Victor Sassoon

Sir Ellice "Victor" Sassoon, 3rd Baronet , GBE (20 December 1881 – 13 August 1961) was a businessman and hotelier from the Sassoon banking family. Sir Victor Sassoon walked with the aid of two sticks as the result of injuries in World War I in which he served in the Royal Flying Corps . He succeeded to the Baronetcy on the death of his father Edward Elias Sassoon in 1924. He had no issue, and the Baronetcy became extinct on his death. He lived in Shanghai as a wealthy bon vivant who worked tirelessly to protect Western interests in the Orient and helped European Jews survive in the Shanghai Ghetto . He founded the Cathay Hotel (now the Peace Hotel ) but left under increasing Japanese pressure in 1941. In 1948 Victor Sassoon sold his business interests in India and Shanghai and transferred the proceeds to the Bahamas. There in 1952 he set up a new enterprise, the E.D. Victor Sassoon was an avid photographer and held extravagant parties at his hotel. Late in his life, Sassoon converted to Buddhism . Sassoon was related by marriage to the Mocatta family and he himself was a Sephardic Jew. One of his former employees, Lord Kadoorie , later founded the Hong Kong based utility company China Light and Power . One of his right hand men in Shanghai was Gordon Currie who was put into a concentration camp by the Japanese and remained there for several years. During the 1950s Sassoon lived at his home on Cable Beach in Nassau , The Bahamas . Late in life he married his American nurse, "Barnsie", who remained in Nassau long after Sassoon's death in the early 1960s. Lady Sassoon continued to provide support for the charity founded by her late husband to help Bahamian children, by hosting the black-tie Heart Ball each year over the Valentine's Day weekend.