Mel Ferrer's younger sister Terry was the member of
his family to whom he was closest. She might have been and probably was present at more
events than those reported, but it's documented that she attended his
wedding to Audrey Hepburn (acting as chaperon to Pepa and Mark - his two children by
Frances Pilchard) and she was also present at the
christening of their son Sean, to whom she was a godmother.
Always known as Terry, she was about a year and a half younger than
her brother Melchor, and the youngest of the four Ferrer children. Like him she
was raised in New York City and went to private schools, but unlike him she
completed her college education, graduating cum laude in medieval Latin from
Bryn Mawr in 1940. Fluent in French, she had a life long interest in languages,
but her career was centered more in journalism and education. She seems to have possessed a
gentler version of the drive inherent in every member of the Ferrer clan,
beginning her career at Newsweek as an office girl but rising to religious
editor in 1945 and education editor in 1957. She had a lifelong concern for the
value of education and she later left Newsweek to lecture on the value of
religion in education. Her final position was as the education editor for the
New York Herald Tribune.
She never married and lived in Virginia during her
retirement. She died on February 12, 2002, in Charlottesville, Virginia,
the second of the four siblings to pass away.
