Money, politics, high stakes gambling, aristocratic mistresses: Sir James Goldsmith was a larger-than life figure who aroused strong emotions from his elopement with an heiress at the age of 20 to his death at 64 this weekend.
Starting off with a small French business which was saved from bankruptcy by a bank strike, Jimmy Goldsmith put together mega-deals in London, Paris and New York. He raided companies, stripped assets, bought and sold household name firms - and had the foresight to sell out just before the 1987 market crash, netting several billion US dollars in cash.
His relentless corporate raids made him legendary - and his timing was usually impeccable. 'If you see a bandwagon, it's too late,' he said.
In true tycoon fashion, after making his 1987 killing, Sir James developed an 18,000-acre estate in Mexico, and then plunged into politics, winning election to the European Parliament and spending millions of pounds on a campaign against the development of the European Union.
Supremely self-confident, tall and with piercing blue eyes, puffing on a large cigar and talking expansively, Goldsmith never hid his contempt for the establishment. An unashamed buccaneer, he revelled in controversy, including the storm over the award of his knighthood by Labour prime minister Harold Wilson.
James Michael Goldsmith was born in Paris. His father was a hotel owner and British member of parliament, his mother came from the French provinces. Early on, he set a high-risk pattern: while still at Eton College, he won enough on a long-odds bet at the racecourse to leave school. Later he played backgammon for high stakes, and usually won.
At 20, he eloped with Isabel Patino, daughter of a Bolivian tin magnate. When her father objected to him being half-Jewish, Goldsmith replied that his family was not used to marrying 'Red Indians'. But tragedy struck when his wife died in childbirth.