If the name Annabel’s in Mayfair evokes a sense of sophisticated glamour, it is largely thanks to the woman who was its muse.

While the renowned nightclub’s allure may have dimmed over time, Lady Annabel Goldsmith’s charm remained undiminished.

In fact, just last month, those close to her noted that the 91-year-old was in her characteristic lively spirits at her son Zac Goldsmith’s nuptials in the Cotswolds.

“She arrived in a floral maxi dress and I thought to myself, ‘She hasn’t lost her touch!’,” recounted one attendee. “Her wit was as sharp as ever, too.”

Lady Annabel, who peacefully passed away in her sleep this morning, epitomized the Berkeley Square club that bore her name in many respects.

Playful, entertaining, and captivating, she had a light-hearted approach to life. This same spirit might explain why Annabel’s has endured through the years.

Both attracted the beau monde. Queen Elizabeth was drawn to teenage Annabel’s orbit, attending her ‘coming out’ ball in 1952.

Born in London in 1934 into an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family as Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart, she was a renowned society beauty and established herself as a major figure in the Swinging London of the Sixties.

To another generation she was probably better known as the mistress – and later the wife – of billionaire financier Sir James Goldsmith. 

Yet to her family she was the generous, wise and much-revered towering matriarch of an ever-spreading clan.

Lady Annabel, who was a close friend of Princess Diana’s, was the mother of six children from her two marriages, including Zac, who was Conservative MP for Richmond Park for eight years and a former mayor of London candidate, and film producer Jemima Goldsmith. 

In all, she has 14 grandchildren. Her youngest son, Ben, an environmentalist, said she was ‘quite simply irreplaceable’, adding: ‘We are bereft. 

‘Not for her – because her life has been extraordinary and complete – but for us, because of the immense hole in our lives she leaves behind.

‘I spoke to her every day for 45 years. She truly had my back and we loved each other very much. I will miss her terribly.’

Later a statement issued in the names of her children said simply: ‘It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our mother, Lady Annabel Goldsmith, who died peacefully in her sleep this morning at the age of 91.’

Annabel’s nightclub was founded in 1963 by her first husband Mark Birley and was, for a time, the most feted in the world. 

Lady Annabel called it her second home, recalling: ‘Everyone from the Kennedys to the Royal Family came, and I once found myself standing next to Frank Sinatra without realising it.’

She took on the title of Lady Annabel at just 15 in 1949, after her father became 8th Marquess of Londonderry following the death of her grandfather.

Two years later her mother died of cancer, with her father following in 1955. While privileged, her life was cut through with tragedy. 

Her first son Rupert died in 1986 off the coast of Togo, West Africa, when he was 30. It was, said Lady Annabel, the ‘worst thing that has happened to me’.

Of losing him, she said: ‘There really is nothing worse than losing a child – and there is something special about your first-born.

‘Because I was so young when Rupert was born… we were more like good friends than mother and son. 

‘It was worse than my parents dying, but I said to myself: “I have six children. I’ve lost one. I have to be strong for the rest of them”.’

Her second son Robin was left disfigured aged 12 after he was mauled by a tiger in a private zoo.

Having let him go near the pregnant tigress, Lady Annabel said: ‘It was my own fault. I was, am, angry with myself.’ 

She had three children with Birley (Rupert, Robin and India Jane) and another three (Zac, Jemima and Ben) with Sir James, one of Europe’s most flamboyant industrialists who founded the Referendum Party.

She stayed with him even after he famously said: ‘If you marry your mistress, you create a vacancy.’

Lady Annabel was herself the founder of the Democracy Movement, a Eurosceptic political advocacy group. 

She was an advocate for causes such as the countryside, animal charities and working to lessen the impact of HIV/Aids on children in South Africa.

As a published author, she offered candid glimpses into her life in British high society. Annabel: An Unconventional Life (2004), and her follow-up, No Invitation Required: The Pelham Cottage Years (2009), were noted for their wit and warmth.

She once described herself as ‘an incredible mother, rather a good mistress, but not a very good wife’.

One of the grandest clubs of the Sixties and Seventies, Annabel’s was where she entertained guests ranging from Ted and Robert F. Kennedy to Frank Sinatra, Prince Charles, Richard Nixon and Muhammad Ali.

