Her German-born maternal grandfather, Hugo Reiss, was a German Jewish businessman in Shanghai, China, where he served as the Brazilian consul;[3] and her maternal grandmother, Mary Ignatius Murphy, was a Roman Catholic of Irish descent from San Francisco.
[2] In 1960, she married private investor Samuel Pryor Reed (1934 - 2005) in a Roman Catholic ceremony in Bernardsville, New Jersey.
[4][5] He was a vice president of Engelhard Industries, the minerals conglomerate; who later owned American Heritage magazine.
[8] In 2006, Annette de la Renta was appointed temporary guardian of the 104-year-old Brooke Astor, a long-time friend, in the wake of elder abuse allegations being made against Astor's son, Anthony Dryden Marshall.
[citation needed] On 20 October 2014, her husband, Oscar de la Renta, died of cancer, at age 82.