Charles Forte
 Charles Forte    ( hotelier, businessman) | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Carmine Forte 26 November 1908 Mortale, Italy |
| Died | 28 February 2007 (Age 98) London, United Kingdom |
| Nationality | British |
| Ethnicity | Italian |
| Religion | Catholic |
| Spouse | Irene Mary Chierico |
| Member of | Knights of Malta |
UK hotelier. Owning the venue and attending the 1977 Bilderberg meeting, he became known for his devotion to Margaret Thatcher during her premiership in the 1980s. Knights of Malta | |
Charles Carmine Forte, Baron Forte was an Italian-born Scottish hotelier who founded a leisure and hotels conglomerate.[1][2] Attending the 1977 Bilderberg meeting, where he owned the Imperial Hotel at Torquay which was the venue[3], he became known for his devotion to Margaret Thatcher during her premiership in the 1980s.[4] He was a member of the Knights of Malta.
Contents
Early life
Charles Forte was born as Carmine Forte in Mortale, now Monforte, Casalattico, in the province of Frosinone, Italy on 26 November 1908, eldest son of Rocco Giovanni Forte and Maria Luigia, daughter of Michelangelo Antonio Forte. His parents were distantly related.[5][6] He emigrated from Italy to Scotland at the age of four with his family.[7]
He attended Alloa Academy and then St. Joseph's College, Dumfries, as a boarder, followed by two years of studies in Rome.[8]
Early career
After Rome, Forte rejoined his family, who had moved to Weston-super-Mare, where his father ran a café with two cousins. At 26, he set up his first "milk bar" in 1935.[8] Soon he began expanding into catering and hotel businesses. At the outbreak of World War II, Forte was interned in the Isle of Man due to his Italian nationality, but he was released after only three months.[8] After the war, his company became Forte Holdings Ltd. In the 1950s, he also opened the first catering facility at Heathrow Airport and the first full motorway service station in the UK for cars, on the M1 motorway in 1959.
The company merged in 1970 to become Trust House Forte or THF. Through mergers and expansion, Forte expanded the Forte Group into a multibillion-pound business. His empire included chains of roadside restaurants,and hotels.
Forte was the CEO from 1971 and chairman from 1982 (when his son Rocco took over as CEO) of the Group. Lord Forte passed full control to his son Rocco in 1993, but soon the plc was faced with a hostile takeover bid from Granada. Ultimately, Granada succeeded with a £3.9 billion tender offer in January 1996, which left the family with about £350 million in cash.
On 28 February 2007, Forte died in his sleep at his home in London, aged 98.[7]
Honours and awards
Forte was knighted by The Queen Mother in 1970[9] and created a life peer on 2 February 1982 as Baron Forte, of Ripley in the County of Surrey.[10] He was also a knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
Family
In January 1943, Forte married Irene Mary, daughter of Giovanni Chierico, of Venice. Lady Forte had been apprenticed to a Mayfair couturier. After her father's death when she was 17, she ran the family shop for three months whilst her mother was in Italy; it was destroyed by a bomb during the Blitz in 1940.[11]
From the 1950s, Forte lived with an extended family including his parents and children at Greenway Gardens in Frognal, Hampstead, London.[12] They attended services at the Roman Catholic St. Mary's Church in nearby Holly Lane, Hampstead.
Together, they had six children, five girls and a boy:
- The Hon. Sir Rocco John Vincent Forte (b. 1945), who was knighted in 1995.[13] On 15 February 1986, he married Aliai Giovanna Maria Ricci in Rome. They have three children.
- The Hon. Olga Forte CBE (b. 1947), who was married firstly to the late Count Alessandro Polizzi[14] and secondly, in 1993, to The Hon. William Shawcross. Olga had two children with Alessandro:
- Alexandra Polizzi, a hotelier and the presenter of Channel 5's The Hotel Inspector[15]
- Charlotte Polizzi (b.1973), who married TV celebrity Oliver Peyton
- The Hon. Marie Louise Forte (b. 1950), who married Robert Alexander Burness and had two children.
- The Hon. Irene Forte (b. 1956), who married US Ambassador John Danilovich and had three children.
- The Hon. Giancarla Forte (b. 1959), who married Michael Ulic Anthony Alen-Buckley[16] and had two children.[5]
Irene, Lady Forte died 12 September 2010[17][11].
Lord Forte's family came from Mortale (later renamed Monforte in his honour),[6] in the Lazio region of Central Italy, where he retained the family home.[11]
Event Participated in
| Event | Start | End | Location(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilderberg/1977 | 22 April 1977 | 24 April 1977 | Imperial Hotel Torquay UK | The 25th Bilderberg, held in Torquay, England. |
References
- ↑ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1544150/Lord-Forte.html
- ↑ https://www.italyonthisday.com/2016/11/charles-forte-businessman-and-hotelier.html
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forte_Group According to Wikipedia
- ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/mar/01/guardianobituaries.travel
- ↑ Jump up to: a b Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th edition, vol. 1, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, p. 1472
- ↑ Jump up to: a b Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2005-2008, ed. Lawrence Goldman, Oxford University Press, 2013, p. 387
- ↑ Jump up to: a b http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6403767.stm
- ↑ Jump up to: a b c https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/mar/01/guardianobituaries.travel
- ↑ https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/45152/page/7941
- ↑ https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/48883/page/1621
- ↑ Jump up to: a b c https://catholicherald.co.uk/lives-remembered-irene-the-lady-forte/
- ↑ Charles Forte (1986). Charles Forte – Autobiography. London: Sedgewick.
- ↑ https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/54058/page/8075
- ↑ https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/esmagazine/alex-polizzi-a-most-unlikely-sex-bomb-7309946.html
- ↑ https://www.thetimes.com/travel/destinations/uk-travel/relative-values-olga-polizzi-and-her-daughter-alexandra-gzf25glvtk8
- ↑ Hosking, Patrick, "RAB bosses cash in £25m of shares", thetimes.co.uk, 23 June 2005.
- ↑ The Telegraph, 14 September 2010, "Notices"
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