Mrs. Astor Regrets

by Meryl Gordon

  The judge noted in a puzzled tone that Tony had agreed a year earlier to let Annette and Chase serve as Brooke's guardians, asking, "They were originally acceptable to your side at that time?" Warner testily replied, "We accepted them." The judge shot back, "Your clients have grown to be uncomfortable with them now?" The courtroom erupted into laughter. An annoyed Warner then raged over the allegations in the guardianship proceeding, insisting that in the past year "actions were taken, large and small, just to dig and to hurt Mr. Marshall."

  Susan Robbins, who was next, was calm and measured in her brief seven-minute presentation. She avoided inflammatory language, insisting that Philip had pursued the guardianship "out of love and concern for his grandmother." She added that "Philip does not have hostility to his father. He understands that his role is to marshal the assets and distribute them, whichever will is chosen." She did not criticize Tony in her remarks.

  But the next two lawyers, Leslie Fagen, representing Chase Bank, followed by Paul Saunders, attempted to eviscerate Tony verbally, accusing him of mismanaging his mother's financial affairs. Fagen began by calling Tony's lawyer's legal filings "vituperative" and full of "frantic accusations." He added that Annette had been called "every name under the sun."

  Then Fagen claimed that after investigating Mrs. Astor's finances, Chase had discovered that $18 million of her money had been diverted to Tony Marshall in questionable transactions at a time when she was "ill and incapacitated." He went through a litany of alleged offenses, listing the items that Tony claimed had been gifts from his mother.

  Next up was Paul Saunders, a confident man with a dry wit. He insisted that his client, Annette de la Renta, "is not doing this to get even with anybody ... She's doing this solely out of love and respect for Mrs. Astor." He went into the history of Brooke Astor's wills, pointing out that the codicils added in 2003 and 2004, which benefited Tony, represented an unusual change in her behavior. The attorney suggested that he had evidence to prove that Mrs. Astor had been coerced. "The nurses took detailed notes," Saunders warned. "We know who visited, what she said, what they asked her to do." He said of Annette, "She wants the truth to come out."

  The judge asked to speak to Annette, and the wraithlike sixty-seven-year-old gave a tremulous smile as she approached the bench. Speaking so softly that she could scarcely be heard, she reiterated that she would willingly take on the administrator's role without payment. Philip was then asked to come forward for two minutes—Tony physically flinched as Philip walked to the front of the courtroom—and in answer to the judge's question, Philip said, "I would accept a fee." Judge Scarpino nodded and said he understood that choice, since administration would involve an enormous amount of work. Howard Levine, the retired judge requested by Tony, indicated that he too would expect a fee if chosen.

  By now it was 1 P.M., and the attorneys had been speaking for nearly three hours. Lawyers from the Metropolitan Museum and the New York Public Library briefly stood to back Annette's bid to be the temporary administrator. Warner then rose to talk about how Mrs. Astor had been in amazing physical shape in her later years—"She was dancing around"—and said that her doctors had advised her "to cut down on the late-night dancing and parties." He insisted that Brooke Astor had liked her daughter-in-law, noting that in 1997, when Brooke fell in the ladies' room at the Museum of Natural History and broke her hip, "she called out for one person to come to her aid. She said, 'Please get Charlene.'" Annette rolled her eyes at the implication that this anecdote indicated affection. Warner added, "When she got the highest civilian award from President Clinton, they [Tony and Charlene] were the ones that Brooke took."

  Like many assertions confidently made in court, the story surrounding Mrs. Astor's 1998 Medal of Freedom was more complicated than it was made to appear. When Robert Pirie heard about Warner's courtroom comments, he chortled at the notion that the trip to Washington, D.C., had been a manifestation of Brooke's love. He had flown with Brooke to the ceremony, along with David and Laurance Rockefeller, on the Rockefeller family's plane. Tony and Charlene had been demoted to a separate aircraft, along with Brooke's French maid. "Brooke specifi cally didn't want them on the same plane," Pirie said. "The passenger manifest was not an accident. During the ceremony, Brooke hissed at me, 'Look at Charlene—isn't that disgusting? She's putting herself in every picture.'"

