She had been introduced to the game by friends at university, and, as a “very obsessive person”, read everything she could find on the game, and hired experienced hands to play with her so that she could improve. She was soon playing rubber bridge for money five times a week, later progressing to tournaments.
With her striking looks and abundant red hair, Susanna Gross defied the old-maidish stereotype of the bridge enthusiast. For some years her partner was the heartthrob actor Neil Pearson – a “restless partygoer” whom she “tamed”, according to the tabloids.
In 2005 she married the journalist and author John Preston – “married out”, as she put it, Preston not being a bridge fan. But it was a very happy union, and she rejoiced in the recent success of the screen adaptations of his novel The Dig and his Jeremy Thorpe biography A Very English Scandal.
She bore a long illness cheerfully and kept her Spectator column going until last month.
Susanna Gross is survived by her husband and their son and daughter, and by her mother.
Susanna Gross, born July 31 1967, died November 11 2025
