Valerie Delacorte

Valéria Hidvéghy or Valerie Pascal Delacorte (June 14, 1914 – July 14, 2011) was a Hungarian actress, philanthropist and writer.

Valéria Hidvéghy
Born(1914-06-04)4 June 1914
Budapest
Died14 July 2011(2011-07-14) (aged 97)
Palm Beach Gardens
NationalityHungary

Life

Delacorte was born in Budapest and broke through the iron curtain to marry the film producer Gabriel Pascal. She is best known today for her 1970 memoir of him, The Disciple and His Devil: Gabriel Pascal and Bernard Shaw. In a letter to the editor of the New York Times in 1995 she wrote that the character of Eliza in the guise of a Magyar princess in "My Fair Lady" was due to her first husband.[1]

After Pascal's death she married George T. Delacorte, Jr. in 1959 and together with him became a philanthropist as well as safeguarding Pascal's correspondence and legacy. She outlived this second husband as well and in 1991 three years after his death, made her first donation of $1 million and five Old Master paintings to the Norton Museum of Art.[2] In total she donated 60 paintings to the museum.

Delacorte died at her home in Palm Beach Gardens.

References
  1. Letter to the editor in the New York Times, 18 November 1995
  2. Norton Museum of Art remembers late benefactor Valerie Pascal Delacorte's 'extraordinary joy of life, 17 July 2011, Palm Beach Post via museum website


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