Marlene Wagman-Geller

            Some people are deeded more dramatic lives than others. The peaks of their biographical landscapes are higher, their valleys lower. While most biographies can be covered in a slim volume, tempest-tossed individuals require a many-volume memoir. The road less travelled was taken by an heiress who left her famous name on the posteriors of America.

        Before Paris Hilton unwittingly participated in a steamy sex video, the gossip columnists of yesteryear focused on the woman born into an American dynasty synonymous with privilege. Cornelius Vanderbilt had become the tenth richest man in history from railroads that opened up the American West. At the entrance of the Grand Central Station in New York City stands his likeness in the form of a twelve-foot, four-ton bronze statue. His home was a 130 room Fifth Avenue palace situated where Van Clef & Arpels and Bergdorf Goodman currently stand. While the billionaire’s talent was acquiring money, his great-grandson, Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt, dissipated it- on women, gambling, and liquor. He passed away at age forty-four, having exhausted his liver and most of his twenty-five-million-dollar inheritance. He left behind his widow, the twenty-year-old Gloria Mercedes, and his eighteen-month-old daughter, Gloria Laura, whose birth merited a New York Times headline. Chauffeurs ferried her in a Hispano-Suiza, country weekends were spent in the company of British royalty. However, Gloria’s maternal instinct chiefly centered on her daughter’s $5,000,000 trust fund, equivalent to fifty-million in contemporary currency. Reginald’s will left everything to his only children - Cathleen, from his first marriage and Gloria, from his second.

         Mrs. Vanderbilt treated her child with affection but was a shadowy presence. The merry widow, accompanied by her identical twin sister, Thelma, Lady Furness, (married to a British Viscount, one of Britain’s wealthiest men), trolled the beaches of Biarritz and Cap Ferrat- on the prowl for another trophy husband. As her mother flitted around the glittering capitals of Europe, sometimes on the arm of Rudolph Valentino or Maurice Chevalier- little Gloria’s German nurse, nicknamed Dodo, picked up the slack. 

          Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, one of New York City’s wealthiest women and founder of the Whitney Museum of American Art, was infuriated with her gadabout sister-in-law and petitioned the courts for custody of her ten-year-old niece. Gloria was devastated at the news, mainly because her lavish lifestyle depended on the interest of her daughter’s trust fund and refused to relinquish her parental rights.  The judge warned her, “There will be so much dirt by the press that it will drag you and the child through a mire of infamy that will cling to her as long as she lives.” It was a price Mrs. Vanderbilt was willing to pay.

          In the autumn of 1934, the public on both sides of the Atlantic readied for a close up for an outrageous episode in the lifestyles of the rich and famous, and the tawdry trial captivated a world seeking diversion from the Great Depression. The battle of the blue bloods provided a peephole into the world of wealth and a dose of schadenfreude that proved American royalty was not immune from slings and arrows. The national audience was riveted by the lurid allegations that Gloria was the lesbian lover of the Marchioness of Milford Haven. Dodo claimed her employer soaked her feet in champagne, and even more damning, described her as “a cocktail-crazed dancing mother, a devotee of sex erotica, and the mistress of a German prince.”  Mama Vanderbilt lost custody of both child and purse strings. Her twin also fared badly. Lady Furness, in order to support her sister at the trial, had flown in from England, leaving behind her lover, the Prince of Wales, a liaison that had led to her divorce. Before her departure, she had entrusted the care of the future King Edward VIII to Wallis Simpson-a task Mrs. Simpson took to heart.  When Thelma discovered Wallis had stolen the royal heart, the woman scorned retaliated by proclaiming the 5’7” Edward, known as the Little Prince, should be known by the epithet for another reason. Her remark helped explain the current lore that the talented Mrs. Simpson had won the future king’s heart for the “ability to make a matchstick feel like a cigar.” Had it not been for the custody battle of the century, England may have avoided a constitutional crisis borne of Edward relinquishing his throne for his lady.

