- Maiko Jeong Shun Lee, Viscountess Rothermere
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Maiko Jeong Shun Lee Born 1949 (age 61–62) Nationality Korean Occupation Model, Socialite, Patron of the arts Title The Dowager Viscountess Rothermere Spouse Vere Harmsworth (1993–1998) Maiko Jeong Shun Lee, Viscountess Rothermere (born 1949) is a Korean citizen born and educated in Japan, who spent her early years living between Kyoto, New York, Paris and London. She is the widow of Daily Mail proprietor the 3rd Viscount Rothermere and as such uses the style The Dowager Viscountess Rothermere. Lady Rothermere supports a number of charities and is a patron of the arts.[1]
During the 1970s, Maiko Lee worked as a top model for hands with the Ford Modelling Agency in New York. She first met Lord Rothermere at a charity ball in New York in 1976.[1] The couple married in December 1993 following the death of Lord Rothermere's first wife, Beverley Brooks, a former actress, in 1992.
In 2009 Lady Rothermere set up the Lady R Foundation whose stated aim is "to bring comfort and relief to the forgotten, the overlooked and the stigmatized in today’s society; to give a voice to those who have no voice, through lack of education, opportunity, illness or having been ostracized in their community".[2] The Foundation's first project in May 2010 was to take the Philharmonia Orchestra to Sorok Island, a community of leprosy sufferers,[3] off the coast of South Korea.[4]
Lady Rothermere has been a patron of the Philharmonia Orchestra since 2001, is a trustee, and has also served as chairman of the endowment fund since 2005. She is a trustee and chairman of The Prince's Drawing School's Scholarship Endowment Appeal, and patron of a project commissioned by HRH the Prince of Wales, which has raised finance for a film that follows the rebuilding of the Gwanghwamun Gate at the Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul, South Korea. Lady Rothermere is also trustee of the Friends of the Alola Foundation, supporting the lives of the women and children in East Timor.[5] She is a patron of the British Museum, supports a range of humanitarian charities, particularly those helping people with leprosy, and was a major contributor to the endowment fund for the Leslie H Blumgart chair in Surgical Oncology at the Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center. She also supports a programme to help raise funds to open a hospital in Ghana for people with spinal disorders and works with the Foundation for Orthopedics & Complex Spine Surgery (FOCOS). She has set up a fund to support the education of children at Siwon Orphanage in her father's hometown of Hampyeong in South Korea.
Other charities Lady Rothermere is involved with include Hemihelp, Brecon Cathedral Choir, Oxfordshire children's hospice Helen and Douglas House, Macmillan Cancer Relief, Marie Curie Cancer Care, the National Osteoporosis Society and the Boystown Orchestra.
In 2009 Lady Rothermere was awarded the Moran-Jang medal, the second highest honour given to Korean civilians by the Republic of Korea.[6][7] It was given to Lady Rothermere in recognition of her work in promoting Korea's image to the rest of the world, and for her outstanding charitable work.[8]
In 2010 Lady Rothermere received the CICI Stepping Stone Bridge Award for helping Korean musicians make inroads into foreign countries and for her work with charity and volunteer programs.[9]
References
- ^ a b Lyall, Sarah (3 September 1998). "Lord Rothermere, Press Giant, Is Dead at 73". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/03/business/lord-rothermere-press-giant-is-dead-at-73.html?pagewanted=2. Retrieved 6 January 2010.
- ^ About the Lady R Foundation
- ^ Sorokdo National Hospital
- ^ The Philharmonia at Sorokdo
- ^ The Dowager Viscountess Rothermere, Friends of the Alola Foundation (UK)
- ^ Republic of Korea's Award System
- ^ National decoration, Order of Civil Merit, South Korean Government website (Korean)
- ^ The Dowager Viscountess Rothermere biography, the Lady R Foundation
- ^ Korea Times, January 2010
External links
Categories:- British viscountesses
- Living people
- 1949 births
- British socialites
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