Walter H. Annenberg

Annenberg’s philanthropy has been central to the University of Southern California. Since 1951, the Annenberg family and the Annenberg Foundation have given $288 million to the university, and founded both the USC Annenberg School for Communication and the USC Annenberg Center for Communication, an interdisciplinary center to address the ethical, social, technological and economic opportunities and challenges related to communication in the 21st century.

"Ambassador Walter H. Annenberg gave so much to the world in general, and to USC in particular," said USC President Steven B. Sample. "I can say without reservation that his warmth, sincerity and devotion to the ideals of promoting greater human understanding through education and communication more than match the magnitude of his generous gifts. He was a pioneer, a visionary, an exemplary philanthropist and, above all, an extraordinary human being. He leaves an enduring legacy at USC."

Annenberg was founder and publisher of TV Guide and Seventeen magazine, the former editor and publisher of the Philadelphia Inquirer and the former chairman of Triangle Publications.

From 1968 to 1974, he served as U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. A longtime proponent of education in communications, Annenberg donated more money to American higher education than any other individual. His wife, Lee, is president of the foundation, and his daughter, Wallis, is foundation vice president and also a USC trustee.

In addition to the Annenberg School for Communication and Annenberg Center for Communication at USC, he founded the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

"Walter Annenberg was a visionary who believed in the power of education and communication to improve the world, " said Geoffrey Cowan, dean of the Annenberg School. "He was the most generous philanthropist of his generation, donating hundreds of millions of dollars to improve public education, provide public access to the world's artistic treasures and create two great schools of communication that carry his name. His great heart and powerful vision will continue to guide this school, its faculty and its students for generations to come."

"I am deeply saddened by the passing of Walter Annenberg, and I extend my sympathies to his wife Lee, his daughter Wallis and to the entire Annenberg family," said Elizabeth M. Daley, executive director of the USC Annenberg Center for Communication and dean of the USC School of Cinema-Television. "Over the course of his long life, the ambassador had many titles: publisher, statesman, philanthropist, visionary. Each and every one was well earned. He will be deeply missed. He made our world a far better place in which to live."

Just last month, the Annenberg Foundation announced a new gift of $200 million – $100 million each – to the Annenberg Schools at USC and the University of Pennsylvania.

Walter Annenberg’s father, Moses, was a child when his family fled East Prussia in the 1880s to escape pogroms and settled in the United States. The senior Annenberg’s rags-to-riches story took him from newspaper jobs as a youth to becoming publisher of the Philadelphia Inquirer and the owner of Triangle Publications, publisher of The Daily Racing Form.

Walter H. Annenberg was born March 13, 1908, in Milwaukee, Wis. He graduated from the Peddie School in Hightstown, N.J., and attended the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He entered the family publishing business in Philadelphia and became president of Triangle Publications Inc. in 1940. He became chairman of the board in 1942, upon the death of his father.

While serving as editor and publisher of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Annenberg saw the need for a publication for teenage girls and in 1944 established Seventeen magazine. In 1953, as a result of his belief that television's growth would create a demand for more information on the part of viewers, he established TV Guide as a national publication. It became the largest-circulation weekly magazine in the world.

The Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago described the editorial purpose of TV Guide under Annenberg as "both a staunch booster of the American system of television, yet at times also one of the most visible critics of the medium's more egregious perceived shortcomings.…TV Guide's greatest accomplishment under

Annenberg may have been the magazine's success in walking the fine line between encouraging and prodding the medium to achieve its full potential without becoming too far removed from the prevailing tastes of the mass viewing public. As a consequence, TV Guide became extremely popular and widely read, and very influential among those in the television industry."

Annenberg sold Triangle Publications and TV Guide to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in 1988. A year later, he created the Annenberg Foundation, which now has a $3 billion endowment, making it the nation’s 12th largest.

Keenly in touch with conservative politics throughout his life, Annenberg counted among his friends many national leaders. He was named U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain in 1969 by President Richard M. Nixon. Annenberg was a close friend of Ronald Reagan and introduced the U.S. president to Margaret Thatcher, future prime minister of Great Britain

Annenberg was also one of the country's foremost collectors of art. In 1991, he bequeathed his extensive collection to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.