Full Name Anne Hendricks Name Anne Bass Net worth US$690 million (2000) | Religion Presbyterian Children Hyatt Bass | |
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Occupation Documentary filmmaker, philanthropist, art collector | ||
Anne Hendricks Bass (born October 19, 1941) is an American investor, documentary filmmaker, philanthropist and art collector. She is the former wife of billionaire oilman Sid Bass. She directed the 2010 documentary film Dancing Across Borders. She is a patron of the arts in New York City and Fort Worth, Texas.
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Early life
Anne Hendricks was born on October 19, 1941 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her father was a "successful Indianapolis surgeon" and urologist. Her mother, a graduate of Vassar College, was a "golf-champion mother". She has younger sisters and a brother.
She was educated in public schools in Indianapolis until 1957, when she transferred to the Tudor Hall School for Girls, a private girls' school in Indianapolis now known as the Park Tudor School, graduating in 1959. She took ballet lessons as a child. She graduated from Vassar College in 1963, where she majored in Italian literature.
Career
After graduation, she was an executive trainee at Bonwit Teller, where she worked as an associate buyer. She later became a contributing editor at Vogue.
Through her divorce settlement, Bass became the owner of over one million shares of The Walt Disney Company. She has been on the Forbes 400 list since 1989. She was worth an estimated US$690 million in 2000.
Bass directed Dancing Across Borders, a documentary about dance released in February 2010. The documentary shows how Bass sponsored a teenager from Cambodia to attend the School of American Ballet and become a professional ballet dancer for the Pacific Northwest Ballet. The film was shown at the Quad Cinema in Manhattan. The New York Times suggested the documentary lacked "an objective voice," as Bass was the one directing and producing a film showcasing her goodwill.
Philanthropy and art collection
Bass volunteered for the Junior League of Fort Worth. She supported the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. She also supported the Texas Ballet Theatre, which she "rescued from bankruptcy". She donated US$300,000 on her own, complemented by a US$250,000 donation from the Sid Richardson Foundation. Additionally, she supported the Van Cliburn Foundation. She made charitable contributions to the Fort Worth Country Day School, where she helped with the landscaping of the grounds. She served on the committee of the Jewel Charity Ball, benefiting the Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas.
Bass served on the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. From 1980 to 2005, she served on the Board of Trustees of the New York City Ballet. She also supported the School of American Ballet. Additionally, she has taken trips with the World Monuments Fund.
Bass collects paintings by Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Edgar Degas. She is the owner of The Drawing Lesson by Picasso.
Personal life
Bass met her first husband, Sid Bass, a billionaire heir to a Texas oil fortune, at a birthday party when Anne was visiting her cousins in Fort Worth; she was only nine years old. They started dating in college. Their wedding was held on June 26, 1965 in a Presbyterian church in Indianapolis, followed by a reception at the Woodstock Country Club. They honeymooned in Europe. After living in Dallas for a year and Palo Alto, California for two years, they moved into a ranch-style estate overlooking the Trinity River. Later, they moved into a mansion on Deepdale Drive, Westover Hills, Texas designed in 1970 by architect Paul Rudolph with grounds designed by British landscape architect Russell Page. They also lived in an apartment on Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park in Manhattan, designed by Mark Hampton.
Sid and Anne had two daughters: Hyatt Anne Bass, an author, and Samantha Sims Bass, a photographer. When they divorced in 1988, she received US$200 million in the settlement, which was the largest ever in the state of Texas. She decided to keep her former husband's name.
Bass resides in the 960 Fifth Avenue apartment she received in her divorce settlement, as well as the Rudolph- designed home in Westover Hills. She also owns a 1,000-acre estate in South Kent, Connecticut with her boyfriend, Julian Lethbridge, who is a painter. In 2007, they were both held hostage at the estate. Five years later, in 2012, her Romanian-born butler was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the hostage situation, when he attempted to extort millions from Bass.
Bass was described as "relentlessly private" by Texas Monthly. She enjoys reading novels by Edith Wharton.