Lady Fairfax
Flamboyant socialite, philanthropist and widow of the publishing magnate Sir Warwick Fairfax
LADY FAIRFAX, who has died in Sydney aged 95, was one of Australia’s richest and most prominent socialitephilanthropists as the indomitable widow of the newspaper tycoon Sir Warwick Fairfax. The daughter of Jewish immigrants from Poland, Mary Fairfax was the third wife of Sir Warwick – whose family company John Fairfax, founded in 1841, owned the Sydney Morning Herald, the Melbourne Age, the Australian Financial Review and a range of television interests. Fierce in defence of her ageing husband’s legacy and in support of her son “young Warwick”, she was often reported to be at daggers drawn with the rest of the Fairfax dynasty and their allies.
Mary Fairfax always denied that she harboured ambitions of her own to run the Fairfax empire. But her rejuvenating influence on Sir Warwick certainly fuelled his autocratic tendency in later years, until he was forced to retire from the chairmanship in 1977, aged 75, in a boardroom coup orchestrated by his eldest son (by his first wife) James and cousin Sir Vincent Fairfax.
Meanwhile, Mary Fairfax had encouraged young Warwick since childhood to believe he would one day run John Fairfax. In August 1987, a few months after Sir Warwick’s death, her inexperienced 26-year-old son launched a cash offer for the company backed almost entirely by borrowed money. Having pledged her own shareholding in his support, Mary later claimed to have pleaded with him to stop before it was too late. But the offer prevailed, young Warwick duly became chairman, and the business collapsed three years later under a mountain of debts.
Marie Wein (who changed her name to Mary in adulthood) was born in Warsaw on August 15 1922. By her own account, the Wein dynasty once owned Polish estates and breweries – but her father Kevin, one of 11 children, decided to try his luck in Australia, where his family joined him in 1930. Kevin and his wife Anna eventually owned two Sydney dress shops.
The Wein household was Zionist but non-religious; Marie later became a Roman Catholic. She was educated at Sydney’s Presbyterian Ladies’ College and went on to study chemistry at Sydney University, afterwards working as a pharmacist before buying a small stake in another fashion business. In 1945 she married an up-andcoming lawyer, Cedric Symonds, and they invested together to create a small chain of shops in partnership with her brother Paul. In 1951 she and Cedric had a son, Garth.
When the Symonds met Warwick Fairfax and his second wife Hanne, Cupid’s arrow struck: Mary declared the lanky, taciturn Warwick, 21 years her senior, to be very much like her father “and I wanted to be Daddy’s little girl forever”. Both marriages ended, and Mary and Warwick tied the knot just after midnight on July 4 1959 – the day after Warwick’s divorce became absolute. Complex legal wrangles followed, obliging Warwick temporarily to step down as chairman of the newspaper company.
Mary gave birth to young Warwick in December 1960, but was unable to have more children. In 1967 – the year her husband was knighted – the couple moved to London for an extended stay during which they adopted two British-born babies, Charles and Anna.
As a wife, Mary was conspicuously devoted to her husband: “Everything should be done to please him.” As a hostess, she was indefatigable, entertaining Australia’s elite and visiting celebrities in glittering style at Fairwater, the family’s Edwardian harbourfront mansion in Sydney. For the opening of the Opera House in 1973, she threw a ball for 1,000 guests, including prime minister Gough Whitlam, the Philippines’ first lady Imelda Marcos, Rudolf Nureyev and Liberace.
The British author Nicholas Coleridge, invited to dine and dance on Fairwater’s lawns, noted “spectacularly vulgar flowers” fighting for table space with “elaborate silver salt cellars shaped like carriages pulled by silver-winged Cupids”, and observed that Mary Fairfax was sometimes described as “Bubbles Rothermere writ large”. But the flamboyant wife of the late 3rd Viscount Rothermere (owner of Associated Newspapers in London) “was generally considered circumspect next to Mary, with her Widow Twankey couture ball gowns and ring-encrusted fingers.”
As a philanthropist, Mary Fairfax was a high-profile supporter of opera, ballet, medical research and numerous other causes. She was appointed OBE in 1976 and a member of the Order of Australia in 1988.
After young Warwick’s takeover, Mary Fairfax paid a visit to the London home of The Spectator magazine, which the family also owned. “The first thing she said,” recalled Charles Moore, the then editor, “was ‘They say I married my late husband for his money, but that’s not true. I’m a very wealthy woman in my own right.’”
Despite losing heavily in the failure of the Fairfax group, Mary Fairfax continued to live the life of a multimillionairess and to dabble in real estate and other business ventures. In 1989 she bought the top three floors (including a ballroom) of the Pierre Hotel in New York and made her home there for five years. Later she returned to Fairwater, where she died.
She is survived by her four children.
Lady Fairfax, born August 15 1922, died September 17 2017