  Tony's devotion to his mother was a constant theme in Warner's presentation to Judge Scarpino. "I think that Philip Marshall visited about twice a year," the lawyer said. "I heard that Mrs. de la Renta came twice a month, but there was one visitor who came all the time and that was Anthony Marshall. He was always there for her." The judge listened patiently, but his body language suggested that he was counting the minutes until Warner finished. Warner closed by urging the judge to appoint Howard Levine and Fiduciary Trust as temporary administrators, saying, "We ask you not to put in place declared adversaries."

  After listening to hours of acrimonious exchanges, Judge Scarpino nonetheless urged all sides to settle. "There's very little doubt in my mind what the intentions of Mrs. Astor were. She loved her charities. She loved her family. She loved her son," the judge said. "I wouldn't say she would be happy to see what's going on now." The judge made it clear that he did not want to be in the middle of this mess. "It's our hope that you folks will be able to make a decision, and not require me to make a decision." Ending the session, he asked the lawyers to meet with the clerk to schedule settlement conferences.

  Leaving the courtroom, Tony and Charlene walked over to a hallway window, where they stood by themselves. It had been two months since I had spoken to Tony by phone. I drifted over and said, "This must be surreal for you." "Torturous," replied Charlene. When I said that I was sorry they had not had more private time to mourn before the legal wrangling began, Charlene replied, "So are we." Tony seemed subdued and sad but controlled; she was angry and protective, her emotions flickering across her face. "The truth and our love, truth and love, that's how we're getting through this," Charlene said. She reached over and touched Tony affectionately on the cheek, then said, "We're going to take care of each other." He smiled a weary smile and said, "I'm eighty-three years old," as if in disbelief over his predicament. Excusing himself to go find a place to sit down, he suddenly thrust out his hand, a surprisingly courtly gesture, and I shook it.

  In this small corridor on the eighteenth floor, there was only one long wooden bench. Annette huddled on the right side with Philip beside her. Tony and Charlene walked over and perched on the far left side. Father and son, so near and so far. In the past four hours, they had choreographed their movements to avert eye contact. Newspaper photographers were waiting outside the building, but this was the money shot—these two members of this feuding family trying desperately to avoid each other.

  Driving down the Bronx River Parkway afterward in his silver Subaru with Robbins and me, Philip used speed as his catharsis, darting in and out of traffic like a New York cabbie, eager to distance himself from the emotionally fraught morning. At an outdoor table at the Village Cafe in Bronxville, Philip and his lawyer talked about all the might-have-beens, about how this family fight could have been avoided. If only Tony had hired a geriatric social worker to look after his mother's care and supervise the nurses and helpers. If only he had not fired Brooke's favorite staffers. And, the biggest if of all, if only he and Charlene had been content with the millions guaranteed under earlier wills. Philip sounded worried about his father's health. "I didn't think he looked well," he said. "I feel sorry for him." There was wistfulness in his voice as he added, "I just wish I could talk to him without Charlene around."

  Five days later, while the judge was mulling over his decision on choosing the administrators, the publicity battle erupted again, via a strategic leak of documents to the New York Times. "Astor's Mental State Questioned Before She Signed Final Will" was the headline of the story written by Serge Kovaleski. A year earlier, the lawyers in the guardianship case had been astounded when the
y discovered the letter that Tony had written to Dr. Howard Fillit describing Brooke Astor's diminished mental capacity. Now the public could read this devastating document as well.

  Even the most oblivious newspaper reader could not help reaching the obvious conclusion: Tony and Terry Christensen were aware that Brooke Astor suffered from Alzheimer's disease when they allowed her to revise her will. Tony's lawyer, Ken Warner, was reduced to telling the Times that he had a "mountain of evidence" to prove that Mrs. Astor was competent for many years after that diagnostic letter was written. Trying desperately to put a positive spin on this news, Warner played the dutiful-son card, saying, "The real significance of this letter is to show that Mr. Marshall was unquestionably a wonderful, loving son who focused enormous attention on his mother's well-being."

