When the Oscars are presented in Los Angeles during the early hours of Monday morning (Luxembourg time), Prince Robert of Luxembourg, first cousin of Grand Duke Henri, will be in the thick of the action.
It is a remarkable feat for a European wine brand to pull off in California, but also an almost fairytale-like twist of fate. Because what many people don’t realise is that the 57-year-old prince’s connection to Hollywood is not purely business. It goes back a long way – and has an almost bittersweet flavour.
Prince Robert of Luxembourg together with his daughter Charlotte de Nassau at last year’s Academy Awards © Photo credit: AMPAS
Prince Robert is chairman of the Bordeaux wine estate Domaine Clarence Dillon, which is the official wine partner of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the fourth year in a row. The domain’s bottles will be displayed in the Dolby Theatre, where the Oscars ceremony is held, and will be served to nominees and winners at the Governors Ball.
Sculptor, screenwriter, CEO
In the early 1990s, Robert dreamed of Hollywood. In 1992, he tried his hand at screenwriting with his future wife, Julie Ongaro, whom he married in Boston in 1994.
Imagine being in your early 20s and suddenly being flown first class to Los Angeles
Prince Robert of Luxemburg
Chairman of the Bordeaux wine estate Domaine Clarence Dillon
It all started with Julie’s idea to write a historical screenplay about Don Juan. As Robert commented on her drafts with a sharp tongue, she asked him to do better. He did, and was signed by Creative Artists Agency, one of the most powerful talent agencies in Hollywood.
“Imagine being in your early 20s and suddenly being flown first class to Los Angeles, a stretch limo picking you up, being signed by Creative Artists and having meetings with the best lawyers and producers,” Robert told Wine-Searcher in an interview in 2015.
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The screenplay was then sold to Columbia Pictures and none other than director Steven Spielberg considered making a film out of it, which ultimately didn’t happen. In total, Robert and Julie wrote at least four screenplays.
Even though none of them were ever made into films, the prince describes this time as a very exciting and wonderful. However, the Hollywood adventure came to an end in the mid-1990s when family business called.
Prince Robert of Luxembourg at his Château Quintus wine estate © Photo credit: Serge Waldbillig / LW-Archiv
Robert is the great-grandson of Clarence Dillon, the American banker and diplomat who acquired Château Haut-Brion in the 1930s, laying the foundations for one of the most renowned wine estates in the world.
Robert grew up as a passionate art lover, studied sculpture – and harboured the same screenwriting ambitions that almost took him to Hollywood. He has been the CEO of Domaine Clarence Dillon since 2008.
Under his leadership, the company has grown far beyond the vineyard: he drove the creation of La Cité du Vin in Bordeaux – the world’s first wine culture centre, which opened in 2016 – and opened Le Clarence in Paris in 2015, a restaurant that has since been awarded two Michelin stars. In 2024, he received the Wine Spectator Distinguished Service Award, one of the most prestigious awards in the international wine industry.
Bordeaux meets the red carpet
“We would like to toast all those who have done so much to entertain and inspire us over the past year,” Prince Robert is quoted as saying in a press release on the occasion of this year’s Oscars. That is a sentence that could also have come from a producer.
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Although none of the prince’s scripts have been made into films, since 2023 he has been there every year when the envelopes are opened and the glasses clink in Hollywood.
(This article was originally published by the Luxemburger Wort. Translated with the aid of an AI tool and edited by Aaron Grunwald.)
