Mrs. Astor Regrets (23 page)

Philip had been going through an emotionally wrenching period. His much-loved stepfather, Craig Wheaton-Smith, had died a year earlier, leaving a poorly organized estate. Philip had been helping his grieving mother unravel her finances, which had turned into an unpleasant crash course in estate law. But although his grandmother was declining, there was still pleasure to be had in their relationship, and his children looked forward to the visits. "At Holly Hill, we'd sit in the library and Gagi would pick up pictures and tell us about them," recalls Sophie Marshall, who was ten years old the year her great-grandmother turned 101. "Everything she told me seemed so interesting, and very different from my life."

Brooke had written the family a series of affectionate notes in recent years. "I simply adore my Christmas presents, particularly the framed photographs of those two lovely children. It made my heart beat twice as fast, and I can hardly wait to see them," she wrote in one letter. In another she thanked Philip and Nan for returning copies of her poetry. "I was very glad to get them as I am now keeping all the things that could be read when I am on my way to heaven. I miss you both and I wish, wish, wish that we could all be together more often." With her friends either dying or drifting away, Brooke was seeing her family in a new light and was receptive to closer ties. After Nan crafted a ceramic artwork featuring dogs, Brooke wrote, "I adore my mantelpiece, I have it by my bed and sleep better."

For a birthday gift in 2003, Nan had created a collage of a family tree for Gagi, and dutifully included photos of Tony and Charlene. While Philip and his family usually took walks on the estate with Brooke, the family left promptly on the morning of her birthday. Tony and Charlene showed up a few hours later, along with Alec and his daughter, Hilary Brooke, for lunch and a second celebration.

That evening Brooke went off for dinner with the Rockefeller brothers, David and Laurance. Flirting with her two favorite men was the perfect way to cap the day. David Rockefeller gave her a diamond and emerald brooch. "I didn't give her important jewelry," he says, "but I gave her things I thought she would wear." There was still a fairy-tale aspect to her life, being given diamonds by a Rockefeller at age 101.

By late April, the Marshalls were excited about the upcoming opening night of
Long Day's Journey.
They had set aside tickets for Brooke to attend the play and the after-party at Tavern on the Green. It was an early curtain, 6
P.M.
at the Plymouth Theatre, and Morrissey would escort her; everything had been arranged. But when the Marshalls asked Naomi Packard-Koot to put the event on Mrs. Astor's calendar, she expressed concern that her employer might be overwhelmed by large crowds. As she puts it, "Would you take a one-hundred-and-one-year-old deaf woman to a four-hour play?" Her words were dismissed as interference.

On opening night, May 6, Mrs. Astor was complaining about having to go. Awaiting Morrissey, she told her social secretary, "I don't like that man. He's not my friend, he's Tony's friend." But, unfailingly polite, she greeted the lawyer warmly, although she announced that her sciatica was acting up. Because she knew it meant a lot to her son, she would attend the first act, but she planned to skip the second act and the after-party. At intermission, Mrs. Astor and Mr. Morrissey adjourned instead for a quiet dinner at Swifty's, where they had a conversation that would have profound repercussions. Morrissey later said that Brooke had turned to him that evening and asked a simple question: "What can I do for Tony?" The lawyer replied, "Ask him."

It could be argued—and many of Brooke's friends took this position—that Brooke had done quite enough for her son already. But Morrissey took her at her word, detecting anguish in her voice. A deeply religious man, he later said that he believed that Mrs. Astor could not die in peace until she had made things right with Tony. When Morrissey submitted a bill for $15,455.76 to Brooke Astor's office ten months later, he dated his fees back to that night, actually charging for the dinner conversation.

The day after
Long Day's Journey
opened to rave reviews, Terry Christensen went by Mrs. Astor's home for tea. At that meeting, Brooke approved in writing a plan to speed up her bequest of Cove End to Tony. Christensen had assigned an accountant to research the tax consequences, and informed Tony by letter that there were three options. He recommended a scenario in which Brooke would give Cove End to Tony now and pay the $3,562,500 in gift taxes.

