Mrs. Astor Regrets (7 page)

Salzman expected to leave Stackhouse's office with the order to seal the lawsuit and take it directly to the clerk's office. But the judge decided to hold on to it temporarily. Salzman called repeatedly to find out when he could pick it up. Late on Friday, Salzman finally took a photocopy of the order to the clerk's office, but the clerk declined to accept it, insisting on having the original. Thus the case, "Index No. 500096/06: PHILIP MARSHALL for the Application of Guardians of the Person and Property of BROOKE ASTOR, an alleged Incapacitated Person," was left in the public record.

On Monday afternoon, Helen Peterson, a
Daily News
reporter, received a tip that guardianship papers involving Brooke Astor had been filed. In light of Peterson's six years of covering the legal doings at 60 Centre Street (and twenty-three years at the
Daily News),
her source was probably a courthouse employee, although all Peterson will say is, "It was not Ira Salzman." While reporters routinely check the records room at 4
P.M.
each day for new lawsuits, from slip-and-fall cases to business disputes, guardianship files are not typically requested. By the time Peterson got the tip, the record room was closed for the day.

At 10
A.M.
on Tuesday, the reporter went to the musty basement office and asked for the Astor file. The clerk handed it over. "I started reading it and my hands started shaking," Peterson recalled. "I knew it was a huge story." Philip Marshall had charged his father with "elder abuse" of Brooke Astor. According to the document, Mrs. Astor, the city's most beloved philanthropist, was living in squalor amid peeling paint and was being deprived of medical care. Peterson took out a roll of quarters and photocopied the hefty file—constantly looking over her shoulder in fear of rival reporters—and then took the subway to the
Daily News
headquarters. Her editor, Dean Chang, was in a meeting. "I have to talk to you," she said. He waved her off; she went back twenty minutes later to interrupt again. "You don't understand," she said. "I have to talk to you right now. I have tomorrow's front-page story."

Late in the day she called Tony Marshall at his Upper East Side co-op for a comment prior to publication. He was so thrown by the situation that he did not immediately defend himself. "He sounded sad," she says in retrospect. "Sometimes people start screaming at me. He was well brought up. He wasn't rude—he was very polite." Tony Marshall informed her, "No, I don't want to comment." Peterson told him that she found the allegations shocking. Tony's reply, quoted the next day in the
Daily News,
was, "You said it is shocking, and I agree. It is a matter that is going to be coming up in a court of law and it should be left to the court."

That night Philip Marshall, the instigator of it all, stayed in Queens with Tenzing Chadotsang, a Tibetan friend who worked for the Landmarks Preservation Commission. As they were driving back to the Chadotsang family's modest brick home after dinner at a Korean restaurant, Philip's cell phone rang. The
Daily News
wanted a comment. Philip was startled, since Salzman had assured him of privacy. As Chadotsang says, "I knew that Philip had filed the suit, but he expected it to be a quiet thing. Philip got off the phone and said, 'Oh my going to be in the newspapers.'" Philip contemplated calling Annette de la Renta but decided not to ruin her evening. "At that point," he said, "I didn't know Annette well enough to call her at ten-thirty or eleven at night."

Annette is an early riser, and at 5:30 the next morning she took her three rambunctious dogs for a walk, strolling down quiet Park Avenue, contemplating the day ahead and a visit to Brooke in the hospital. When she got back to her building, the doorman handed her the
Daily News,
delivered just minutes before. Annette was horrified by the sight of the huge black words on page one: "DISASTER FOR MRS. ASTOR: Son forces society queen to live on peas and porridge in dilapidated Park Avenue duplex."

The story inside—"Battle of N.Y. Blue Bloods"—made for mesmerizing reading for the city's entire five boroughs, with special double-takes all over the Upper East Side. "The sad and deplorable state of my family's affairs has compelled me to bring the guardianship case," Philip had written in his affidavit requesting that his father be removed as Brooke Astor's legal guardian and replaced by Annette de la Renta. "Her bedroom is so cold in the winter that my grandmother is forced to sleep in the TV room in torn nightgowns on a filthy couch that smells, probably from dog urine." Philip charged that his father "has turned a blind eye to her ... while enriching himself with millions of dollars."

