Annenberg, the billionaire founder of TV Guide, former ambassador to Great Britain and benefactor of many institutions in Philadelphia and elsewhere, died at home in Wynnewood at the age of 94. His wife, Leonore, was at his side. He died due to complications from pneumonia, according to Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania
Annenberg gave generously to Jewish causes, including a $15 million gift to Operation Exodus in 1990 to bring Russian Jews to Israel. “I hope that our community will continue to live up to his example,” said Goldman. “We have lost a truly great man.”
The only son of Moses and Sadie Annenberg, Walter Annenberg was born on March 13, 1908, in Milwaukee, the sixth of nine children.
After attending the Peddie School, a prep school near Trenton, N.J., and a brief one-year stint at the Wharton School of Finance at University of Pennsylvania, in 1928 Annenberg sought his fortune playing the stock market, where he had established a portfolio worth over $2 million. But the crash of 1929 ended Annenberg’s speculative efforts when his wealth was reduced to nothing and he found himself $400,000 in debt.
He was bailed out by his father and was given ownership of the family’s publishing properties. When Moses Annenberg died in 1942, those properties included the Philadelphia Inquirer and two racing publications under the Triangle Publications banner.
Three years later, in 1945, Annenberg added WFIL radio to his Philadelphia properties. He later created WFIL-TV, now WPVI-TV (Channel 6).
In 1953, Annenberg created TV Guide. He purchased the Daily News in 1957, forever linking the fortunes of the tabloid and the Inquirer, both of which were sold in 1969.
Fortune magazine estimated Annenberg’s wealth earlier this year to be about $4 billion.
Annenberg was a frequent visitor to Hollywood in the 1930s, and for years his good friend Ronald Reagan and his family spent New Year’s holidays at Sunnylands, his palatial 240-acre estate in Rancho Mirage, near Palm Springs.
As a philanthropist, many of Annenberg’s donations were unequaled both in their size and their frequency. Shortly after the Six-Day War broke out in June 1967, Annenberg gave $1 million to the upstart Israel Emergency Fund of the Federation of Jewish Agencies (the forerunner to the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia), earning him that agency’s first Humanitarian Award.
Over the years, Annenberg gave in excess of $30 million to the federation, including a $10 million gift to Operation Moses in 1984.
In the field of higher education, his commitment was particularly strong.
He gave the University of Pennsylvania $3 million in 1958 to create the Annenberg School for Communications. He established another Annenberg School in 1971, this time at University of Southern California. Over the years, he reaffirmed those commitments. And on a single day in 1993, he announced $120 million gifts to both Penn and USC, a $100 million gift to the Peddie School and a $25 million award to Harvard University. (He is the largest single donor in USC history.)
Most recently on Sept. 19, the Annenberg Foundation announced a $100 million endowment to both the Annenberg School at Penn and the Annenberg School for Communication at USC.
A noted art connoisseur, he gave a collection of Impressionist and early modern masterpieces valued at $1 billion to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1991.
In September of last year, a $20 million gift to the Philadelphia Museum of Art by Annenberg and his wife set a record for charitable gifts to the 125-year-old institution.
A favorite friend of Republican politicians and British royalty, Annenberg was appointed ambassador to the Court of St. James by President Nixon in 1969.
Despite a lack of experience in foreign policy, when he left the post in 1972, The New York Times reported that he left “with British press much kinder [to him] than when he arrived.”
Annenberg won many awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Reagan in 1986.
He leaves behind his wife, the former Leonore Rosenstiel, of 51 years and three daughters, numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.