Carroll Petrie

Prominent socialite and philanthropist who gave hundreds of millions of dollars to museums, hospitals and charities, continuing the largess of her husband, the retailing mogul Milton Petrie, after his death in 1994, After Milton and Carroll Petrie were married in 1978, they gave away large portions of his fortune, which Forbes magazine estimated at nearly $1 billion at his death. They gave to the Museum of Modern Art, where a cafe on the fifth floor is named after them, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which opened the Carroll and Milton Petrie European Sculpture Court in 1990. Other major beneficiaries included NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the Parrish Art Museum on the East End of Long Island. After her husband’s death she was a trustee of the Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation, which was endowed with more than $300 million for various charitable endeavors. Carroll McDaniel was born on Jan. 25, 1924, in Greenville, S.C. She moved to New York and became a model in the mid-1940s after attending Converse College in Spartanburg, S.C., for two years. She later financed the Petrie School of Music there. Some years later she married Alfonso Cabeza de Vaca y Leighton, who was a racecar driver and the Marquis of Portago in Spain. They lived in Paris until he died in a crash during a race in 1957. She had two other marriages, both ending in divorce, before marrying Mr. Petrie. Mrs. Petrie also had a home in Palm Beach, Fla. Her survivors include a daughter, Andrea Portago, and three grandchildren.