Detailed affidavits about the alleged abuse had been signed by three nurses (Minnette Christie, Pearline Noble, and Beverly Thomson) and by Chris Ely, who had been fired by Tony eighteen months earlier.

"The apartment is shabby and poorly maintained. It always has a foul odor because her two dogs are obliged to live enclosed in the dining room," wrote Annette de la Renta in her affidavit. "Because of the failure of Mrs. Astor's son, Anthony, to spend her money properly, the quality of life of Mrs. Astor has been significantly eroded." David Rockefeller seconded this concern about Brooke's "welfare," and Henry Kissinger attested that Mrs. de la Renta would make an "excellent guardian" for Mrs. Astor.

By the time the
Daily News
published its story, Justice Stackhouse had already taken action to remedy the situation. The judge named two temporary guardians for Mrs. Astor, Annette de la Renta and JPMorgan Chase, the bank that Rockefeller had headed for decades. With the stroke of a pen, Tony Marshall lost responsibility for his mother's care as well as his hefty salary for managing her money. The judge named a court evaluator, the lawyer Susan Robbins, an outspoken former social worker with expertise in guardianships. All this happened without a hearing, which the judge then scheduled for several weeks in the future. Tony Marshall had been stripped of his powers without the chance to offer his version of events and defend himself.

New York is a city that virtually, under civic charter, requires a summer scandal, and the Astor affair fit the bill. This was not just another family feud but a sprawling saga involving society figures, millions of dollars, appalling charges, and backstage intrigue. A media war erupted. The
New York Times
assigned a battalion of reporters and ran stories with eight different bylines in the next few days. Television and print reporters staked out the Marshalls' Manhattan apartment as well as Alec's place in Ossining and Philip's forest green shingle-style home on a corner lot in Massachusetts, taking pictures of Winslow mowing the lawn. As Nan recalls, "That's when I knew our lives would never be the same."

At Lenox Hill Hospital, extra security guards were hired to keep interlopers such as reporters pretending to deliver flowers away from Mrs. Astor, who was recovering from a near fatal bout of pneumonia. "Reporters were outside my parents' home," recalls Dr. Sandra Gelbard, who was in charge of her care. "I don't know how they got the address."

On Northeast Harbor's tiny Main Street, reporters from the
Daily News,
the
New York Post,
and the
Boston Globe
went from door to door, trying to dig up dirt. Bob Pyle, the town's librarian, says, "We felt like we had to pull down our shades at night to escape the paparazzi." Charlene's daughter Inness, staying on at Cove End, was so distraught by the press attention and the gawkers that she called her mother to say she felt ill and was worried that her pregnancy would be endangered. "I thought the
New York Post
was going to give my daughter a miscarriage," says Charlene Marshall. "But she went to the hospital and they saved the baby."

The unfolding saga was polarizing Brooke Astor's friends and the Marshalls' social circle. People felt forced to take sides. In Washington, D.C., Suzanne Kuser, Tony Marshall's half-sister and a former State Department intelligence analyst, got a call from her nephew Philip explaining the situation. Kuser says, "I thought he had a case." Kuser had a distinct theory about the psychological underpinnings of her half-brother's behavior, saying, "Tony has a lot of problems. Some of them are mommy issues. There's a whole history."

In California, Nancy Reagan was saddened but not entirely surprised to read of the scandal. "I felt terrible, just terrible, that this could happen to Brooke," she told me. "We all knew that something was wrong up there. But nobody knew quite how wrong it was." Mrs. Reagan called Annette de la Renta to inquire about the details. "Annette explained to me that she wasn't supposed to talk." Even to you? "Even to me."

Viscount William Astor was on holiday in Scotland when the story hit the newspapers. He admitted that he had been worried about Brooke in recent years. "I'm just appalled by the way she's been treated," he said. "Annette de la Renta has done the right thing, and we've all been encouraging her to do something for a long time. It's all about money."

Indeed, nearly every day for the following six months Tony and Charlene Marshall were pilloried in the press. They were accused of finagling millions from Mrs. Astor, including diverting money to invest in their theatrical company. They were attacked for firing Mrs. Astor's longtime staff—Chris Ely, her chauffeur, her French chef, her social secretary, and her Maine housekeeper—and denounced for preventing friends from visiting in order to isolate her. There were ominous reports that Tony had shredded eighty boxes of documents. He was criticized for selling the Childe Hassam painting for $10 million and taking a $2 million commission, and there was an uproar when he admitted that he had erred in filing his mother's taxes, resulting in a huge underpayment of capital gains tax on the transaction.

