Everything about Brooke Astor totally explained
Brooke Astor (
March 30,
1902 –
August 13,
2007) was an
American philanthropist and
socialite who was the chairwoman of the Vincent Astor Foundation, which had been established by her third husband. She was also a novelist and wrote two volumes of memoirs.
Early life
She was born
Roberta Brooke Russell in
Portsmouth,
New Hampshire, the only child of
John Henry Russell, Jr. (1872-1947), the 16th Commandant of the
Marine Corps and his wife, née Mabel Cecile Hornby Howard (1879-1967). Her paternal grandfather was
John Henry Russell, a
rear admiral in the U.S. Navy. She was named for her maternal grandmother, Roberta Traill Brooke MacGill Howard and was known as Bobby to close friends and family.
Due to her father's career, she spent much of her childhood living in
China, the
Dominican Republic,
Haiti, and other places. Also, she briefly attended
The Madeira School in 1919 but graduated from
Holton-Arms.
Marriages
J. Dryden Kuser
She married her first husband,
John Dryden Kuser (1897-1964), shortly after her seventeenth birthday, on
26 April 1919, in
Washington, D.C. "I certainly wouldn't advise getting married that young to anyone," she said later in life. "At the age of sixteen, you're not jelled yet. The first thing you look at, you fall in love with."
Her husband, the son of the financier and conservationist Col. Anthony Rudolph Kuser and grandson of
U.S. Senator John F. Dryden, later became a
New Jersey Republican councilman, assemblyman, and state senator.
"Worst years of my life"
Astor had one child with Dryden Kuser,
Anthony Dryden Kuser, born in 1924.
In June 1929, Kuser insisted that his wife leave him. After waiting for the successful end to his New Jersey senatorial campaign, she filed for divorce on
15 February 1930, in
Reno, Nevada. It was finalized later that year.
Charles H. Marshall
Her second husband, whom she married in 1932, was Charles Henry "Buddy" Marshall (1891-1952). Marshall was the senior partner of the investment firm Butler, Herrick & Marshall, a brother-in-law of the mercantile heir Marshall Field III, and a descendant of
James Lenox, the founder of the
Lenox Library.
Astor later wrote that the marriage was "a great love match."
In 1942, Anthony Dryden Kuser, then 18 years old, changed his name to
Anthony Dryden Marshall. It is unclear whether or not he was formally adopted by his stepfather.
Her husband's financial fortunes turned in the mid 1940s, at which time Brooke Marshall went to work for eight years as a features editor at
House & Garden magazine. She also briefly worked for
Ruby Ross Wood, a prominent New York interior decorator who, with her associate
Billy Baldwin, decorated the Marshalls' apartment at 1 Gracie Square in New York City.
Vincent Astor
In 1953, eleven months after Charles Marshall's death, she married her third and final husband,
Vincent Astor (1891-1959), the chairman of the board of
Newsweek magazine and the last notably rich American member of the famous
Astor family. The oldest son of
Titanic victim
Colonel John Jacob Astor IV (1864-1912) and his first wife,
Ava Lowle Willing, he'd been married and divorced twice before and was known to have a difficult personality.
"He had a dreadful childhood, and as a result, had moments of deep melancholy," Astor recalled. "But I think I made him happy. That's what I set out to do. I'd literally dance with the dogs, sing and play the piano, and I'd make him laugh, something no one had ever done before. Because of his money, Vincent was very suspicious of people. That's what I tried to cure him of." Whatever the circumstances, few people believed that the Astor-Marshall union was anything more than a financial transaction. As Brooke Astor's friend the novelist
Louis Auchincloss said, “Of course she married Vincent for the money,” adding, “I wouldn’t respect her if she hadn’t. Only a twisted person would have married him for love.”
During her brief marriage to Astor, whom she called "Captain," Astor participated in his real-estate and hotel empire and his philanthropic endeavors. Between 1954 and 1958, she redecorated one of his properties, the Hotel St. Regis, which had been built by his father.
