Name Michael 4th Role Film producer | Movies Sympathy for the Devil Ex-spouse Miss Ellen Erhardt | |
Born 17 June 1944 (age 79) ( 1944-06-17 ) Parents Weetman Pearson, 3rd Viscount Cowdray Grandparents Harold Pearson, 2nd Viscount Cowdray Great-grandparents Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray Similar People Ned Rocknroll, Iain Quarrier, Jean‑Luc Godard, Richard C Sarafian, Guillermo Cabrera Infante | ||
Michael Orlando Weetman Pearson, 4th Viscount Cowdray (born 17 June 1944) is a landowner in West Sussex. He also is a shareholder of Pearson PLC.
Contents
Early life
Lord Cowdray is the son of Weetman Pearson, 3rd Viscount Cowdray (1910–1995). His great-grandfather, Weetman Dickinson Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray (1856–1927), was created Viscount Cowdray in 1917. His mother, Lady Anne Pamela Bridgeman (1913–2009) was the daughter of Orlando Bridgeman, 5th Earl of Bradford (1873–1957). He grew up on the 16,500-acres family estate in West Sussex.
He attended Gordonstoun School, a boarding school in Elgin, Moray, Scotland.
Career
He was, following school, in the British Army for two years.
In the late 1960s, he started a career as a film producer, running Cupid Productions, a film production company. He produced Sympathy for the Devil, a film starring The Rolling Stones and directed by Jean-Luc Godard, and Vanishing Point in 1971.
He was a director of Theo Fennell PLC.
In 1995 he took over the family estate, a 16,500-acre estate in West Sussex. He and his wife have tried to make it an economically viable estate through means of sustainable farming. They renovated the main house on the estate to become a venue for private hire and weddings. The estate, which employs 150 people, also has many businesses, including a farm shop, cafe, golf, shooting grounds, fishing and therapy rooms for hire.
The estate is most well known for its polo grounds, hosting one of Britain's most prestigious polo events: the Cowdray Park Gold Cup.
Personal life
In 1970, he had a child out of wedlock, Sebastian William Orlando Pearson, with Barbara Page. In 1977 he was married Ellen Erhardt. They were divorced in 1984. In 1985, he was listed in Debrett's Peerage as a resident of Le Schuylkill, a high-rise building in Monaco.
In 1987, he married Marina Rose Cordle, daughter of John Cordle, a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1959 to 1977. They have five children:
Lord Cowdray has served on the board of trustees of the Tibet House Trust for 20 years. and donates to the school project The Drukpa Kargyu Trust. He is a patron of the local primary school, church, young farmers club and sports teams.