Mrs. Astor Regrets (47 page)

Christensen's testimony was pivotal to both sides. He had attested that Brooke Astor was competent when she signed the December 18 "First and Final" codicil, which provided a $30 million endowment for the Anthony Marshall Fund. Asked by Loewy why he had used the unusual "First and Final" wording, Christensen waved her off with a wry smile, replying, "A lot of people have asked me that question."

Christensen was in the near-impossible position of testifying that Mrs. Astor was capable of assenting to his legal work but did not have the mental wherewithal a month later to agree to two codicils prepared by Morrissey and Whitaker. Hunched over on the witness stand, glowering, Christensen insisted that his role was to "mediate" between mother and son. He said that Tony had launched an unrelenting campaign for more money. "Did you think he was twisting your arm?" asked Loewy. "Mine and Mrs. Astor's," Christensen replied.

He lost his temper after Loewy pointed out that Christensen's billing records showed that he met with Tony Marshall thirty-five times in 2003, but his original client, Mrs. Astor, only eight times. "I gave 15 years of devoted and undivided attention to Mrs. Astor and I was fired," Christensen shouted. "I resent the suggestion that I was doing anything other than what was requested."

During Christensen's testimony, a minor detail buried in a tax-planning document—which was totally ignored by the press—cast the entire Brooke Astor saga, from the time of the guardianship lawsuit, in a new light. Philip and Alec Marshall had both repeatedly stated, and sincerely believed, that they had no financial stake in the fight over Brooke Astor's fortune. Dating back to 1993, their grandmother had left them one million dollars each, and that amount was not in dispute. Their parents' 1962 settlement agreement, which their mother, Elizabeth Wheaton-Smith, had tracked down during the guardianship fight in 2006, merely suggested but did not require Tony to leave the twins money when he died. Given Tony's fury at his sons, it was reasonable to assume that they had been disinherited.

Then, on the large video screen in the courtroom, a November 15, 1990, tax-planning document prepared by Christensen for Mrs. Astor was shown to the jury. The paperwork stated that Tony's "first wife is entitled to a share of his estate if she survives him." None of the lawyers inquired about the mention of "the first wife." But I was startled by that clause and e-mailed Philip from the courtroom to ask whether he was aware of his mother's potential windfall. He wrote back moments later to say that no such clause existed in the settlement agreement that he had seen.

The next day, Elizabeth Wheaton-Smith, at Philip's urging, went down to the dank basement of her Vermont home and retrieved from a filing cabinet her actual 1962 Mexican divorce decree. "I last looked at this forty or fifty years ago," she said. The settlement agreement that Philip had seen was merely a draft, prepared by his mother's first lawyer. She had subsequently hired another lawyer, who negotiated much better terms. As Wheaton-Smith blurted out, "It says in the divorce agreement he has to leave his kids one-third of his estate. I almost fainted. I'd totally forgotten that."

Tony had been well aware of this requirement for forty-seven years (Warren Whitaker later mentioned it as a little-noticed aside during the trial), but the twins insist that it was not spelled out to them. "You never know the twists and turns as this situation unfolds," Alec marveled. "Who knows what will happen?" Tony had transferred valuable assets to Charlene in recent years, such as the Lexington Avenue apartment and Cove End, but most of his inheritance from Brooke Astor is tied up in Westchester Surrogate's Court. He cannot give Charlene any of Brooke Astor's tens of millions until the case is resolved. Should Tony die before the Surrogate's Court process is completed, his legacy from his mother would go directly to his own estate. Under that scenario, his sons would be entitled to one-third of that inheritance—significantly reducing Charlene's share.

Philip's lawsuit over the care of his grandmother inadvertantly exposed his father's alleged crimes. But if Tony's claims on Brooke Astor's estate are ultimately upheld, Philip and Alec stand to inherit more than $10 million each. As Philip bluntly put it, "This is so twisted."

For Francis Morrissey, the trial resembled a recurring nightmare in which he played only a bit part. The judge denied his request for a separate trial, so Morrissey spent weeks in the courtroom listening to testimony that was irrelevant to his legal fate. He passed the time by making himself the most genial defendant imaginable. Not only did he introduce himself to the press corps and wander over to schmooze during breaks, he even tried to ingratiate himself with the prosecutors, complimenting Liz Loewy on her "hilarious" sense of humor and Joel Seidemann on—yes—his astute objections.

