Susana Walton

Susana, Lady Walton, born Susana Valeria Rosa Maria Gil Passo, was the Argentinian wife of the British composer Sir William Walton. She was a writer and the creator of the gardens of La Mortella on the island of Ischia, Italy. Born in Buenos Aires in 1926, Lady Walton was the daughter of a prominent Argentinian lawyer, Dr Enrique Gil. She was educated at a college run by Spanish nuns where she took a diploma in accountancy followed by a degree as a public translator in English. She was working at the British Council in Buenos Aires when she met Walton in October 1948. They married two months later in December 1948. The couple settled on the Italian island of Ischia where she created the gardens of La Mortella. The residence hosted many celebrities, including Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, Hans Werner Henze, W. H. Auden, Terence Rattigan, Binkie Beaumont, Maria Callas and Charlie Chaplin. William Walton died at La Mortella on 8 March 1983. Lady Walton appeared alongside her husband in his only acting role; King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony as the King's wife Maria Anna of Bavaria in the 1983 miniseries Wagner, directed by Tony Palmer. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susana,...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)