1954 Isabel Patiño y de Borbón (1935-1954), m.2nd
1964 (div 1978) Ginette Lery, m.3rd 1978 Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-
Stewart [of the marquesses of Londonderry] (*1934) [former wife of
Marcus Birley]
3.1.12.4.2.1.Isabel Goldsmith (*1954), m.1973 (div 1975) Arnaud de
Rosnay (1946 -disappeared 1984)
3.1.12.4.2.2.[by second wife] Frank Manès Goldsmith (*ca 1960)
3.1.12.4.2.3.[by second wife] Alix Goldsmith (*ca 1965), m. Goffredo
Marcaccini
3.1.12.4.2.3.1.Gaïa Marcaccini
3.1.12.4.2.3.2.Lea Marcaccini
3.1.12.4.2.4.[by third wife] Jemima Marcelle (Haiqa) Goldsmith
(*1974), m.1995 (div) Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi (*1952) [former Pakistani
cricket-player, leader of the Pakistani Union for Justice (Tehriq-i-
Insaaf)]
3.1.12.4.2.4.1.Sulaiman Isa Khan (*1996)
3.1.12.4.2.4.2.Kasim Kahn (*1999)
3.1.12.4.2.5.[by third wife] Zacharias (Zac) Frank Goldsmith (*1975)
[publisher of The Ecologist), m. Londen 5-6-1999 [(sep ann. 29 August
2009)] Sheherazade Bentley [actually nee Sharon Ventura-Bentley [(b.
14 March 1974)] (*ca 1975)
3.1.12.4.2.5.1.Uma Romaine Goldsmith (*2000)
3.1.12.4.2.5.2.Thyra Goldsmith (*2002)
3.1.12.4.2.5.3.James Goldsmith (*2003)
3.1.12.4.2.6.[by third wife] Benjamin James Goldsmith (*1980), m.2003
Kate Emma Rothschild [of the barons Rothschild] (*1982)
3.1.12.4.2.6.1.Iris Annabel Goldsmith (*2004)
3.1.12.4.2.6.2.Frank James A. Goldsmith (*2005)
3.1.12.4.2.6.3.Isaac Benjamin Victor Goldsmith (*2008)
3.1.12.4.2.7.[by Laure Boulay de La Meurthe (*1951)] Charlotte
Goldsmith (*1983)
3.1.12.4.2.8.[by Laure Boulay de La Meurthe (*1951)] Jethro Goldsmith
(*1987)


There are three royal or quasi-royal connections - Teddy Goldsmith,
elder brother of James, married a woman who is now married to a
brother-in-law of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark; their daughter Clio
Goldsmith, a step-cousin of Crown Prince Frederik and Prince Joachim
of Denmark, is married to Camilla's brother (making her sister-in-law
of the Prince of Wales); and lastly Sir James Goldsmith's mistress
Laure Boulay de la Meurthe is a descendant of King Louis Philippe I of
the French via her Orleans grandmother.