  Brooke Astor's funeral in August had been boycotted by many of her friends because Tony had organized the service. But on the evening of September 11, she was honored by her two favorite New York institutions in back-to-back events, providing her confidants with an opportunity to pay homage. At 4 P.M. the Metropolitan Museum held its semiannual board meeting, followed by a reception to celebrate its beloved trustee. Tony Marshall sent word that he would miss the meeting but would attend the cocktail party at Astor Court, the tucked-away sanctuary on the museum's second floor. The trustees kept looking around for him, but he did not appear. Finally Philippe de Montebello went ahead with the tributes and the toasts.

  At 5 P.M., the New York Public Library held an invitation-only memorial service to honor Brooke Astor. Annette raced down Fifth Avenue from the Metropolitan Museum event to the library, arriving with Oscar in tow. Nearly four hundred people appeared at the grand Cecile Bartos Forum to hear speakers, including Vartan Gregorian, Charlie Rose, Liz Smith, and Robert Silvers, tell their favorite stories about the beloved philanthropist. The writer Toni Morrison and the actress Marian Seldes read selections of Brooke Astor's poetry and prose. For those who had missed or skipped the funeral, this was a personal goodbye. Vartan Gregorian embraced Philip Marshall in a bear hug.

  Tony and Charlene did not attend this event either. "We were not invited," Tony told me later, adding with bitter irony in his voice, "It was a small party—three hundred people." This was the ultimate insult, to be ostracized at an occasion where his mother was being lionized. Society was striking back, closing ranks against the couple. None of the speakers even mentioned that Mrs. Astor had a son. The program included a photograph of Brooke with Annette, but none of Tony. He was being erased from his mother's life. Liz Smith got up and told a funny but pointed story about visiting Brooke Astor in Maine. Standing with her hostess in a hallway trying to choose among stacks of new books arranged on a chest, Smith had picked up a biography of Violet Trefusis, Vita Sackville-West's lover. "Brooke said, 'Oh, I can't stand that woman, I despise her.' I said, 'Why, because she was a famous lesbian?' Brooke said, 'I don't care about that. She was horrible to her mother.'" Amid the gales of laughter, no one laughed harder than Annette and Philip.

  When it came to tributes to Brooke Astor, more was more. On Friday night, September 28, the Metropolitan Museum of Art celebrated her life again, this time with a large gathering in an auditorium open to the public. Everyone entering the museum that evening, from socialite to schoolchild, was given a commemorative blue Brooke Astor metal button. The front rows on the right side of the auditorium were reserved for the "Astor Family." Tony and Charlene stood alone in that section, and until the auditorium had filled to capacity, no one went to sit with them.

  Charlene had dressed up for the occasion in an elegant white silk blouse and dark skirt. She told me that this was a rare night out but that she had been looking forward to this evening. "All we do is spend our time with lawyers and take naps in between," she said. "But we wouldn't miss this." A grand jury was convening in three days to investigate the Marshalls and Francis Morrissey. Many in the auditorium had received subpoenas to testify, including Philip, Alice Perdue, and Naomi Packard-Koot, seated in the center of the room, and Chris Ely, Minnette Christie, and Pearline Noble in the back row.

  The first speaker was Viscount William Astor. Walking onstage to the lectern, he found himself standing directly in front of Tony and Charlene. "It was the most extraordinary thing—he was in the front row," Astor told me later. "I thought, If I catch his eye, I don't know what I'll do." In his remarks, Astor pointedly thanked David Rockefeller and Annette de la Renta for making Brooke Astor's final year comfortable, a public putdown of Tony and Charlene.

  Maxwell Hearn, the curator of Chinese paintings, then gave a lengthy description of Brooke Astor's role in building Astor Court, the museum's imported Chinese garden, and showed slides of her posing with the Chinese workmen. Then he pointedly echoed Lord Astor's comments, also thanking Annette and David Rockefeller for what they had done for Mrs. Astor. There was an intake of breath as Hearn opened a second front against Tony. The Marshalls looked shaken. Afterward, Hilary Marshall, who had been sitting with her uncle Philip, innocently bounded up to her grandfather and gave him a hug. But Tony seemed inconsolable and walked slowly out of the auditorium holding Charlene's hand, as if having trouble understanding why people felt such enmity toward him.

