Walter Annenberg was born in Milwaukee on March 13, 1908, the son of Moses Annenberg, a publishing baron whose empire included the Daily Racing Form and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Moses Annenberg pleaded guilty to tax evasion in 1940 and died in 1942, just weeks after his release from prison, a disgrace that fell hard on his son. Walter spent the next several decades rebuilding the family name through a combination of business acumen, strategic philanthropy, and relentless ambition. He inherited the Inquirer and the racing publication, then expanded into entirely new territory: in 1952 he launched TV Guide, which became one of the most widely circulated magazines in American publishing history. Seventeen magazine, aimed at teenage girls, joined the portfolio. Through Triangle Publications, Annenberg assembled a media company with reach that few of his contemporaries could match.

In 1969, President Nixon appointed Annenberg as United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom — a posting that came with immense social obligations and, in his case, a notoriously garbled speech at his first formal presentation to the queen. His description of renovation work at the ambassador's residence as creating 'elements of refurbishment and rehabilitation' became something of a Washington punchline. But Annenberg spent five years in London and emerged with something unexpected: a genuine friendship with Queen Elizabeth II. He returned to the United States in 1974, and the relationship persisted. When the queen visited Sunnylands nine years later, it was not a diplomatic obligation but something closer to a personal call.

The estate at Rancho Mirage was Annenberg's creation from the ground up. Built on 400 acres, it included a private golf course and a main house filled with an art collection that would eventually be valued in the hundreds of millions. Frank Sinatra came regularly. Bob Hope came. Seven American presidents visited during Annenberg's lifetime. Ronald Reagan spent New Year's Eve there multiple times. The estate projected a particular vision of American success — earned, refined, available to those who mattered. Annenberg had used it partly to rehabilitate a family name damaged by his father's conviction, and by the 1980s the rehabilitation was complete. Sunnylands is now managed by a foundation as a center for policy retreats and public programs.

In 1988, Annenberg sold Triangle Publications to Rupert Murdoch for approximately three billion dollars. The sale freed him to concentrate on philanthropy at a scale that few individuals have attempted. Over the following decade and a half, he gave away more than two billion dollars. Fifty million dollars went to the United Negro College Fund. Schools at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California bear his name. The Annenberg Foundation, the vehicle for much of this giving, became one of the larger private foundations in the United States. Annenberg died on October 1, 2002, at ninety-four. His life had traveled from a Milwaukee childhood through a father's disgrace, a publishing empire, diplomatic service, desert royalty, and finally to the act of dispersal — of giving back what had been accumulated across a lifetime of building.