Mrs. Astor Regrets (24 page)

The next morning Mrs. Astor, who believed that a lady should not be seen until fully dressed, broke tradition and summoned the butler to her bedroom. She "was not wearing make-up or her wig, she was lying flat on the bed without a pillow," Ely wrote. "I only see BRA. like this in an emergency. She asked me what had happened the day before and what she had signed." At Mrs. Astor's request, the butler called both Tony and Terry Christensen's office and asked for copies of the paperwork; both declined to provide the documents. Unsure of how to resolve this impasse, Ely jotted down detailed notes describing the lawyer's visit and his employer's distress. It never hurt to keep a record.

Ten days later, John Hart went out to see Brooke at Holly Hill, and she told him wearily, "John, I'm gaga." Hart tried to reassure her and read out loud from
Patchwork Child.
"I'd show her pictures and say, 'Who's that?' and she would say, 'That's me!'" Once they moved from the sunroom to the living room, she had trouble carrying on a conversation and began to joke about the furniture. "She'd look at a chair and go, 'Way too big, way too fat,'" he recalls. "Inanimate objects became animate, they had personalities." His heart went out to his valiant friend. Hart says, "I cried when I left."

9. The Treacherous Codicils

B
ROOKE ASTOR
had always rotated in new friends, like a stockbroker trying to beat a bear market. In the fall of 2003, the uniformed doormen at 778 Park Avenue watched as the latest group of regulars headed up to the fifteenth and sixteenth floors of Mrs. Astor's diminished world.

After Tony and Charlene set up a theatrical partnership, Delphi Productions, with David Richenthal, the gruff Broadway veteran moved into the handsome fifteenth-floor office that had previously been used by Naomi Packard-Koot.
Long Day's Journey
had not only made a substantial profit but won the 2003 Tony Award for best revival. Charlene also hired Erica Meyer, a friend of one of her daughter's, to take on the title of Mrs. Astor's social secretary.

Francis Morrissey, now entwined in so many aspects of the Marshalls' lives, had also become a regular visitor. The attorney joined Delphi's board of advisers and invested in upcoming shows. He also catered to Mrs. Astor, just as he had to many elderly friends and clients in the past. He brought cupcakes to her staff, going out of his way to be friendly. Catia Chapin, the wife of former New York cultural affairs commissioner Schuyler Chapin, was friendly with Morrissey and Mrs. Astor. She was impressed by the lawyer's thoughtful efforts, recalling, "He used to go visit Brooke every Wednesday. Every Wednesday, it was a joke, 'Where's Frank?' Of course, he's with Brooke. He'd go for tea in the afternoon, check in, see if she's all right." The lawyer told friends that he was honored to be close to Mrs. Astor and her son, and hoped to be as valued by this family as his father had been by the Kennedys.

In midtown, at 405 Park Avenue, Mrs. Astor maintained a separate business office with a two-person staff employed to pay her bills, for everything from the Chanel suits to the weekly arrangements of roses and lilies from Windsor Florist. Since 1993 the bookkeeper Alice Perdue had prepared checks, which Tony signed. A petite, animated woman with curly hair, Perdue was startled when Tony asked her to write two large checks in 2003 from his mother's accounts: $200,000 to Richenthal's company, Barking Dog Productions, followed by $250,000 to Delphi Productions. During the next two years, Perdue prepared two other theater-related checks at Tony's request: another $250,000 to Delphi and $200,000 to the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. Vincent Astor had so disliked the performing arts that Brooke, in keeping with his wishes, had given only minimal foundation grants in this arena. But now she became quite the Broadway supporter, parting with a total of $900,000.

Tony later insisted that his mother had authorized those checks because she was eager to support his new ventures. But Perdue recognized that supporting the theater was out of keeping with Mrs. Astor's usual behavior. "Everything was fine until Mrs. Astor broke her hip in June 2003," Perdue says. "But there was a definite change in everything after that. I saw things happening—I didn't know what to do."

Alicia Johnson, the housekeeper in Maine, noticed a curious item in her local newspaper, the
Ellsworth American,
that autumn: a fine-print listing of the property title transfer of Cove End to Charlene Marshall. Johnson sent a copy to Chris Ely, who lived at Holly Hill. The butler was on friendly terms with Philip Marshall and mentioned it the next time they spoke, assuming that Tony's son was already aware of what had happened. Philip was caught off-guard. "I knew there was no way my father was going to let me have it, after the conversation we'd had about the cottage," says Philip, but he adds that Tony's lack of candor was yet another blow. "I was mad at my father that he did not do this aboveboard." He also viewed his father's gift to Charlene as a harbinger of things to come, or, as he puts it, updating a witticism about bygone presidential politics, "As goes Maine, so goes the rest of the estate."