The Marshalls protested their innocence in quaintly old-fashioned terms. "My mother has always emphasized the importance of good manners," Tony said in a statement that he passed out to the press. "Those who have associated their names with this action taken against me and my wife Charlene have not only exercised bad manners but total disrespect and a lack of decency." He charged that Rockefeller and Kissinger "have given undeserved credence to my son Philip's charges against me and stirred up a massive media campaign."

Tony was stunned by the betrayal of these people he knew—or at least thought he knew. As an ambassador in the Nixon administration, he had reported to Kissinger, then the secretary of state. Through his mother, Tony had known and socialized with the entire Rockefeller family for decades. He and Annette both served on the board of the Metropolitan Museum, and they were often thrown together at Brooke's larger parties. "I thought they were all friends," Tony later told me, and then, without prompting, he conceded, "Of my mother's."

Rockefeller and Kissinger, who have spent their lifetimes in the public eye, serenely took the high road, declining to respond to Tony Marshall's criticisms and authorizing Rockefeller's veteran public relations adviser Fraser Seitel to handle the media. Even more than a year later, when Rockefeller and Kissinger spoke with me, they avoided directly criticizing Tony and pointedly praised Philip. In a lengthy conversation in his art-filled office on the fifty-sixth floor of Rockefeller Center, Rockefeller insisted that he became involved because he was concerned about Brooke's "personal comfort and happiness." He added, "I don't know Philip well, but I felt his motives were totally unselfish and caring for his grandmother. I've been very impressed." Kissinger, speaking at his Park Avenue office several blocks away, explained, "Nobody said, 'Let's get all these names together and really do a job here.' When we were caucusing among ourselves, it was entirely on the issue of how can we make life better for Brooke in her final years?"

Thanks to the star power arrayed against the Marshalls, only a few of their friends were willing to support them openly. David Richenthal, the lead partner in Delphi Productions, the couple's theatrical venture, was their staunchest vocal defender. He lashed out at Philip, calling him "a disturbed attention-getting young man who is acting irrationally." The CBS newsman Mike Wallace, who had met the Marshalls when he profiled Brooke Astor for
60 Minutes,
issued a formal statement saying, "I am perplexed by the attacks leveled against Anthony. I believe they are completely undeserved." Wallace later told me, "When I read about it, I said, 'This is horseshit.' I've spent time with these people. They seemed reasonable and not greedy." At St. James' Church, Rector Brenda Husson was convinced that the Marshalls were innocent of all charges. "I was dumbfounded," she says. "It just did not line up with anything I knew either about them or about their relationship with Brooke. I'm very aware of regular visits and ongoing care."

The controversy dominated conversations and created schisms. Eleanor Elliott, a former
Vogue
editor who had attended Brooke's hundredth birthday party, wrote a note of support to the Marshalls, declaring that she was not a fair-weather friend. But her brother-in-law Oz Elliott thought the charges were probably credible, saying, "If David Rockefeller got involved, there must have been more fire than smoke."

For a son to take his father to court is a stunning act of familial disloyalty. William F. Buckley, Jr., Brooke's neighbor at 778 Park Avenue, described Philip's lawsuit in his syndicated newspaper column as a "parricidal intervention." Tony told close friends that he could not fathom his sons' behavior. As Daniel Billy, Jr., says, "What they've done is biblical in their betrayal." Alec did not join in the lawsuit, but in his father's eyes he was as culpable as Philip. As Billy adds, "By not taking sides, he's taken sides."

The Marshalls descended into a nightmarish existence in which everything they had ever said or done was scrutinized by the press. They were villains in the tabloid drama, and they confided to friends that strangers called in the middle of the night with death threats. Virtually every newspaper story featured lovely old photos of Mrs. Astor decked out in her finest jewels and hats and smiling benignly, alongside unattractive new photos of an enraged Charlene snarling at the cameras like Cruella de Vil, with a baffled and somber Tony at her side.