Marion Newbert Jorgensen, a Southern California philanthropist and mother of The Irvine Company’s Donald Bren, died Wednesday at Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica. She was 96.
Bren is one of Jorgensen’s two sons, along with Peter Bren, chairman of KBS Realty Advisors in Newport Beach.
Jorgensen was married to MGM Studios producer Milton Bren, father of Donald and Peter Bren. She later married Earle Jorgensen, who died in 1999.
Earle Jorgensen started Earle M. Jorgensen Co., a steel products company that moved from Brea to Los Angeles a few years ago and now is part of Los Angeles-based Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co.
Marion Jorgensen served as a director of Continental Airlines Inc. and the parent of Frontier Airlines.
The Jorgensens were close friends of Ronald and Nancy Reagan. Earle Jorgensen served on President Reagan’s “kitchen cabinet” of advisers. The Reagans often spent election nights at the home of the Jorgensens.
“My mother enjoyed a wonderfully fulfilling life and was a strong inspiration to me,” Donald Bren, chairman of the Irvine Co., said in a statement. “Her commitment to philanthropy and to the communities in which she lived impacted me deeply and formed my passion to give back to the community.”