‘I used to be there every night, even when I had three small children to take to school the next day,’ she said.

‘A person might have a rose named after them, but seldom a nightclub. That’s pretty good. 

‘I was blasé about it at the time when Mark told me that’s what he was calling his club. It’s a nice gesture and people still ask if I’m the Annabel from Annabel’s.’

She added: ‘As the years went on, I became rather proud of it. He [Birley] made it into the most extraordinarily beautiful place.

‘My favourite spot was in the loos with my beloved Mabel, who looked after them. They were incredibly chic, with proper basins and meticulously kept.

‘I used to get there early to gossip; nothing happened there that Mabel didn’t know about. 

‘And she was a stickler for hand washing. She’d always tell me who “had” and who “hadn’t”.’

The Birleys separated in 1972 and later divorced in 1975 after the birth of her second child with Sir James. 

‘Our break-up was because of Mark’s infidelities, not because I fell in love with Jimmy,’ Lady Annabel recalled.

Revealing that Birley had numerous other girlfriends from the beginning of their relationship, she added: ‘I think he was absolutely incapable of being faithful. 

‘He was a serial adulterer. Like a butterfly, he had to seduce every woman.’

Despite their divorce, the two remained best friends and soulmates, talking to each other every day and holidaying together until Birley’s death in August 2007. 

Birley said they were ‘the true loves of each other’s lives’.

In 1964, she embarked on a decade-long affair with Sir James, a member of the Goldsmith family. 

Though both she and Sir James, who was then married to his second wife Ginette Lery, believed it would be a passing fling, their relationship soon gained her notoriety in gossip columns.

She once said: ‘Jimmy was married when I met him. And although for many years he wasn’t unfaithful to me, I should’ve known that eventually he would be.

‘Perhaps in my heart I knew it would happen.

‘Of course, I minded the fact that he had another family very much indeed. 

‘But what could I do? I had young children and in the end I just went along with it. And of course I loved him.’

TV show turned my villa into a place for sexual shenanigans, she told MoS in final interview 

By Charlotte Griffiths, Editor At Large  

It was one of the last joys of Annabel Goldsmith’s life that her Spanish hacienda, where she spent so many happy moments with her extended family, had become the glamorous setting for a racy television drama.

Lady Annabel, in her final interview with The Mail on Sunday this month, was tickled by the fact that her nine-bedroom villa Tramores was used as a location for Amazon Prime’s The Girlfriend. 

And not only that – the series, which stars Robin Wright and Olivia Cooke, involves X-rated scenes on Lady Annabel’s beds and sun loungers.

With glorious understatement, she insisted that the ‘shenanigans’ had never before been seen at the villa, despite it playing host to royals and politicians over the past four decades.

The former socialite said: ‘What a strange feeling it was to see my home, the place I discovered, recreated and have loved and cherished since the 80s, featuring in The Girlfriend, particularly the shenanigans on my big blue terrace bed.’

Meanwhile, pictures from the Goldsmith archives are far more wholesome. They show three of Lady Annabel’s children – a young Jemima Khan with brothers Zac and Ben Goldsmith – relaxing with their father, the late financier Sir James Goldsmith, on the same bed. In fact, as she confirmed, the family had built it themselves to accommodate their growing brood.

But while Lady Annabel was relaxed about the adult scenes, she was said to have been less than impressed about what producers did to the Moorish-influenced property’s decor.

A friend of the Goldsmiths complains producers replaced some of the carefully-curated furniture with ‘modern, cheap-looking’ items.

And Lady Annabel was said to be ‘concerned’ that viewers might think those furnishings were her own. 

‘Some of Annabel’s priceless furniture, which she’s collected since the family bought Tramores decades ago, was removed,’ the friend sniffed. 

‘In its place they brought in cheap-looking, modern, and – dare I say it – rather common furniture. A travesty really.’

But Lady Annabel was ultimately ‘pleased’ with the result – especially after fans of the show began making bookings at Tramores, which rents for up to £35,000 a week when the family are away. 

The luxury villa, set in 600 acres of woodland, near Marbella, appears in the drama as the holiday home of millionaire Laura, played by House of Cards’ Ms Wright, whose life unravels when her son brings home his new girlfriend Cherry, played by House of the Dragon star Ms Cooke.