Patricia Montandon

Patricia "Pat" Montandon (born December 26, 1928) is an American author and humanitarian.

Background and Family

The daughter of an itinerant Nazarene Church Texas minister, Charles Clay Montandon and his wife Myrtle Taylor, was living in Oklahoma by 1940.[1] She moved to San Francisco in 1960, where she hosted a TV show and became a newspaper columnist for the San Francisco Examiner. After a summer of managing a Joseph Magnin clothing store, she became a darling of the society columns through her creative skills as a party giver.

Married three times, including a short-lived marriage to flamboyant attorney Melvin Belli, she married butter baron Al Wilsey in 1969. They had a son, Sean Wilsey, in 1970. As a society wife, Montandon "acquired a reputation for giving the best parties and round-table luncheons."[2] Wilsey had an affair with Montandon's then-married, best friend, Dede Traina before he filed for divorce in 1980 in order to marry Traina. Montandon was devastated and the ugly divorce proceedings played out publicly. Gossip columns raked Montandon over the coals, claiming as unreasonable her right to fairly split the couple's assets and to receive alimony. Author Armistead Maupin caricatured her as society columnist Prue Giroux in his "Tales of the City" series.[3][4]

Pat Montandon with Robert Mondavi at the 1981 Napa Valley Wine Auction

In 1975, she won a lawsuit she brought against Triangle Publications whose publications impugned her reputation.[5]

In 1979 Pat Montandon created the idea for the Napa Valley Wine Auction, which has become the most successful auction of its kind. She consulted with friend and vintner Robert Mondavi to present the idea to area vintners. Her unexpected divorce compelled Montandon to give her idea to the Napa Valley vintners with her portion of the proceeds benefitting two Napa Valley hospitals. This is recounted in the book "The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty" by Julia Flynn Siler, published June 2007, Gotham Books.

Humanitarian Works

Montandon is an activist for women's rights, and in 1970 she founded The Name Choice Center to inform women of their right to keep their own name after marriage.[6]

Pat Montandon speaking with Mother TeresaCalcutta, India

In 1982, after her divorce from Wilsey, Montandon founded a peace group, Children as Teachers for Peace (now Children as the Peacemakers).[7] Montandon has made 37 international trips with grade-school children, and has had substantive meetings with 26 world leaders such as China’s Premier Zhao Ziyang, Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Pope John Paul II, the late Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Mother Teresa. She collects letters written by schoolchildren, urging an end to nuclear proliferation, and has delivered food and supplies to needy children in Russia and Ethiopia.[8]

Pat Montandon with Mikhail Gorbachev

Montandon was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize three successive years and received the UN Peace Messenger award in 1987.[9]

In 1987, Montandon designed The Banner of Hope. Now, a mile-long, the red-silk memorial inscribed with the names and ages of children killed in war, was first exhibited in the Kremlin at an International Women's Congress.[10] The Banner was highlighted at opening ceremonies of the United Nations, unfurled on the Great Wall of China, and in 2005, enveloped a school in Beslan, Russia after the massacre there.

Montandon's peace work has been honored with awards from Turkey, El Salvador, The People's Republic of China, India, and Norway, and she received the Russian Federation’s Medal in Memory of Anne Frank, Sadako, Tanya Savicheva and Samantha Smith.

She is the author of numerous non-fiction books, including the NY Times bestseller How to be a Party Girl,[11] The Intruders,[12] Whispers from God: A Life Beyond Imaginings,[13] Additionally she wrote a book called "Celebrities and Their Angels" as well as "Making Friends" about Katya from Moscow and Star from San Francisco; two eleven-year-old girls discovering America together; this was the first book co-published in both the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Her most recent book, a second memoir titled Peeing on Hot Coals, was released in 2014.[14]

Pat Montandon Women's Health Careat Dr. Jitu Rajgor's Clinic in Ahmedabad, India.

In 2014 Dr. Jitu Rajgor, a long time admirer and friend of Montandon’s, founded a women’s health facility in Pat's honor at his clinic in Ahmedabad, India. At Pat Montandon's Women Health Care clinic they treat women of all ages who have little ability to pay for health care.

References

  1. ↑ The manuscript version of her birth certificate can be read Patsy Sue or Patsy Lue but the typescript version is Patsy Lue.
  2. ↑ Title sounds familiar: Now, it's mom's turn, Los Angeles Times, Robin Abcarian, April 09, 2007
  3. ↑ Title sounds familiar: Now, it's mom's turn, Los Angeles Times, Robin Abcarian, April 09, 2007
  4. ↑ DOUBLE TROUBLE / High anxiety in high society?, San Francisco Chronicle, Carolyne Zinko, April 15, 2007
  5. ↑ Newark, Ohio, Advocate, 10-15-75: She received in Triangle Publications vs. Montandon (75-195) a $150,000 judgement for the publication of a statement that was based on two court actions said that she was a call girl.
  6. ↑ “Oh the Hell of it All”, by Patricia Montandon. Harper, 2007. Page 60.
  7. ↑ “Peace Organizations, Past and Present; a Survey and Directory”, by Robert S. Meyer. McFarland, 1988, p. 79. She auctioned her couture wardrobe, jewels and furs to fund the organization and its many accomplishments.
  8. ↑ DOUBLE TROUBLE / High anxiety in high society?, San Francisco Chronicle, Carolyne Zinko, April 15, 2007
  9. ↑ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pat-montandon. Retrieved 11.30.11.
  10. ↑ http://instantweb.com/w/worldtrust/news.html. Retrieved 11.30.11.
  11. ↑ “How to Be a Party Girl”, by Patricia Montandon and Rudolf E. Noble. McGraw Hill Book Company, 1968.
  12. ↑ Montandon, Pat (1975). The Intruders. Coward, McCann & Geoghegan. ISBN 0-698-10636-9.
  13. ↑ “Whispers From God: A Life Beyond Imaginings”, by Patricia Montandon. Harper Paperbacks, 2008.
  14. ↑ http://www.bookpassage.com/event/pat-montandon-peeing-hot-coals
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