One Woman's Wealth Of Care

When her only child, François, died in a helicopter accident in West Africa in 1986, Albina du Boisrouvray contemplated suicide. But, like the other individuals in this section, Boisrouvray is an alchemist, someone who turns her prvate pain into public gold. "I thought of François, who was a rescue pilot and a very courageous young man," she says. "He would have thought that I was a wimp." Instead, Boisrouvray — a French countess, journalist and movie producer with a large family fortune — sold off $100 million in paintings, jewels and businesses, and in 1989 used a large part of...