Sanford L Ziff

Ziff, who built Sunglass Hut with his first wife, Helene, sold 75 percent of the business in 1987 for $35 million. He sold the remaining 25 percent in 1991. Ziff, who died Friday January 6 2017 at 91 from complications of a stroke, used the proceeds from his gambit to become, along with his second and third wives, the late Dolores Ziff and his widow, Beatrice, one of South Florida’s premier philanthropists. Ziff studied at the University of Akron, but when his parents sold their business he moved with his family to Miami in 1945. He studied physical sciences at the University of Miami, then moved to Chicago to study optometry where he earned his doctorate at Northern Illinois College of Optometry. He opened his first practice in Miami in 1950. He practiced optometry and conducted clinical research in contact lenses for the next 30 years. In 1995, Ziff married Dolores Keator, a former art teacher, antiques dealer and actress who had scored a bit part in the first James Bond adventure, 1962’s “Dr. No,” when she lived in Jamaica. The two had met at a mutual friend’s party at the Bath Club in Miami Beach. The two bonded over tea at her Key Biscayne home, where they would live as husband and wife for 15 years until her death in January 2011. Ziff married his third wife, Baroness Beatrice Clancy, seven months after Dolores died in 2011 Ziff is survived by his children, Cindy and Dean Ziff; three grandchildren, Marco, Matteo and Ashley Ziff De La Cruz; great- grandson Jazz Ziff De La Cruz; wife, Beatrice Ziff, and her two children and grandson Theodore Gary.