Charles Bierer Wrightsman was born on June 13, 1895, in
Pawnee, Oklahoma. He was the son of Charles John Wrightsman (1868–1959), an Oklahoma oilman and lawyer, and Edna (
née Wrightsman) Wrightsman (1872–1950). He attended
Phillips Exeter Academy,
Stanford University, then transferred to
Columbia University, joining the class of 1918. He became president of Standard Oil of Kansas. He married twice, first to Irene Dill Stafford (1896–1960), with whom he had two daughters: Irene Wrightsman and Charlene Stafford Wrightsman (1927–1963) the latter of whom, like her father, would also marry twice, first to actor
Helmut Dantine and second to newspaper columnist
Igor Cassini. Wrightsman's second wife was the above-noted Jayne Kirkman Larkin (1919–2019). Wrightsman had homes in London and
Palm Beach at which he frequently hosted
John F. Kennedy. Wrightsman died at his home on
Fifth Avenue in
Manhattan on May 27, 1986. In 1961 he successfully bid $392,000 for
Goya's
Portrait of the Duke of Wellington. However, the
UK government blocked the purchase and the painting was instead sold to the
National Gallery in London to enable it to stay in the United Kingdom.
Polo In the 1930s, Wrightsman was known as a tournament
polo player and the owner of championship polo ponies. ==References==