Mrs. Astor Regrets (37 page)

So much acuity had been lost. "She is delusional at times having asked me, 'Are you my only child?'" Tony wrote. He closed by telling the doctor that "now that you have provided me with a diagnosis of my mother's illness," he had passed along the news to her lawyer, Terry Christensen, her social secretary (then Jolee Hirsch), and Chris Ely. "While I'm deeply saddened by the news you've given me it is, at the same time, a relief for me (and an enormous help to the three in whom I have confided) to know what the problem is and not that she is just an elderly person being difficult."

The letter raised many questions, but one dominated everything: how could Brooke's trusted lawyer, Terry Christensen, knowing of her diminished condition, let her make changes in her will? The timing of Tony's decision to take his mother to the doctor was intriguing too. He sought the diagnosis of dementia just a few months after his mother had expressed her desire to give her Maine cottage to Philip. It appeared as if Tony initially wanted a legal rationale to stop Brooke from giving away possessions but then ignored her mental state when the diagnosis was inconvenient for him.

Paul Saunders wondered whether Tony had simply forgotten about the letter or had not informed his lawyers about it. "We knew it was a significant piece of evidence," Saunders says. "It was not consistent with a lot of things Tony said in his petition." Tony, in his affidavit, had portrayed his mother as dancing the night away at parties and being fully cognizant of events.

For Susan Robbins, this letter was an ace to be played to complete a winning hand. Arguing that the document proved that Brooke Astor had been incompetent since 2000, she asked Justice Stackhouse to give her access to Mrs. Astor's original wills and codicils, not mere copies, and to permit her to hire a handwriting expert. The opposition was caught off-guard: Tony's lawyers responded by personally attacking Robbins's reputation. Ken Warner charged that she was "on a witch hunt of her own creation, having long ago abandoned the role of Mrs. Astor's advocate." In thunderous language, Corn insisted that "Mrs. Astor was obviously competent when she executed the first and second codicils. Is Mrs. [Ms.] Robbins alleging that Mr. Christensen, whose firm had represented Mrs. Astor for decades, performed a will signing ceremony with an incompetent Mrs. Astor?"

That was exactly what Robbins was suggesting. Ignoring the complaints of Tony's lawyers, the judge gave Robbins the go-ahead. To protect Brooke Astor's privacy, Robbins had filed the Fillit document under seal from the press, the status that Mrs. Astor's medical records had. Tony Marshall's letter to Dr. Fillit would not become public for another year.

With the guardianship hearing scheduled for mid-October, Tony put his money into public relations. Unhappy with the firm of Citigate Sard Verbinnen, which billed them $42,375, the Marshalls hired Sean Healy and Christopher Tennyson of Fleishman-Hillard. For the first major interview with Tony and Charlene—a classic journalistic "get"—the new PR men chose an unlikely venue:
Forbes
magazine, for its annual "400 Richest People in America" issue. During the three emotional hours that the financial writer Neil Weinberg spent with the Marshalls, at the PR firm's offices in the former
Daily News
building on Forty-second Street, the couple portrayed themselves as victims of a society conspiracy. "What I'd really like to know is, who is giving orders," Tony said. "It isn't Henry [Kissinger]. Is it Annette? Is it David? It certainly isn't Philip. It's out of his ballpark." After minimizing his son, Tony sought to elevate himself by comparing the current ordeal to being wounded during World War II: "This is worse than Iwo Jima because my wounds there healed." Published on October 9, 2006, Weinberg's short piece stated that some of the allegations "are clearly overblown, if not wrong." Weinberg gave Tony the last word. "The opposition's prime interest is not in my mother's care," Tony says, "but her estate and control over her life. This could happen to anybody."

In the full transcript of the interview, which Weinberg generously provided to me, the Marshalls alternate between rage, paranoia, and despair. They rip into the "cabal" that has ruined their lives, claiming that "Annette de la Renta wants to be the next Brooke Astor" and that "Philip wants more assets." Charlene criticizes Philip as a bad son, saying, "Not only was he not close to his grandmother, he wasn't particularly close to his father either. We saw Philip once a year." When Weinberg asked why Morrissey had become involved, Tony replied, "Francis Morrissey was a long-time friend whom my mother confided in."

The couple acknowledged that the press scrutiny had been brutal. Tony defended his wife, saying, "They're trying to make Charlene out as just after the money. We're not only in love, what's really nice about this is that we've gone through this together and not had one argument between us. Lots of people would have scratched each other to death, either mentally or physically."

