Betty Grafstein’s empire involves royalty, a diamond dealer and even Pepsi

It is necessary to go back to the Second World War to understand the connection between Elizabeth Larner and Albert Grafstein, a Jewish diamond trader who, together with his brother, ran the Grafstein Diamond Corporation.

Betty is the diminutive of Elizabeth Larner, an Englishwoman born in 1928 and adopted daughter of a lady-in-waiting to Queen Mary, grandmother of Queen Elizabeth II. At 18, Betty moves to New York with her boyfriend, a playboy who shortly afterwards abandons her with a newborn child.

We are in the aftermath of the Second World War and Betty works as a secretary at Pepsi Cola, when she meets Albert Grafstein, a well-known diamond negotiator whom she would eventually marry.

She was 25 years old, he was 49 and already had a daughter, Barbara Berger, accustomed to the world of high jewelry and who, according to the New York Times, bought her first pair of Chanel earrings at a flea market in Paris.

Albert Grafstein would later adopt Roger, Betty’s son from her first marriage, who currently runs the Grafstein Diamond Corporationa diamond importing company, together with the other brother’s son Grafstein.

Betty Grafstein’s marriage lasted until 1991, the year in which Albert Grafstein died, making Betty heir to a diamond empire and a jewelry company in New York, which still exists.

And it was in the mid-90s that Betty Grafstein met José Castelo Branco, an art dealer at the time, at a party for the artist Júlio Quaresma. The two would get married in 1996 and the relationship continues to this day.