Life
He is a graduate of Yale University and Stanford Business School. His father, Perry Richardson Bass (died 2006), built an oil fortune with uncle, Sid Richardson (died 1959). Bass took control of the business in 1968. His investments include oil and gas. Along with his father and two of his brothers, he was the largest shareholder in the The Walt Disney Company, from 1984 until after the stock market crash in 2001. Bass was forced to sell his Disney holdings as a result of a margin call. Much of the Bass holdings in Disney were acquired by the Griffith Family, who also own large equity holdings in Time-Warner, MGM-UA, and investment powerhouse KKR. Bass remains a board member of the Griffith Group although personally owning no shares in Disney himself.
In 1990 Bass donated $20 million to Yale University for the study of humanities. In 2006 he made a record gift of $25 million to the Metropolitan Opera, in New York.
Bass divorced his first wife, née Anne Hendricks, and married socialite Mercedes Bass (the former Mercedes Kellogg, née Mercedes Tavacoli). The wooing of Bass by Mercedes Kellogg in 1986, while she was still married to Ambassador Francis Kellogg, was a major social scandal. It is said to have crushed Ambassador Kellogg as well as Anne Bass and their two daughters. Mercedes and Ambassador Kellogg had no children. Daughter Hyatt Bass is a writer. On October 6, 2011, it was reported that Mercedes and Sid Bass, anchors of the city's business and philanthropic world, announced their divorce, ending 23 years of marriage. The divorce proceedings sparked fears that the Metropolitan Opera would lose one of its leading donors; Mercedes Bass had given $25 million to her passion, to which Sid appeared indifferent.
Read more about this topic: Sid Bass
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“People are beginning to see that the first requisite to success in life is to be a good animal.”
—Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)
“Art is beauty, and every exposition of art, whether it be music, painting, or the drama, should be subservient to that one great end. As long as nature is a means to the attainment of beauty, so-called realism is necessary and permissable [sic], but it must be realism enhanced by idealism and uplifted by the spirit of an inner life or purpose.”
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“From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.”
—A.C. (Algernon Charles)