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Pamela Harriman

Pamela Harriman
PamelaHarriman.jpg
58th United States Ambassador to France
In office
June 30, 1993 – February 5, 1997
President Bill Clinton
Preceded by Walter Curley
Succeeded by Felix Rohatyn
Personal details
Born Pamela Beryl Digby
March 20, 1920
Farnborough, Hampshire, England
Died February 5, 1997(1997-02-05) (aged 76)
Paris, France
Political party Democratic
Spouse(s) Randolph Churchill
(m. 1939; div. 1946)

Leland Hayward
(m. 1960; his death 1971)

W. Averell Harriman
(m. 1971; his death 1986)
Children Winston Spencer-Churchill
Parents Edward Digby, 11th Baron Digby
Constance Pamela Alice Bruce
Relatives Edward Henry Kenelm Digby (brother)
Profession Diplomat, socialite
Religion Roman Catholic

Pamela Beryl Harriman (née Digby; 20 March 1920 – 5 February 1997), also known as Pamela Churchill Harriman, was an English-born American socialite who was married and linked to important and powerful men. In later life, she became a political activist for the Democratic Party and a diplomat. Her only child, Winston Churchill, was named after his famous grandfather.

Pamela Beryl Digby was born in Farnborough, Hampshire, England, the daughter of Edward Digby, 11th Baron Digby, and his wife, Constance Pamela Alice, the daughter of Henry Campbell Bruce, 2nd Baron Aberdare. Pamela was educated by governesses in the ancestral home at Minterne Magna in Dorset, along with her three younger siblings. Her great-great aunt was the nineteenth-century adventurer and courtesan Jane Digby (1807–1881), notorious for her exotic travels and scandalous personal life. Pamela was to follow in her ancestor's footsteps, being frequently cited as "the 20th-century's greatest courtesan."

Raised amid acres of Dorset farmland and woods, from an early age Pamela was a very good horsewoman. She competed at shows at the International Olympia, Royal Bath and West Show, and local shows at Dorchester and Melplash. She show-jumped a tiny pony called Stardust that did a clear round at Olympia when every fence was above the animal's withers.

At the age of seventeen, she was sent to a Munich boarding school for six months. While there she was introduced to Adolf Hitler by Unity Mitford. She subsequently went to Paris, taking some classes at the Sorbonne. Although in her Who's Who biography she identified these classes as "post-graduate" work, she actually never completed a college degree. By 1937, she had returned to England.


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