Biography

Philippine Mathilde Camille, Baroness de Rothschild (22 November 1933 – 23 August 2014) was the owner of the French winery Château Mouton Rothschild. She acted under the stage name Philippine Pascal (imprinting on her paternal grandfather Henri de Rothschild who also used the last name Pascal to write plays). She was the only daughter of the vintner Baron Philippe de Rothschild, a member of the Rothschild banking dynasty. Rothschild was born in Paris, France. At the time of her birth, her mother, Elisabeth Pelletier de Chambure, a French Catholic aristocrat, was not married to her father Philippe de Rothschild, but instead married to Jonkheer Marc de Becker-Rémy, a Belgian nobleman. After a legal skirmish and the Jonkheer's threats to kidnap his wife's child, the Becker-Rémys divorced in 1934. Shortly afterwards, Rothschild's mother and father eventually married that same year in Paris. By 1939, Philippe de Rothschild separated from Elisabeth, who reverted to using her maiden name.

Rothschild had one brother, Charles Henri de Rothschild, who was born in 1938 and died that same year.

When Philippine de Rothschild was ten years old, she witnessed the Gestapo arrest her mother, who later died at Ravensbrück concentration camp, the only known member of the Rothschild family to die during The Holocaust. The two Gestapo officers fought over taking Philippine along with her mother, but one officer argued that he had a daughter the same age back home, so they left her alone.In 1958, she graduated from the Paris Conservatoire National d'Art Dramatique and acted in La Comédie Française with Catherine Deneuve. She played one of the leading roles in Harold and Maude with Madeleine Renaud between 1973 and 1980, and worked with the compagnie Renaud-Barrault until 1988.She was made an Officier of the Légion d'Honneur in 2007, and in 2013 was given a lifetime achievement award by the Institute of Masters of Wine.She died on 23 August 2014 at age 80, from "complications from surgery".