The Lucky Gambler: Sir James Goldsmith Is a Billionaire Buccaneer

Luck, be a lady tonight. When Jimmy Goldsmith's first son was about to be born, in 1959, he insisted on getting a private room at the best clinic in Paris, even though he didn't have any money to pay for it. Then he went to the Travellers Club on the Champs Elysees and found a rich man whom he could entice into a game of backgammon. "He finally got me out of the clinic," says Ginette Goldsmith, whom Goldsmith married four years later, "with his winnings from that game of backgammon."

Their son Manes is 28 now, working in Mexico City...