Publisher Walter Annenberg Dies At 94

Walter H. Annenberg, who parlayed America's love affair with television into a fortune by launching the national TV Guide magazine and later served as ambassador to Britain, died Tuesday. He was 94.

Annenberg, who also created Seventeen magazine, gave billions of dollars to charity and endowed two leading journalism schools, died at his home in suburban Wynnewood of complications from pneumonia, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

His wife, Leonore, was with him when he died.

Annenberg was a big contributor to Republican political candidates and at times a behind-the-scenes political power, reports CBS News Correspondent Bob Fuss. He socialized often with Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford and Reagan. While president, Mr. Reagan spent most every New Year's with Annenberg, partying at his walled Palm Springs, Calif., estate.

Annenberg, the only son among 10 children of publisher Moses Annenberg, inherited The Philadelphia Inquirer and two racing publications from his father and went on to build Triangle Publications into a multibillion-dollar business encompassing newspapers, magazines, and radio and television stations.

After selling off some properties earlier, he sold the remaining Triangle properties, including TV Guide, to magnate Rupert Murdoch in 1988 for $3 billion.

Forbes magazine listed him as one of the wealthiest Americans, ranking him No. 39 in 2002 with an estimated net worth of $4 billion.

He also became a noted art connoisseur who in 1991 donated a collection of Impressionist and early modern masterpieces valued at $1 billion to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

His appointment by President Nixon as ambassador to the Court of St. James's in 1969 raised controversy because of his lack of experience in foreign affairs. But he and his wife, Leonore, wound up charming British society during their 5½ years there.

"Practically everybody who has so far met the Annenbergs here — in sharp contrast to those who have read sour comments on their riches — carries away vivid impressions of warmth, generosity and a robust love of all things English," one English columnist wrote.

Among his philanthropies were the universities of Pennsylvania and Southern California, where communications schools were established bearing his name; the United Negro College Fund; the state of Israel; and several hospitals.

In 1993, he announced $365 million in gifts in a single day: $120 million each to Penn and Southern Cal; $100 million to the Peddie School, a prep school in Hightstown, N.J., that he had attended; and $25 million to Harvard University.

That December, he was applauded by President Clinton and others as he announced $500 million in grants for public school reform. Recipients include Brown University, the New American Schools Development Corp., and public school districts across the nation.

Annenberg said he was deeply troubled by school violence and concerned that if it continued unabated it would have a devastating impact on American life.

"We must ask ourselves whether improving education will halt the violence," he said. "If anyone can think of a better way, we may have to try that. But the way I see this tragedy, education is the most wholesome and effective approach."

Walter Hubert Annenberg was born March 13, 1908, in Milwaukee, to Moses and Sadie Annenberg.

His father started out as a newspaper circulation executive in Chicago. He began to build his own empire by venturing into various publications, including a track tip sheet in Chicago. Walter Annenberg was born during those building-up years. The elder Annenberg finally moved the family to Philadelphia and bought the Inquirer.

But while Moses Annenberg prospered, he fell afoul of tax laws and was sentenced in 1940 to three years for tax evasion. He was released for treatment of a brain tumor and died in 1942, leaving his son the Inquirer and two racing publications, The Morning Telegraph and the daily Racing Form. His sisters shared in the inheritance.

Some of Annenberg's biographers say his father's legal troubles and his death provided the impetus for his career. A plaque kept by Annenberg stated his driving force, "to reflect honor on my father's memory."

Annenberg added the Philadelphia Daily News to his newspaper properties and branched out into magazines. He founded Seventeen, the fashion and beauty monthly for teenage girls, in 1944. It was edited by his sister, Enid Haupt.

Nine years later, in 1953, he established the weekly TV Guide as a national publication because he believed that television's growth would create a demand for television information. The magazine grew to a circulation of more than 14 million.

Eventually his Triangle Publications holding company acquired six radio and six television stations in Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut and California, and a broadcasting network that started with a small station in Philadelphia he bought in the 1940s.

He sold the two Philadelphia dailies to Knight Newspapers for $55 million in 1970, and a year later, for millions more, sold his radio and TV stations. Then in 1988 he sold all the remaining Triangle properties in the multibillion-dollar deal with Murdoch.

Annenberg, despite his newspaper background, rarely talked to reporters.

He did briefly discuss his decision in 1991 to leave his art collection to New York's Metropolitan, instead of to his hometown Philadelphia Museum of Art. "I happen to believe that strength should go to strength," he said.

The collection included some of the best works of van Gogh, Cezanne, Renoir, Manet, Matisse, Gauguin, Degas and Picasso.

He called his paintings "members of my family" and declined to say which painting he loved the best. "I love them dearly," he said. "Would you single out a favorite if you have several children?"

Annenberg was a silent power broker in the Republican Party and one of its biggest contributors. His newspapers, however, were outspoken on editorial pages on behalf of GOP causes.

When he became ambassador in 1969, he resigned as president of Triangle Publications, but he remained the principal stockholder.

Annenberg had a son, Roger, and daughter, Wallis, with his first wife whom he divorced in 1950. The son died in 1962.

Among awards given to Annenberg were the Medal of Freedom awarded in 1986 by Reagan and the Alfred Dupont Award for pioneering education via television.

Among the schools giving him honorary degrees were the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Notre Dame, University of Southern California and Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Jamieson said there would be a private memorial service for Annenberg's family followed by a public service.