           Little Gloria, dressed in a fur coat and with eyes downcast to avoid the glare of flashbulbs, went to live with (as she called her) Aunt Ger. Her new life was the opposite of her former: her mother had been an absentee but when present affectionate parent; her Aunt, although a constant presence, was aloof.  While the rest of the country was financially bankrupt, the poor little rich girl was emotionally adrift.  In 1985, Gloria tried to come to terms with these lonely years and wrote the first of her four memoirs, Once Upon a Time: A True Story. She recounted the reason why she had spent so much time in the attic was because that was where the maid pressed her mother’s clothes, and by knowing what dresses belonged to her mother, she was able to tell the difference between her mother and her twin sister.  In response to the court’s allegations that she was an unfit parent, Mrs. Vanderbilt rationalized, “Mothers are busy with the duties their social lives entail.” However, as Mrs. Whitney’s lawyer pointed out: these duties entailed massages, fittings, hairstyling, dressing for lunch, dressing for dinner. The dream of maternal love was apparent from the dedication page of her childhood memoir, “And to the memory of my Mother. Always.”

     Gertrude managed to keep the two Glorias apart, but when Gloria was seventeen, she permitted her ward to accept a two-week vacation with her mother in Beverley Hills. “Suddenly,” she recalled, “the door of the cage was open and out I flew.” Instead of being chaperoned to tea dances with eligible heirs at the Plaza, she spent nights at the Mocambo, squired by Hollywood stars. She had also caught the roving and rapacious eye of Pat DiCicco, Howard Hughes’ gofer and sometime procurer. Gloria was mesmerized by the film-star handsome man who favored white on white suits and all-night card games. An introduction to Howard Hughes followed. At thirty-six, Hughes was an uber eligible bachelor renowned as a pioneer aviator, filmmaker, and multi-millionaire, decades away from his infamous fate as a paranoid-driven recluse marooned at the top of his own Las Vegas hotels. At his home in Santa Monica, he constantly played, as a mode of seduction,  a record of Moonlight Sonata.  He escorted her to dinners where he always ordered the same meal-steak, peas, and a baked potato. Gloria reminisced, “I was crazy about him and would have married him in a minute. But then, I would have married anybody in a minute because I wanted to get out.” Desperate not to return to Aunt Ger, Gloria saw a husband as the only escape route. When Hughes wanted more variety in women than he did in dinners, Gloria married DiCicco in a Santa Barbara church with Errol Flynn as an usher. The union finally brought a meeting of minds between her Aunt and her mother: both were aghast. Gloria was delighted. She said, “What can one say about a first marriage, except that it’s wonderful?” As it turned out, she had merely traded one prison for another. DiCiccio’s first wife, actress Thelma Todd, had been murdered in 1935 in an unsolved crime in which he was rumored to have played a part. He called Gloria Fatsy Roo, and on their wedding night, they never made it to the marital bed; he stayed all night in the next room playing gin-rummy with Zeppo Marx. He also beat her into unconsciousness by banging her head against the wall. As she would throughout her life, Gloria found a new love interest before disposing of her old. While still married, Gloria met Leopold Stokowski, a world-famous conductor, producer of the soundtrack to Disney’s Fantasia. The veteran ladies’ man already had two ex-wives and once had an affair with Greta Garbo. The press labeled him Stokie; he referred to himself as maestro. Viewing age as no impediment-the white-haired conductor was sixty-two, and the raven-haired beauty was twenty, married before the ink was dry on her Reno divorce. Their ten-year relationship resulted in sons Stanislaus (Stan) in 1950 and Christopher in 1955. Leopold turned out to be as pompous as he was talented and hinted he was a descendent of the Hapsburgs; in fact, he came from a Cockney background. The incident that gave her the courage to leave her narcissistic spouse was a one-night stand with Marlon Brando. She remained circumspect about the encounter except to share, “I didn’t have any long philosophical discussions.” She mentioned that he kept a large portrait of himself in his bedroom from his role as Napoleon. She was smitten; Brando was not. Nevertheless, his virility gave her the impetus to disentangle herself from Leopold, and she took solace in an affair with Frank Sinatra-of whom she wrote he burst upon her like a firecracker-who was on the rebound from his divorce to Ava Gardner. When the crooner left to croon elsewhere, fashion photographer Richard Avedon introduced her to Sidney Lumet, the film director of Network, that led to a third trip down the aisle. Their seven-year marriage, where they partied with celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Rita Haywood, and Salvador Dali, failed to provide the grand passion for which she yearned, and she guiltily took her leave.