Although Brooke executed the transfer documents, it's likely that she had not entirely abandoned her hope that Philip would inherit at least part of Cove End. She did not change the language in her will that specifically expressed her desires, which she had repeated to several other people. Tony was aware of what his mother's wishes had been, at least in the recent past, regarding the property.

But in truth Tony had other plans for Cove End. For him, it was the romantic spot where his own life had changed for the better. What better symbolic gift for his third wife, as an expression of love and gratitude? Six months after Brooke signed the Maine estate over to Tony, he put the title in Charlene's name. In a memo to his files, he wrote of the transfer of Cove End: "I was very keen to have this accomplished during my lifetime so that, in the event BA might live longer than I, I would be able to leave the property to my wife."

Two days after
Long Day's Journey
opened, the Marshalls went to 778 Park to meet with Naomi Packard-Koot. They knew that Brooke had left a few hours earlier to go to Holly Hill for the weekend. At the start of the conversation, the Marshalls informed the social secretary that she was fired. "It was really sudden," she recalls. "I asked them why. Tony sort of fumbled and said that I didn't type quickly enough. First of all, I do type fast, but that wasn't part of my job anyway. My job was running her life and liaising with a lot of people and the staff." In a cruel twist, the Marshalls forbid her from returning to the apartment to say goodbye to Brooke.

By virtue of temperament and personality, Alec and Philip had developed very different relationships with their father. Alec was much closer to Tony emotionally, although Tony dictated the terms of their relationship, which was carried out at his convenience. Alec lived just a brief drive from Holly Hill, but even though Tony visited his mother there frequently, he had stopped by his son's apartment only a few times in a decade. Instead, he invited Alec into Manhattan for lunch every several weeks or so, usually at the New York Racquet Club or the Knickerbocker. Alec interrupted his workday and took the train in for the pleasure of his father's company.

For Alec, it had become troubling that his father and his brother did not get along, so he decided to play peacemaker, urging Philip to go into Manhattan alone, without Nan and the kids, to spend some time with Tony. The twins e-mail each other constantly and talk every other day, and finally, in early June 2003, Philip relented, agreeing to take his brother's advice and commit a few days to this exercise. The weekend that was good for him, unfortunately, was not ideal for his father. Still, when Philip arrived, his father proudly took him down to Times Square to see the theater where
Long Day's Journey
was playing. Tony had invited Philip to opening night, but the college professor had declined because of his teaching schedule. At least he could see the marquee, his father's bright lights, big city accomplishment.

Tony and Charlene had been invited to dine at Mike Wallace's apartment that evening and did not offer to take Philip along. Free on that first evening in Manhattan, Philip made a last-minute call to Naomi Packard-Koot—they had never met in person—and went out for what turned into a five-hour dinner at Island, on Madison Avenue. The former social secretary kept stressing her commitment to Mrs. Astor and voicing her concerns about Tony and Charlene's actions. Since Philip wanted his visit to improve family relations, he kept quiet the next morning at his father's apartment, where he had spent the night. But Tony had decided to cut the visit short. Announcing that it would be inconvenient for him and Charlene to host Philip for another evening, Tony reserved a room for his son at the Knickerbocker Club. As for dinner with Brooke, which had been scheduled, Tony said she was not feeling well and the get-together had been canceled.

Later that day Philip stopped by his grandmother's building to leave her a bouquet of flowers; when the doorman rang up, his grandmother's staff urged him to come up and see Brooke. She seemed in good spirits, although she chastised him for wearing shorts and sandals in the city. "I wasn't expecting to see her or I would have dressed up," he recalls. She did not look sick to him, nor did she mention an illness. That night, as Philip lay in bed in his room at the Knickerbocker, he mulled over his relationship with his father. Hurt feelings abounded on both sides. There had been Tony's seventy-fifth birthday celebration in Turkey: neither Philip nor Alec attended, duly noting that the invitation had arrived late and their father had not offered to subsidize the expensive trip. On the one hand, Tony kept saying he wanted to know his grandchildren, yet he and Charlene had last visited Philip in Massachusetts twelve years before, shortly after Winslow was born, in 1991. Invitations for return visits had been politely deflected. A reconciliation seemed to be nothing more than a shimmering mirage.