But finally the harsh spotlight turned to Morrissey's behavior in Brooke Astor's household. Mrs. Astor's former maid Lia Opris, a sixty-three-year-old Romanian, had witnessed Mrs. Astor sign both the first and the third codicils; Morrissey was charged with forging Brooke Astor's signature on the third codicil. Before the hushed courtroom, Opris described being called into Mrs. Astor's living room, where Morrissey waited, and watching Mrs. Astor sign her name, Brooke Russell Astor, with a ballpoint pen. The maid said she noticed how frail the words appeared. "They looked kind of pale, as if the pen was running out of ink," Opris said. "I thought to myself, in time, the letters might fade."

Then Loewy, in a moment worthy of Perry Mason, brandished the third codicil, which had been submitted as part of Mrs. Astor's will, and asked, "Is this the piece of paper you saw that day?" "No," Opris replied. "I'm positive." In this codicil, Brooke Astor's signature was written in bold handwriting with a felt-tip pen. After Opris stepped down, Morrissey muttered, "She's confused." It was the first time in the lengthy trial that the lawyer, now out on $100,000 bail, seemed to be in danger of joining the daily procession of handcuffed criminals herded to the white prison vans waiting outside the courthouse.

For the servants who had cared for and anguished over Brooke Astor in her final years, it was cathartic to have their day in court. Marciano Amaral, the chauffeur, wept openly, talking of his love for Mrs. Astor. The nurse's aide Pearline Noble held her ground during four days of withering questions from Fred Hafetz, who repeatedly called her a liar. "I was on trial for my character," Noble said later, sounding outraged. The nurse's aide wished that Charlene were on trial, not Tony. "For justice, I wish the penalty would go to her. She's the one who pushed and pushed." Chris Ely, who had helped set everything in motion, had expected to endure a bruising cross-examination, but it lasted scarcely an hour. "That's all?" he said afterward in the elevator, sounding disappointed. Still presiding over Holly Hill, Ely remained in mourning for the elderly woman who had been the center of his life for a decade. He took pink roses to Mrs. Astor's grave at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Sometimes he would go into her bedroom, where she had died, and just sit for a spell. Holly Hill was for sale, and soon it would be time for him to leave, to restart his own life.

Once his mother died, Tony Marshall had envisioned a future for himself and Charlene as philanthropists. The Marshall name would matter—they too would be the toast of the town, courted by the powerful as his mother had been. But those dreams were now ashes. Even if Tony eventually won his full share of his mother's estate in Surrogate's Court and the right to dispense Vincent Astor's largesse, the money would be forever tainted. And Tony Marshall could easily be in his nineties before the contentious fight over the estate was settled.

Brooke Astor had rescued her son many times, snaring him ambassadorships, employing him to managing her money, urging her charitable boards to take him on as a charitable act. But she could not save him from his cupidity now. Even the prosecutors had expected that Tony would try to negotiate a plea bargain to avoid a trial, yet the Marine who hit the beaches at Iwo Jima never asked for mercy. He was stubbornly committed to proving that he was innocent before society as well as the law. The prosecutors, the tabloids, and all of these interlopers would never understand how much his mother loved him and wanted to reward him for a lifetime of loyalty. "He did not do one thing wrong," Charlene insisted to me. "He did zero wrong. We believe in truth with a capital T."

Tony did not testify in his own defense. Yet his tangled feelings toward his mother did come to light at the trial. This emotionally repressed son had poured his heart out in a letter he wrote—but never sent—to Terry Christensen in February 2004, explaining to the lawyer why he was being fired. The letter was introduced as evidence.

"Mother's feelings towards me over the past nine months have been a treasured reward at the near end of a relationship fractured by the influence of others and by her own very focused life," Tony wrote. "We have never been so close as we are at present. As she nears her 102nd birthday, every time I have seen her, she has expressed to me her love and gratitude." Anthony Dryden Marshall, born Anthony Kuser, the only child of New York's white-gloved philanthropist Brooke Astor, had waited a lifetime for those words.

