Viscountess Rothermere

South of France.

The viscountess, who was 63 and nicknamed ''Bubbles'', suffered a

severe heart attack.

She was found in her bedroom by her son, the Hon. Jonathan Harmsworth,

with whom she was holidaying at Cap d' Ail.

Emergency services were called and there were attempts to resuscitate

her, but doctors who attended said she had been dead for some time.

Lord Rothermere flew to the South of France last night. He was said to

be ''deeply shocked''.

''This is a terrible tragedy for our family. Pat was a tower of

strength to our whole family. She brought warmth and excitement to

everybody around her,'' he said.

''She was a wonderful mother, a great hostess, a tireless worker for

charities and a woman of great personality,'' he said.

Lady Rothermere enjoyed an energetic lifestyle, ski-ing, dancing and

walking, and regularly jetting from London to family homes in Europe,

the West Indies, and the United States.

She was perhaps London's ultimate socialite.

Friend and confidante to the rich and famous, she could entertain

everyone from captains of industry to showbusiness stars.

Her lavish dinner parties at the family home in London's Belgravia

were renowned, an invitation much sought after.

However, Lady Rothermere also worked for several charities and used

her dinner parties to raise thousands for her favourite causes.

Born Patricia Beverley Matthews, the daughter of a Hertfordshire

architect, she began her adult life as an actress.

Once voted one of the 10 most beautiful women in London, after leaving

drama school she was spotted by a talent scout from Rank while playing

the junior lead in a play at Edinburgh Festival.

A film company contract followed and she appeared in the 1956 picture

Reach For The Sky, in which she played Battle of Britain ace Douglas

Bader's girlfriend, Sally.

As her acting career blossomed, Hollywood beckoned. However, she

resisted this.

''I loved my husband and I wanted my family,'' she once said.

Her first marriage to ex-Guardsman Christopher Brooks ended in

divorce, after the birth in 1956 of a daughter,

Sarah-Jane.

She married the Hon. Vere Harmsworth, now Lord Rothermere, in 1957 --

entering the powerful Daily Mail dynasty.

She leaves two daughters and a son by this marriage -- Geraldine,

Camilla, and Jonathan.

Lady Rothermere once said of her marriage: ''When I married my

husband, I didn't just marry a man, as my father-in-law pointed out to

me, I married an empire.

''And, in a way, I think I projected a frivolous image of myself on

purpose because I did not want to be the heavy wife of a newspaper

publisher.

''Bubbles, however, the nickname that Private Eye gave me and that

even my friends have picked up since, I am not enamoured of at all.

''It smacks too much of the social butterfly.''