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Zara Bate
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dame Zara Bate (March 10, 1909 - June 14, 1989) was an Australian fashion designer and wife (later widow) of Prime Minister Harold Holt.
She was born Zara Violet Dickins in Kew, Victoria, Australia. She was educated at Ruyton and Toorak College. In 1925, aged 16, she established her first dress shop in Little Collins Street. With a friend, she later opened a salon, called Magg, in Toorak Village.
Her first husband was Colonel James Fell, by whom she had three sons. After they divorced, in 1947 she married Harold Holt, a Liberal Party politician. He legally adopted her children and gave them his surname. Zara Holt won the 1961 Australian Gown of the Year award. In 1966, Harold Holt succeeded Sir Robert Menzies to become Prime Minister of Australia.
Following Harold's drowning in December 1967, Zara Holt was created a Dame Commander of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours of June 1968, for "devotion to the public interest". In 1968 Dame Zara published My Life and Harry: An autobiography.
In February 1969, Dame Zara Holt married for a third time, to Jeff Bate, a farmer and Liberal politician. She then became Dame Zara Bate.
After Jeff Bate's death, Dame Zara retired to the Gold Coast, where she died in 1989 at age 80.