- published: 21 Jan 2015
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Lenore LaFount Romney (born Lenore LaFount [sometimes written Lafount], November 9, 1908 – July 7, 1998) was the wife of American businessman and politician George W. Romney and was First Lady of Michigan from 1963 to 1969. She was the Republican Party nominee for the U.S. Senate in 1970 from Michigan. Her youngest son, Mitt Romney, is the former Governor of Massachusetts as well as a U.S. presidential candidate in 2008 and again in 2012.
Lenore LaFount was born in Logan, Utah, and raised in Salt Lake City. She went to Latter-day Saints High School, where she developed an interest in drama and first met George Romney. She attended the University of Utah and George Washington University, graduating from the latter in 1929. She studied acting at the American Laboratory Theatre in New York, then went to Hollywood where she became a bit player who appeared in a number of films with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Turning down a contract offer with them, she married George Romney in 1931. The couple had four children together; she was a stay-at-home mother, eventually living in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, while he became a success in business and politics.
Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American businessman and the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party for President of the United States in the 2012 election. He was the 70th Governor of Massachusetts (2003–07).
The son of Lenore and George W. Romney (Governor of Michigan, 1963–69), he was raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. In 1966, after one year at Stanford University, he left the United States to spend thirty months in France as a Mormon missionary. In 1969, he married Ann Davies, and the couple had five children together. In 1971, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Brigham Young University and, in 1975, a joint Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration from Harvard University as a Baker Scholar. He entered the management consulting industry, which in 1977, led to a position at Bain & Company. Later serving as Chief Executive Officer, he helped bring the company out of financial crisis. In 1984, he co-founded the spin-off Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm that became highly profitable and one of the largest such firms in the nation. His net worth is estimated at $190–250 million, wealth that has helped fund his political campaigns. Active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he served as Ward Bishop and later Stake President in his area near Boston. He ran as the Republican candidate in the 1994 U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts, losing to long-time incumbent Ted Kennedy. In 1999, he was hired as President and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics and Paralympics; and he helped turn the fiscally troubled games into a success.