  At a private reception upstairs given by Annette, the mood was festive. This was a gathering of Brooke's friends and also a reunion of those who launched the lawsuit. Susan Robbins chatted with Alice Perdue, Minnette Christie, and Pauline Noble. Philip and Chris Ely hugged each other. Annette played hostess, making introductions and posing for pictures with the staff. Summing up the efforts of the past year, Alice Perdue said, "All the help, helped."

  In wandering around the party, I had mentioned in passing to two of Mrs. Astor's friends that I felt sorry for Tony Marshall. It was as if I had announced that Pol Pot was actually a misunderstood guy. The words ricocheted around the room. Earlier in the evening, Chris Ely had spurned my request for an interview, politely saying, "I'd rather say things under oath in a court of law." But as security guards were ushering us out of the museum, I fell in step with Ely. Informed by others of my comment, he wanted to respond, asking, "Are you getting the level of meanness? The Marshalls start out so nice, then they teach everyone to dislike them." He continued, "I was employed by Brooke Astor—my loyalty was to her. I promised I would be there always for her. Everyone here did what they did for the love of Mrs. Astor."

  ***

  Back in the tabloid bull's-eye, Tony and Charlene Marshall tried to carry on, but every encounter was fraught with potential humiliation. The Marshalls were celebrities now, for their notoriety, and their routine movements were breathlessly tracked in the gossip pages. The New York Post noted in its sightings column that the couple had attended the dress rehearsal of La Traviata at the Metropolitan Opera. They were subject to whispered asides and outright snubs. Marilyn Berger, who had written Brooke Astor's obituary for the New York Times, chatted with the Marshalls at an October gala honoring Mike Wallace at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. "If one didn't know, they didn't seem like they were having any troubles," Berger said. "But everyone knew. Some people did not want to shake their hands. People circled around the other way to avoid them."

  On October 18, 2007, the Marshalls, accompanied by Ken Warner, traveled to Westchester Surrogate's Court for yet another session. This time Philip and Annette did not attend. Judge Scarpino, ending the public session after less than ten minutes, sent the fifteen lawyers to a private conference room for an hour to schedule depositions. I sat with Tony and Charlene on the hard wooden bench in the hallway waiting for the lawyers, and we started to chat. Eventually I pulled out a notebook.

  Charlene's cell phone kept going off every few minutes, and Tony responded by cocking his eyebrows and murmuring that the world would be a better place without cell phones. "They are the death of civilization, but they are convenient," he said. Well-mannered and polite, he was wearing his Marine Corps tie and tie clip but was fiddling with his hearing aids, totems of his youth and old ag
e. He wanted to stress to me his continued happiness with Charlene. "Two things have taken us through all this from day one, from the minute it happened," he said. "We know the truth no matter what was printed and published. And the other thing is our love for each other. While some people who did not like us hoped it would do damage to us, it has made us closer together."

  I mentioned that several people had told me that Charlene had brought him the only real love in his life. "That would suggest that I didn't love my mother, or didn't love my wives when I married them," he said, adding, "Things happen in marriages that set people apart." Charlene, who had just gotten off the phone, picked up the thread of conversation and interjected, "I adore him. And I will protect him with the last breath of my life." She said it in a passionate and vehement tone of voice, for her husband's ears as well as mine.

  The Marshalls had given their friends permission to speak with me, and so I passed along a few compliments, mentioning that a theatrical producer had raved about Charlene's charm and a book editor had called her sexy. Today she was wearing a black skirt, black flats, a white blouse, a blue silk scarf, and a pale blue sweater tied around her shoulders, soccer-mom style. Charlene laughed, saying, "One of the newspapers called me a little hottie. I thought, I'll take that." She turned to Tony and said affectionately, "You wouldn't understand that, dear."

  After the previous court hearing, I had left with Philip Marshall. Now Charlene wanted me to pass along a message to her stepson. Her voice turned raw and anguished as she said, "You talk to Philip all the time. Why doesn't Philip talk to his father? Why doesn't he just call him? I don't care if he hates me, but he should talk to his father."