"I'm glad I made the effort, but I was disappointed," Philip later said about this trip. Nan Starr knew how much Philip longed for a connection to his father. "It felt to Philip that he was never accepted, that his father neither knew nor liked him," she says. "I think Tony had aspirations for his sons to follow in his footsteps or the footsteps of his own grandfather. But Philip chose a more bohemian academic life." She adds, "Philip could not let go of hoping that there was something more with his father in terms of unconditional love."

Mrs. Astor liked her privacy at night, and so she frequently ordered her aide to leave the room when she slept. But trying to get out of bed on the evening of June 24, she lost her balance and toppled to the floor, breaking her hip. Tony and Charlene met her in the emergency room at New York Hospital. After spending several days in the hospital, she returned to Park Avenue, and on July 15, Dr. John Lyden performed a hip replacement.

To be 101, disoriented, hard of hearing, suffering from insomnia, and now in intense pain was an ordeal. Her recuperation was slow, and Mrs. Astor became depressed and listless. This was the first summer in decades without Maine. At Holly Hill, Chris Ely had to wheedle and coax and finally argue with his employer, telling her that he was not going to let her rot in bed. He was on the phone continuously with her doctor, Rees Pritchett. Brooke did manage to walk again, but she would have nurses with her every day for the rest of her life.

Brooke was still recuperating at Holly Hill on August 13 when Terry Christensen arrived for a meeting. She was in her bedroom, seated on a sofa facing the Hudson River, when the lawyer was ushered in. Christensen had prepared yet another set of financial documents. This time Brooke magnanimously gave $5 million to Tony, ostensibly to take care of Charlene. Not long before, Brooke had been so frightened about her finances that she had agreed to part with her Childe Hassam. Now she was feeling profligate, sending her love and money in surprising directions.

Christensen had crafted a letter for her to sign:

Dear Tony,

Terry Christensen has reviewed with me again the terms of my Will, and of the charitable remainder trust which I establish for your life benefit under my Will. I am quite satisfied with that trust, except that I now realize that as the trust terminates on your death, there may not be enough to provide for Charlene.

I do want you to have enough money to provide for Charlene on your death.

I am therefore making an additional outright gift to you of $5,000,000. This should provide you with enough money to assure Charlene's comfort assuming that she survives you. You have my power of attorney, and I authorize you to transfer $5,000,000 of securities from my accounts to yours in order to effect the gift. I understand that there will be a gift tax payable on this gift, from my own assets (and not Vincent's trust), next year.

With my love.
Sincerely,
Brooke R. Astor

Who could say that Brooke Astor was not a good mother? In poor health, she had still remembered to make financial concessions to a woman whom by most accounts she loathed, and she volunteered to pay the gift tax too.

Unknown to Christensen, the walls had ears: his private conversation with Mrs. Astor was being overheard elsewhere in the house. Because Mrs. Astor kept demanding that the duty nurses leave her bedroom, a baby monitor had been unobtrusively installed to track her movements. As a result, every sound in her bedroom was broadcast to the room next door, where the nurses waited. A nurse's aide regaled the household staff with what she heard, claiming that Christensen mentioned a "rift between the Marshalls and Mrs. Astor" that could be resolved only by giving money to Charlene. The word
millions
got everyone's attention.

Chris Ely had been told by Tony twenty months earlier that Mrs. Astor had Alzheimer's disease. Now she was signing legal documents and giving away money? As Christensen was leaving, he stopped to chat with the butler. In a written account of the day, Ely acidly noted that Christensen "seemed to want me to agree with him that BRA. [Brooke Russell Astor] was very well and in good mind. This comment coming from a man who could not look [at] me straight."

Mrs. Astor's mood changed after the lawyer departed. She told one of the nurses that she felt "foolish" and then retreated into silence. When she went down for dinner, she asked Ely what Christensen had wanted, as if she had no idea what had transpired. "I told her that I did not know, but as she had asked for a pen I thought she had signed something," wrote Ely. She asked to speak to Christensen, and the butler got the lawyer on the phone. But the conversation apparently did not alleviate her concerns.