The trial of Tony Marshall and Francis Morrissey lasted much longer than any of the participants had anticipated. Sweaters were replaced by T-shirts, boots by flip-flops. The jurors, who had agreed in April to serve for three months, found themselves in August still spending their days in room 1536 with no end in sight. Every day was costly for Tony Marshall; Charlene termed an estimate of $6 million in legal fees "very low." After fifteen weeks of testimony, the prosecutors had not yet finished presenting their case; then the defense would have its turn. Justice Bartley, apologizing to the jurors for the wildly off-target time estimate, took the unusual step of giving them a late-summer two-week vacation, with the trial resuming after Labor Day.

So at this writing, the trial continues. Whatever verdict the jury brings in, Tony Marshall's court battles over his reputation and his inheritance are far from over. As soon as the criminal trial is completed, the legal proceedings over Brooke Astor's final will and codicils (suspended when Tony was indicted in 2007) are scheduled to resume in Westchester Surrogate's Court.

Brooke Astor loved the limelight, even employing a public relations firm to keep her name in the news. This vivacious and much-admired grande dame wanted to be remembered for her good works. Stories about her son's trial appeared in newspapers around the globe, from New Zealand to Wales. Now her name has been tarnished. The fight that tore apart her family is something that Mrs. Astor would indeed regret.

Epilogue: A Sunset in Maine

F
IVE DAYS.
How much difference can five days make in the life of a family? So many layers of experience mount up, and the cracks are replastered and new touch-up paint is applied, but the architecture of the relationships remains the same. Still, every now and then there is a moment, a glimpse of what might have been and what still could be. Forget the artifice of redecorating—what if the support beams were demolished and replaced by sturdy new construction? During five magical days in Maine, Brooke Astor, at ninety-eight, knew that something special was occurring. A beatific smile played constantly over her expressive features.

Family visits chez Astor usually occurred en masse, with four generations offering homage at the table. But in the summer of 2000, Tony and Charlene Marshall scheduled their visit to Brooke in mid-July, stayed for three weeks, and departed on August 6. So when Philip Marshall and Nan Starr drove up to Cove End on August 21 with Winslow, nine, and Sophie, seven, in the back seat, they anticipated a rare experience—they would have Brooke all to themselves.

When Tony and Charlene were with them, family tensions inevitably surfaced. "We were freer to be ourselves than when other family members were there," says Nan. "Being relaxed and happy came more naturally." Brooke, to be sure, was adept at stoking intergenerational rivalries in the family. She turned things into a competition about who loved her the most; it was as if she couldn't help herself. Years earlier at Holly Hill, Brooke had offered Philip an old side table from the attic; after he carried it downstairs, Tony spied it and promptly claimed the prize for himself. Brooke let it pass, although she must have noticed the struggle between father and son.

Cove End is full of nooks for children to explore. Once the Marshall family had unpacked—a major production, since Brooke required re-sort wear during the day and jackets and dresses for dinner—at the spacious two-story guest cottage by the water, they made their way along a wooded path to the main house, where Brooke waited. Winslow stopped by the Chinese gong and banged it with delight, an exuberant way of emphasizing "We're here!"

Brooke was eager to tell them about the plans she had made. It would be a busy few days, but there would still be time for lolling around. Her staff would take care of anything they needed. Chris Ely was there—he was always there—and Sophie and Winslow greeted him warmly. They associated him with fun, since Easter Sunday at Holly Hill was one of the butler's fortes, and he decorated the house with stuffed Peter Rabbit dolls and toys just for them.

That first night at Cove End, Brooke was in storytelling mode, happily regaling her grandson and great-grandchildren with stories of her globe-trotting girlhood. "She had all these trinkets in the house, and they'd end up being props for stories," recalls Philip. "She'd pick something up—' Here's a box with a little splinter of bloodstained wood from Nelson's mortal wound at the Battle of Trafalgar.'" When it was time to move into the dining room for dinner, Winslow offered his arm to his great-grandmother. She could not believe it—such perfect manners for a nine-year-old boy. That was Nan's doing; she worked hard to raise well-behaved children. As Sophie recalls, "Every time we went to see Gagi, we had to be on our best behavior. We had to sit up straight and not start eating until she started and put our napkins in our lap." Winslow adds, "And not drink the water out of the finger bowls."