On Park Avenue and in other wealthy enclaves the article was perused and deconstructed with the kind of minute attention usually given to changes in the capital gains tax. Tony and Charlene's claim that Annette was motivated by a desire to be "the next Brooke Astor," revealed a misunderstanding of twenty-first-century society. It was as if the couple envisioned a diamond tiara waiting to crown Brooke's heir, which Annette had rudely grabbed for. But Jane Engelhard's daughter had never had to grab for anything; now in her mid-sixties, she had a position that had long been secure. Old society was vanishing into the obituary columns: C. Z. Guest, Nan Kempner, Pat Buckley. New society, epitomized by Tinsley Mortimer and Tory Burch, was preoccupied with marketing the term
socialite
as a brand name. Brooke Astor, born in 1902, had been a legend, a self-created phenomenon, and was an irreplaceable creature of her white-gloved era. There would be no "next."

If you ask David Rockefeller whether Annette's motive in the guardianship fight was to elevate her social status and become the new Brooke, his face creases with merriment. When he stops laughing, he searches for the right word to convey his reaction. He's too polite to swear, so instead he replies, "The term I would use is not repeatable. It's completely absurd."

Yet if Tony's wounding remarks were aimed at an audience of one, he likely hit his mark. Annette de la Renta, who had spent her life avoiding the limelight, was now facing a daily diet of publicity and found all the stories mortifying. As Barbara Walters says, "Every time there was something in the paper, she died. If it was something critical, she wanted to hide under the covers."

For all the Marshalls' bravado in the
Forbes
interview, by the time the magazine hit the newsstands, the couple had already reached the reluctant conclusion that they could not win and it was time to find a graceful exit. The court evaluator, Sam Liebowitz, had been trying to broker a deal, and the couple leaped at the chance to retire from the headlines, as did their adversaries.

In the hope of heading off a potentially devastating inquiry into the Marshalls' finances, Tony grudgingly agreed to give up guardianship of his mother and his lucrative yearly salary. As Paul Saunders recalls, "They were deathly afraid the bank was going to sue them." In return, Tony and Charlene insisted the agreement had to include the phrase that they admitted to no wrongdoing; legal claims against the couple would be frozen until after Brooke Astor's death. "I wanted a standstill," says Harvey Corn, Tony's lawyer, explaining that the ordeal had become unbearable for the Marshalls. "My guy is eighty-two years old. He couldn't go outside his house." Tony and Charlene, along with Francis Morrissey and Terry Christensen, gave up any claim to serve as executors of Brooke Astor's will, which left the question of who would handle that task in limbo.

Susan Robbins was the lone dissenter during a settlement conference held at the offices of Chase's lawyers. "What would Mrs. Astor want?" she argued. Robbins was frustrated because she thought that the other lawyers were giving way to battle fatigue. Tony was on the ropes; he should be forced to give it all back. The three new codicils should be judged invalid; Cove End, along with the $5 million granted to Charlene and Tony's $2 million self-dealt bonus, should be returned. Robbins wanted to ensure that Mrs. Astor regained her financial position before the "men in suits" took advantage. "That's when I said I'm not signing it, and they were ready to kill me," Robbins explains. But as far as Saunders was concerned, this was just a lull in the proceedings; the real bombardment would begin in surrogate's court after Mrs. Astor's death. "Susan didn't want to let Tony off the hook," Saunders says. "But I knew that because of the structure of the settlement, he wasn't off the hook."

Even though Robbins refused to sign, she won a concession. She had noticed that Mrs. Astor, who had provided only $100,000 each for the education of her three great-grandchildren, had inquired in a note to Terry Christensen whether she ought to do more for them. Robbins negotiated an increase to $400,000 each for Philip's son, Winslow, and daughter, Sophie, and Alec's daughter, Hilary Brooke, included in the stipulation settling the guardianship. These college funds represented, of course, an indirect way to funnel money to Brooke Astor's two grandsons, who would otherwise have paid this tuition themselves.

The denouement arrived, fittingly, on the morning of Friday, the thirteenth of October, 2006, a mere six days before the case was to go to trial. Annette de la Renta, in a simple black sheath, white coat, pearl earrings, and stilettos, appeared before Justice Stackhouse. In a dingy courtroom with fluorescent lights, she spoke to the judge in a quiet voice. "I have known Mrs. Astor for approximately forty years," she said. "She was a friend of my parents before, when I was young." Stackhouse asked if she had been responsible for taking Brooke Astor back to Holly Hill. Annette replied, "Yes, that's what I considered to be her home." The judge concurred approvingly, saying, "That's what I believe she considered her home as well." There were no courtroom theatrics; it was all merely a formality.

