March 21, 2014
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Gene Gauntier is the stepsister of one of the richest men in the world
Recent social news brings us back to Gene Gauntier. There are a few weeks, Electrolux, offered its 5 700 employees in Italy to lower their wages in 40% penalty relocate four plants in Poland.
What is the relationship between the favorite actress of Sidney Olcott and Electrolux, a global brands ? Gene Gauntier is the stepsister of Axel Wenner-Gren, CEO of Electrolux at the time. Swedish billionaire married her younger sister Marguerite.
Born October 15, 1891, in Kansas City, Missouri. Marguerite Liggett wants to become an opera singer. She has a beautiful soprano voice. She chose Gauntier stage name, the same as Gene. The maiden name of their mother.
1909, to complete her training and sign a first commitment, Marguerite has to go to Germany. On board the liner between New York and Southampton, the young woman meets Axel Wenner-Gren, a seductive Swedish, contractor ten years her senior. A real thunderbolt. They married in secret on December 14, 1909, in London.
Marguerite continued on to Germany. She signed a contract to opera Elberfeld. She made a career, and in Mainz and Stockholm in 1913. Marguerite puts an end to her career in 1915.
Meanwhile, Axel will develop its engineering business. He built his fortune through domestic vacuum and refrigerate it will sell to individuals under the Electrolux brand. A considerable fortune ! If we dare the comparison, Axel Wenner-Gren is the Bill Gates of the time. We are in the middle of the twenties.
The Swedish is also a good customer of the society column. Seen photographed aboard the largest yacht in the world, The Southern Cross, which he bought in US billionaire Howard Hughes, pilot and film producer. The yacht is regularly moored at Paradise Island, a beautiful property he built in the Bahamas. Axel and Margaret also have a large property in Mexico Rancho Cortes and a mansion in Sweden Häringe Castle.
The address book of the couple account those world leaders. So much so that the industrial has begun to mediate against the new danger that threatens world peace. His relationships are called Edward VII, the future ex- king of England, Marshal Goering...
Suspected of Nazi sympathies, the Swedish is blacklisted by the Americans and the English... Bleached its accusations, he bounces after the war. Wenner-Gren, passionate transport, develops monorail trains in Seattle and Disneyland... He is also interested in the computer. Technological battle with IBM nearly caused its loss.
Wenner-Gren also created a foundation : The Viking Fund whose goal in 1941 is to anthropological research. Today is the Wenner-Gren Stiftelserna (Wenner-Gren Foundations), a foundation that helps scientific research by providing scholarships to Swedish researchers to study locally or abroad ; organizing international conferences and hosting world scientists in residence at its premises in architecture pioneering at the time.
Axel Wenner-Gren died in 1961. Marguerite Gauntier moved to Häringe surrounded by her dogs. Then she moved to Mexico. She resided in her property of Rancho Cortez in Cuernavaca, Hotel Racquet today, along with Gene, her sister. The latter died in 1966. She is buried in Cuernavaca. Marguerite died in 1973. She was repatriated to Sweden and buried with her husband in Häringe near the east wing of the castle. After many vicissitudes, the castle became a luxury hotel.
Sorry for my English
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