Olga Maria Deterding (23 August 1926 – 31 December 1978) was a wealthy heiress and socialite who regularly featured in the gossip columns of London society during the Sixties and Seventies. She inherited an estimated £50 million from her father Sir Henri Deterding, the second chief executive of Royal Dutch Petroleum, following his death in 1939. Her mother was Deterding's second wife, the White Russian Lydia Pavlovna Koudoyaroff (1904–80), a former mistress of his rival

Calouste Gulbenkian Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian (, Western hy, Գալուստ Կիւլպէնկեան; 23 March 1869 – 20 July 1955), nicknamed "Mr Five Per Cent", was a British-Armenian businessman and philanthropist. He played a major role in making the petrole ...

. Olga Deterding grew up at Buckhurst Park at

Winkfield Winkfield is a village and civil parish in the Bracknell Forest unitary authority of Berkshire, England. Geography According to the 2011 Census, the parish had a population of 14,998. The parish includes the hamlets of Winkfield, Maidens ...

in Berkshire and was later educated at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

. In 1956, she became an unpaid volunteer at

Albert Schweitzer Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer (; 14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965) was an Alsatian-German/French polymath. He was a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. A Lutheran minister, Schweit ...

's leper colony in Lambarene, West Africa. Without any medical training, she worked in the kitchen and at other tasks but refused to see even visitors she knew. Deterding remained with Schweitzer for a year until she became ill with a tropical disease. After this, she lived in Tahiti for six months. In

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

, a city she apparently disliked, Deterding found that a flight to Paris was a week away, but the option of flying around the world to reach Paris meant that she could leave at once. Deterding arrived back in Paris later than if she had remained in Beirut. From 1966 to 1969, she had a relationship with the broadcaster

Alan Whicker Alan Donald Whicker (2 August 1921 – 12 July 2013) was a British journalist and television presenter and broadcaster. His career spanned almost 60 years, during which time he presented the documentary television programme '' Whicke ...

,Christopher Hows
"Alan Whicker interview: a journey of a lifetime"
telegraph.co.uk, 16 March 2009 with whom she was for a time engaged, and made Whicker her heir in a will (later changed). By now, subject to mood swings, she was suffering from

bulimia Bulimia nervosa, also known as simply bulimia, is an eating disorder characterized by binge eating followed by purging or fasting, and excessive concern with body shape and weight. The aim of this activity is to expel the body of calories eaten ...

and an addiction to tranquillisers. Shortly after attempting to commit suicide in Whicker's flat, she suddenly left. Later she became involved with Jonathan Routh, best remembered for his role on the British version of '' Candid Camera''; their relationship lasted for several years from 1971. Jennifer Paterson, later one of the ''

Two Fat Ladies ''Two Fat Ladies'' was a British cooking programme starring Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright. It originally ran for four series and twenty-four episodes, from 9 October 1996 to 28 September 1999, being produced by Optomen Televis ...

'', had by now become a close friend. She suggested that the two women might live together and become "the most famous lesbian couple in London." In 1976, Deterding put in an unsuccessful bid to buy ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...

'' newspaper, then in a serious financial position. Deterding was an eccentric partygoer and died in a nightclub on New Year's Eve after choking on a sandwich.Andrew Barrow ''International Gossip, A History of High Society 1970-80'', p.248

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Deterding, Olga 1926 births 1978 deaths Deaths from choking Dutch socialites English socialites People from Winkfield English philanthropists Dutch philanthropists 20th-century British philanthropists