Yet the actual legal agreement, available to the press, contained titillating details. It read as if Tony and Charlene had admitted to pulling off a daring daylight robbery from Brooke's apartment and bank account but had now agreed to load up a Brink's truck and take it all back, $11 million worth in cash, jewelry, and art. That included $1.35 million to Chase Bank to cover the tax penalties on the Childe Hassam sale. Tony had even agreed to put up his beloved boat, the
General Russell,
as collateral.

As for the possessions, the Marshalls had apparently prematurely taken home two gifts intended for them in Brooke Astor's 2002 will, the diamond snowflake necklace and a Giovanni Tiepolo drawing worth $500,000, plus valuables that had been designated for others. The couple returned a 10-carat diamond ring and three brooches; Brooke had requested that any pieces of her jewelry worth more than $1,000, with a few specific exceptions, be sold, with the proceeds going to charity. A John Frederick Lewis drawing (worth $500,000) and a collection of five gouaches by the eighteenth-century Venetian painter Francesco Guardi made a return trip to 778 Park Avenue; Brooke had left her drawings, in her will, to the Metropolitan Museum and the Morgan Library. Tony and Charlene were ordered to return the Astor flat silverware, which had been bequeathed to Viscount Astor. The couple also returned twenty-four volumes by Rudyard Kipling and two Chinese porcelain figures.

This turn of events was humiliating for Tony and Charlene, and they decided to go public yet again to defend themselves, this time to Vicky Ward of
Vanity Fair.
Raising a cudgel as if she were Margaret Thatcher waging war in the Falklands, Charlene announced, "There will be a battle royal when Brooke Astor dies." This was a threat and a promise. "The important point is that the money we are returning is not 'taken' money or 'stolen' money, but money for collateral, in case of future disputes," Charlene continued. "The things are presents given to us since 1992. They are in the will, and we expect to get it all back." Since Mrs. Astor's will was not yet public, Vicky Ward was unable to challenge Charlene's claims. Tony made similar remarks to Grace Richardson, a Juilliard Council member and friend, when she went by for tea. "Tony said those had been gifts from his mother at Christmas," Richardson recalls. "I said, 'Didn't she write you a note? "Dear Tony, I'm giving you these books, love Mom"?'" According to Richardson, Tony replied, "I gave them back, and I'll get them back later."

It was over, but it wasn't over. One week later, the nationally known forensic handwriting expert Gus Lesnevich submitted his report on the variations in Brooke Astor's signatures, and his findings were unambiguous. Mrs. Astor could not have produced the Brooke Russell Astor signature on the codicil dated March 3, 2004, he wrote, "due to the deterioration of her ability to write her name."

Woe to Francis Morrissey, who claimed that he had supervised while Brooke Astor signed the third codicil in the presence of two witnesses. This new and well-publicized development created a dilemma for Susan Robbins. Lawyers, as officers of the court, are required to report to the authorities when a crime has been committed. Robbins had brushed off the expression of interest in the case by the prosecutor Elizabeth Loewy. Now she had no choice but to offer to hand over her files. She met with Loewy, joined by Paul Saunders. Robbins had hoped that the prosecutor would focus on Morrissey. "I thought he was brilliant," she says. "I thought he had orchestrated the whole thing."

But Robbins, for all her legal zeal, was subject to the law of unintended consequences. "I never wanted this to be a criminal investigation against Tony," she says, sensitive that her client was Mrs. Astor. "Who would want their son to go to jail?" But the latticework of ties between Morrissey and Marshall made it nearly impossible to separate the two men in a criminal investigation.

The door was now open for the prosecutors to satisfy their curiosity about Mrs. Astor's will. Almost no one involved in the guardianship case had anticipated the legal ramifications for Tony. Philip had never imagined that he would be placing his father in criminal jeopardy. Annette de la Renta and David Rockefeller just wanted a way to restore Brooke to a more comfortable life at Holly Hill. So many things had to go wrong with this family to bring in the DA's office—such a confluence of misunderstandings, relationships torn asunder, words left unsaid, and, the most dangerous ingredient of all, money substituting for love. Yet now the fate of Brooke Astor's only son, Tony Marshall, was in the hands of the prosecutors. The investigation would last for a full year, holding the Marshalls and Morrissey in limbo.