Wallis Annenberg had her whole life to be rich but only the last 23 years to give away large amounts of her family’s fortune. She donated to hundreds of causes, some of them surprising, and relished her role as a benefactor.
Annenberg, the daughter of Walter Annenberg, a publisher and diplomat, died Monday, July 28, at her home in Los Angeles. She was 86 and had been under treatment for lung cancer.
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She became a vice president of the Annenberg Foundation after her father died in 2002, and then rose to chairman and chief executive after the death of her stepmother, Leonore Annenberg, in 2009. In a CBS television interview in 2013, Wallis Annenberg said that it wasn’t hard to run a foundation. “I have great judgment when it comes to people,” she said. “That is probably the most valuable gift I inherited from Walter Annenberg, the ability to size up the human being. That’s my genius.” The foundation has given away nearly $2 billion since she became chief executive, a spokeswoman said. Much of her giving was in the Los Angeles area, where she had lived since the 1970s.
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Her passions included watching football, an interest sparked by her father. “Not many people knew more about football than Wallis Annenberg,” said David Dreier, a former Republican U.S. representative from California and friend of the family. He said she was a major supporter of his plan to erect a memorial to fallen journalists at the National Mall in Washington.
