Gilded Lily: Lily Safra: The Making of One of the World's Wealthiest Widows

By Isabel Vincent

The mesmerizing biography of one of the world's richest, most intriguing women—philanthropist and socialite Lily Safra

In the early morning of December 3, 1999, Lily Safra stood shivering in her nightgown on the grounds outside her sumptuous Monte Carlo penthouse where, just hours before, her fourth husband, reclusive billionaire Edmond Safra, died in a fire. An American nurse employed by the Safra family was eventually convicted of the arson death. Overnight, Lily became one of the wealthiest widows in the world.

The Brazilian-born Lily Safra was no stranger to tragedy. In 1969, her second husband, the Brazilian multimillionaire Alfredo Monteverde, died from two gunshots to the chest. The Brazilian authorities ruled it a suicide. In 1989, her beloved eldest son and four-year-old grandson died in a car accident. But just who is Lily Safra? Despite having become a fixture in society columns for her generous charity work and lavish parties, the elegant and enigmatic widow has remained in the background.

Gilded Lily tells Lily Safra's story for the first time. Using archival sources, court documents, and interviews with childhood friends and former employees in South America, investigative journalist Isabel Vincent chronicle's Safra's rise from humble origins in Brazil to fabled wealth in London, New York, and Monaco.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jun 29, 2010
• ISBN: 9780062023636

Isabel Vincent

Isabel Vincent is an award-winning investigative journalist currently working for the New York Post. She is the author of Bodies and Souls: The Tragic Plight of Three Jewish Women Forced into Prostitution in the Americas; Hitler's Silent Partners: Swiss Banks, Nazi Gold, and the Pursuit of Justice; and See No Evil: The Strange Case of Christine Lamont and David Spencer. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times "T" Magazine, the Independent, Marie Claire, L'Officiel (Paris), and many other international publications. She lives in New York City.

Reviews for Gilded Lily

[Gaynell Farmer · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I was looking for Empress Bianca and found this book instead. An excellent detailed account of the lives of Lily Safra, Edmond Safra as well as Lily 's first three husbands within the context of the Sepharadim communities from the Levant to South America.

A fascinating portraiture of a woman's obsessive drive to obtain wealth at all costs to reach the pinnacle of international ' society' and the terrible costs shouldered by all around her.

The confusion, mishandling and distortions surrounding the deaths of both her second and fourth husbands which allowed the widow to secure control of 2 tremendous estates (with little concern for others who had claim) leaves the reader surmising that all of Mrs. Safra's successes - the wealth, properties, clothes, Jewels and power as well as enormous worldwide philanthropic efforts - will eternally ring hallow when measured against what it took to obtain those trappings. The title is very apropos of her pyrrhic victory ...