        Gloria, realizing wedding confetti did not equate with the elixir of happiness, became a 1970s designing woman when she marketed fashion jeans that displayed her famous name on the derriere and her trademark swan on the front. Her logo may have been inspired as she was one of Truman Capote’s flock of “swans”-his designation for the famous society beauties who inspired his Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The writer, known as the tiny terror, wrote of these women, “They were blessed with that best of beauty emollients, a splendid bank account.” In one year, her denim empire brought in ten million dollars. Ms. Vanderbilt explained her reason for becoming a designing woman by quoting the Billie Holiday lyric, “Mama have, Papa may have, but God bless the child that’s got his own.” She also found romantic success with her fourth marriage to Wyatt Cooper, the love of her life. Equally enamored, he explained his wife’s allure, “She has the freshness of Snow White and the glamour of the Wicked Queen.” He proved a wonderful father to his two stepsons and the two boys they had together: Anderson and Carter. However, Gloria was to experience the truth of the Shakespearean pronouncement that “when sorrow comes, they come in battalions.” Due to family dynamics, Christopher cut off all contact with his family-an estrangement that has continued for the past forty years. Added to this heartache came another: in 1978, Wyatt suffered the last in a series of heart attacks and died in the operating room at age fifty. A decade later, Carter was visiting his mother when he-despite his mother’s pleas, ones made on her knees with outstretched arms-plunged off her fourteenth-floor balcony. Anderson once asked her how she survived, and her response,  “I had an image of myself that at my core there was a rock-hard diamond that nothing could get at, nothing could crack.” Her explanation showed her steely determination, though one suffused with sadness. What helped soften these kidney punches to her soul was Stan gave her three grandchildren, and Anderson became a beloved and respected CNN talk-show host. He and his mother refer to each other as best friends. Anderson went public with the comment to Howard Stern he wants no part of her two hundred million dollar fortune as he feels inherited wealth is a curse.

       In a nod to one is never too old to try something new-or something racy-in her eighth decade, Gloria expanded her repertoire from gracing the derrieres of America to gracing the spine of her novel Obsession. Her book-with an endorsement by her friend Joyce Carol Oates- is the tale of a woman who becomes entranced by her dead husband’s affair with a dominatrix. The publication led to Carter’s quip, “The six most surprising words a mother can say to her son, ‘Honey, I’m writing an erotic novel.’” The steamy work has led to yet another incarnation-as sexual guru to the postmenopausal. The New York Times stated it “may be the steamiest book ever written by an octogenarian;” the New York Post described it as “elegant, unadulterated smut.” When two of her WASPY friends cautioned the book would tarnish her reputation, she replied, “Oh, goody!” 

       Because of the sensational 1930s trial, the death of her husband, and the suicide of her son, if Americans were given an auditory Rorschach test with the words “poor little rich girl,” odds are the response would be “Gloria Vanderbilt.” Yet, this answer is not an accurate assessment of the heiress who embodies the Duchess of Windsor maxim, “You can never be too rich or too thin.” In her 90s, Gloria appears as immune to the ravages of time as the portrait of Dorian Gray. Through the power of persistence, she took life on her own terms and reigns as a legendary swan princess.