At 76, she has just launched her own perfume line, Liz Astor Fragrances, inspired by her lifelong love of nature, florals and fragrance.
Growing up in Norfolk as the original “toffee heiress” and daughter of the late Viscount Mackintosh of Halifax, whose family ran the confectionery business that created Quality Street chocolates, Liz has lived a fascinating life.
She modelled in her younger years and has travelled extensively, written books and campaigned tirelessly for autism awareness after her youngest daughter, Olivia, was diagnosed with autism, dyspraxia and a learning disability aged four.
Liz, who has been married three times, met her third husband, John Astor, through a mutual friend when she was 40. They married in 1990 and bought “this lovely rambling farmhouse about six miles from Hever and did it up together”, Liz tells hello! in this exclusive interview.
The couple have two children, Charles, 35, and Olivia, 33. Liz also has a daughter Natalya, 45, from her second marriage.
The couple never lived together at Hever Castle, which was the childhood home of Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, in the 1500s.
William Waldorf Astor, one of the wealthiest men in the United States at the time, purchased Hever in 1903, and restored the castle and gardens to their former glory. William’s grandson – John’s father – sold it to the Guthrie family in 1983, yet the couple are still involved with the historic estate.
“Because Hever is so entwined with Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, and the Astor family, whenever [the Guthries] open a garden, they always ask us to come along,” Liz says.
Starting a business in her seventies
One would think Liz might want to put her feet up in her eighth decade, but it’s quite the opposite, as she advocates empowering women in their “third stage” of life.
“I’m 76, a grandmother of three and a step-grandmother of eight, and thank goodness I’ve still got bags of energy,” Liz tells us. “I always say, ‘It’s never over till you’re dead.’”
Reflecting on starting her new fragrance business, she says: “I’ve always wanted to do something on my own. I got to this age where we’d downsized, everybody was as settled as they were ever going to be. I thought, ‘The time is right to do it now.’”
Created in collaboration with the acclaimed French perfumer Hélène Prévot in the village of Grasse on the French Riviera, her perfumes represent three significant phases of her life: Hethersett, the Norfolk village where her grandparents lived and where she spent time as a girl; Nadira No 9 (Arabic for rare), reflecting her travels through the Middle East; and 8.7°S 118.3°E, the coordinates of a remote stretch of the Indonesian sea, the significance of which she explains later.
Liz’s love of fragrance began as a child, when she’d make “concoctions” for her mother. “I used to gather rose petals from the garden, put them in a pestle and mortar and present them to her, just when she was getting changed for dinner. She’d let me have a tiny dab of her favourite perfume, which she said was the most expensive perfume in the world – Jean Patou’s Joy.”
Entrepreneurism seems to run in the family. She recalls visiting her grandfather, Harold Mackintosh, at the Mackintosh’s factory in Halifax. “All the people in the factory would call me Miss Elizabeth,” she says. “You’d go upstairs to the first floor, and the chairman had his office there – that was Grandpa Mack. Next to him, Uncle Eric, his brother. Next to him, Uncle Douglas, Uncle Ken… it was all family-run.”
Liz is related to the Made in Chelsea star Millie Mackintosh and attended Millie’s wedding to Hugo Taylor in 2018; the couple have since separated. “I did go to her wedding, and her father was my father’s cousin, but no, I don’t really see her,” Liz says. “She’s been very successful as an Instagrammer.”
Lost at sea
At 17, Liz left school and travelled to Switzerland to model. There followed stints as a secretary, a role working with disabled children in Newcastle and a job as a Montessori teacher.
She married her first husband, Timothy Cutting, in 1972, and they embarked on an eight-month journey along the legendary Hippie Trail in the Far East.
Liz recounts a harrowing ordeal when the small ferry she was aboard off the coast of Indonesia had its fuel contaminated with sea water, leaving it adrift in the Indian Ocean for 12 days.
“The most frightening thing was a couple of tropical storms,” she says. “We all locked arms round each other and held on to the sides of the ship. We had enough water and a little bit of rice for the first day, and then that ran out.” They survived by eating the chickens being transported on the ship.
Finally, they were blown into the sparsely populated island of Sumbawa, and the Indonesian Navy took them to Bali for two weeks to recover. The coordinates that make up the name of her perfume, Liz says, “are as close as I could work out as where we were beached, where we landed on that island.”
Life threw more challenges Liz’s way when she became a single mother after her divorce from her second husband, Nicolas Chagrin, whom she married in 1980. Their daughter, Natalya, is a photographer. “I was a single mother for seven years, which was quite tough,” Liz says.
It was at this time that Liz first visited Hever Castle with a friend. “We went round the gardens and I thought it was completely fabulous. Never in a million dreams did I ever think I would marry the owner.”
Navigating her daughter’s autism diagnosis
After marrying John and welcoming two children, life changed significantly for the family when their daughter, Olivia, received an autism diagnosis.
“I didn’t know anything about autism,” Liz says. “The only thing I knew was [the film] Rain Man, and she was nothing like Rain Man. I learnt what I could.”
In 2006, she published the book Loving Olivia: Bringing Up My Autistic Daughter. “It was the first book where I suppose somebody from my background said it like it really is.”
© Natalya ChagrinOlivia now lives in semi-independent accommodation and enjoys activities such as art and cooking. “She’s about 35 to 40 minutes away and comes home every third weekend,” Liz says. “She’s very lucky because she’s in a house with three other women of the same age and similar disabilities.”
Liz is a vice-president of the National Autistic Society and is passionate about fundraising for the charity, having completed several challenges and raised more than half a million pounds. She’s climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and led expeditions to locations like Mongolia. For her 60th birthday, she jumped out of a plane.
Her next chapter
What’s next? “I’d like to get my novel published,” she says. “When I write, I’m very visual, so it would make the most amazing film. I’d like to build up the brand. Then I’m looking for an adventure.”
How does she manage to do so much? Liz confesses: “The last thing I put on before I leave [home] is my fragrance. If ever I’m insecure, I have a little zhuzh, and it makes me feel like, ‘Yes, I can do this! Don’t be scared. Off we go, on to the next challenge.'”
Liz Astor Fragrances are available at lizastor.com
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