Raimund von Hofmannsthal

Raimund von Hofmannsthal (26 May 1906 – 20 March 1974) was an Austrian-born author and representative of an American newsreel firm in London.

Early life

Hofmannsthal was born 26 May 1906 in Austria, into the ennobled Hofmannsthal family. He was the youngest child of Gertrud "Gerty" Schlesinger, and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, an Austrian novelist, librettist, and dramatist, who settled in Hofmannsthal-Schlössl, Rodaun (now part of Liesing, Vienna), once owned by Countess Maria Karolina von Fuches-Mollard, the governess of Empress Maria Theresa. His father died of a heart attack in Vienna on 15 July 1929 as he was dressing for the funeral of Raimund's elder brother, Franz, who committed suicide at age 25 two days' prior. His mother died in London thirty years later in November 1959.

His paternal grandparents were the former Anna Maria Josefa Fohleutner, an upper-class Christian Austrian, and Hugo August Peter Hofmann, Edler von Hofmannsthal, a Christian Austrian–Italian bank manager. His mother, who converted to Christianity before their marriage, was the daughter of a Viennese Jewish banker.

Career Hofmannsthal was an author who had written several magazine articles. In 1930, he was in Hollywood where he was associated with the United Artists and Paramount Studios and was one of the promoters of an enterprise in which Max Reinhardt and other well-known Continental artists and producers were active. By the late 1930s, he was a representative of an American newsreel firm in London. He belonged to the small, highly successful band of Austrians who made their name in Britain and in the United States—with his friend Sir George Weidenfeld probably the best known of all." His family owned Schloss Prielau, a 17th-century chateau on the shores of the lake at Zell am See, which had been seized by the Nazis because of their Jewish ancestry, but was restituted in 1947.

Personal life

On 21 January 1933, von Hofmannsthal married Princess Obolensky, the former Ava Alice Muriel Astor (1902–1956), in the city court of Newark, New Jersey. Ava was the daughter of Col. John Jacob Astor IV (the wealthiest passenger to die in the sinking of the RMS Titanic) and, his first wife, Ava Lowle Willing (who married Thomas Lister, 4th Baron Ribblesdale in 1919). Although she was still married to her first husband, Prince Serge Obolensky (from whom she was divorced in December 1932), Hofmannsthal was said to be the father of their youngest child, Princess Sylvia Obolensky, who was born in May 1931. Before their divorce in 1939, they were the parents of another daughter:

Romana von Hofmannsthal (1935–2014), who married Roderick McEwen, a son of Sir John McEwen, 1st Baronet, in 1958.

After his divorce, Hofmannsthal married Lady Elizabeth Hester Mary Paget (1916–1980) on 7 June 1939 at Chelsea, London. Lady Elizabeth was the second daughter of Charles Paget, 6th Marquess of Anglesey and Marjorie Paget, Marchioness of Anglesey (herself the eldest daughter of Henry Manners, 8th Duke of Rutland). who married Annabel Lea in 1977.

Hofmannsthal died in London on 20 March 1974. His funeral took place in Vienna.