Though she received several proposals after Astor's death, she chose not to remarry. "I'd have to marry a man of a suitable age and somebody who was a somebody, and that's not easy. Frankly, I think I'm unmarriageable now," Astor said in an interview in 1980, when she was 78. "I'm too used to having things my way. But I still enjoy a flirt now and then."
Among numerous other organizations, she was involved with Lighthouse for the Blind, the Maternity Center Association, the Astor Home for emotionally disturbed children, the
International Rescue Committee, the
Fresh Air Fund, and the Women's Auxiliary Board of the Society of
New York Hospital.
Elder abuse controversy
On
July 26,
2006, the
New York Daily News ran a front-page cover story on the family feud between Astor's son,
Anthony Dryden Marshall, and her grandson Philip Cryan Marshall, regarding to the welfare of the centenarian Astor, then 104 years old. The story detailed how Astor's grandson, a historic preservationist and associate professor at
Roger Williams University, had filed a lawsuit seeking the removal of his father as the socialite's guardian and the appointment of
Annette de la Renta, the wife of designer
Oscar de la Renta, instead.
According to accounts published in
The New York Times and the
New York Daily News, Astor was diagnosed with
Alzheimer's Disease several years ago and suffered from
anemia, among other ailments. The lawsuit alleged that Marshall hadn't provided for his elderly mother and, instead, had allowed her to live in squalor and that he'd cut back on necessary medication and doctor's visits, while enriching himself with income from her estate. Philip Marshall further charged that his father sold his grandmother's favorite
Childe Hassam painting in 2002 without her knowledge and with no record as to the whereabouts of the funds received from the sale. The painting, "Flags, Fifth Avenue" (1918), is now in the collection of the
Dallas Museum of Art. In addition to Annette de la Renta,
Henry Kissinger and
David Rockefeller provided affidavits supporting Philip Marshall's requests for a change in guardianship.
The day the story appeared,
New York Supreme Court Justice John Stackhouse sealed the documents pertaining to the lawsuit and granted an order appointing Annette de la Renta guardian and
JPMorgan Chase & Co. to be in charge of Astor's finances. Several news organizations including
Associated Press and
The New York Times have sued to have the records of the Astor case unsealed in the public interest, claiming that there's no legal basis for the sealing of the records. Both actions were pending a hearing scheduled for
8 August 2006. In the interim, Astor was moved to
Lenox Hill Hospital, where an unidentified nurse called her appearance "deplorable"; according to the
New York Daily News, Anthony Marshall unsuccessfully attempted to have his mother transferred to another hospital.
Astor was released from
Lenox Hill Hospital on
29 July 2006 and moved to Holly Hill, her 75-acre estate in the village of
Briarcliff Manor,
New York.
Estate tampering
On
1 August 2006,
The New York Times reported that Anthony Marshall was accused by Alice Perdue, who was employed in his mother's business office, of diverting nearly $1 million from his ailing mother's personal checking accounts into theatrical productions. Marshall, through a spokesman, said that Astor knew of the investments and approved of them. Perdue countered that Marshall had advised her never to send to his mother any documents of a financial nature because "she didn't understand it."
On August 8,
William F. Buckley Jr., who lived in the same building as Astor, wrote about the ordeal in his syndicated column.
The claims made by Phillip Marshall regarding his father's handling of the estate prompted interest into the matter. On 27 November 2007, indictments on criminal charges were announced against Astor's son, Anthony D. Marshall, and attorney Francis X. Morrissey Jr. The charges stemmed from the district attorney's office and subsequent grand jury investigation into the mishandling of Astor's money and a questionable signature on the third amendment to her 2002 will, made in March 2004. That amendment called for Astor’s real estate to be sold and the proceeds added to her residuary estate. An earlier amendment, also made in 2004, which designated Marshall as the executor of his mother's estate and left him the entirety of the residuary estate, was also under investigation. in plundering her $198 million estate. The most severe charge, grand larceny, carries up to a 25 year sentence.
She is interred in
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery,
Sleepy Hollow, New York. The epitaph on her gravestone, chosen by her, simply reads: "I had a wonderful life".
Further Information
Get more info on 'Brooke Astor'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://brooke_astor.totallyexplained.com">Brooke Astor Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