Although Charlene was now the lady of the house, the Maine expenses were still paid from Mrs. Astor's accounts. Tony expected his mother's bookkeepers to continue to pay for the gardeners, the housekeeper, the electricity, the cable TV, repairs, and taxes as they had before. "I did think it was odd. I didn't think it was right. I questioned a lot of things, but who was I going to talk to?" Alice Perdue says. "I didn't know Philip and Alec Marshall well. If I questioned Tony, I would have been out on the street."

For Mrs. Astor, her new reality was a New York life surrounded by nurses and aides. But she was still going out to see friends occasionally, and, ever conscious of appearances, she insisted that the nurses wear street clothes. They would accompany her in the car and help seat her at dinner parties, then retreat until it was time for her to leave. "All the nurses got dressed up for her, and she would tell us how nice we looked," recalls Minnette Christie, a stylish and slender Jamaican nurse with a passing resemblance to Angela Bassett. Christie had taken care of Mrs. Astor during her recuperation from her first broken hip, five years earlier, so this was a return engagement. The nurse noted that in her absence, the household staff had come up with a new nickname for Charlene, Miss Piggy.

Pearline Noble, another Jamaican, with an ebullient personality and a church choir voice, joined the staff as a nurse's aide with her friend Minnette's encouragement. Both women were in their forties, married, with three children each; they had met while caring for patients at Lenox Hill Hospital. Like a Broadway musical star who bursts into unexpected song, Noble sang to her patient through the day to cheer her up. "Suppose I'm taking her to the bathroom," Noble recalls. "I'd sing a kicky song and she'd pick up her nightgown and rock to the music and dance. She'd move faster."

Rounding out Mrs. Astor's primary team of nurses was Beverly Thomson, a gentle, friendly woman who had been living in Florida but who flew to New York when she heard about the job opening. "I started in Holly Hill just after she broke her hip," recalls Thomson. "She wasn't talking much, but she could hold a conversation. She told me about her grandchildren, who would come and play in the pool. She talked about her dogs, and food." These three women would be Mrs. Astor's constant companions for the next few years, with others rotating in and out as needed.

It is standard practice for nurses to jot down medical notes, but Mrs. Astor's caregivers kept unusually detailed accounts describing her activities, moods, nightmares, and reactions to visitors. Pearline Noble was the most prolific note-taker, with a vivid, descriptive writing style. "I just wanted to put down her state of mind—it wasn't meant for public knowledge," says Noble, who hoped her notes might be helpful to the next shift. In truth, there was a subtext here. Chris Ely kept hearing complaints from the nurses about events in the Park Avenue apartment. He urged them to write down anything unusual. If anyone ever asked, there would be a contemporaneous chronicle by eyewitnesses.

What the nurses captured in more than thirty voluminous notebooks over a four-year period was a portrait of a despairing woman who felt that she had lived too long. "She is dead set against eating, saying she wants to die," wrote Noble on September 25, 2003. "She said she is old and wanted the window shades down." The aide noted that Dr. Pritchett called that day to try to cheer her up and the housekeeper finally talked her into eating, but Mrs. Astor remained inconsolable. "She ignores us all and covers her face with the napkin." Mrs. Astor's emotions were even more turbulent three days later, as a night nurse wrote: "A very restless night. Had nightmares. Was not able to tell her dreams, only that someone was trying to kill her, and I showed her that the door was locked." The nurses took special notice of Tony's visits, writing that Mrs. Astor appeared "unhappy" after being in his presence.

Brooke had always appeared to be the last woman in need of Prozac or other mood elevators. Now she was tormented by panic attacks and nightmares. At 101 years old, perhaps she was fearful of being stalked by death, or was beset by the paranoia that often characterizes Alzheimer's. At times she appeared to be recalling Dryden Kuser and the beatings she had suffered. Like a mother trying to comfort a frightened child, Minnette Christie would pretend to search under her bed every night. "Mrs. Astor would tell me to use the cane to make sure," Christie recalls. "You know that no one is under the bed, but you do it to reassure her."

Mrs. Astor prayed at bedtime, asking Christie to get on her knees to join in the Lord's Prayer. Her worn Bible was her talisman against fear, and she took it with her to Holly Hill on weekends. (The car had to turn back one weekend when the Good Book was left behind.) But Christie's notes are heartbreaking: "Refused sleeping pill. Said she wants to be awake if anyone is trying to finish me. Reassured of her safety. Skin very dry, fragile." In order to hear the footsteps of her mythical tormentors, Brooke kept refusing to take her hearing aids out at bedtime, despite the nurse's protests.

Yet Mrs. Astor could still make a comeback, and there were moments when she appeared joyous—a contagious sight for her caregivers. Pearline Noble was delighted by her impulsive gesture as a friend departed, writing in her notes, "Mrs. A curtsied, she did it so gracefully, she's unbelievable!" One evening Mrs. Astor spent an hour trying to pass along her flirting techniques, literally teaching the nurses how to wink at men. Christie laughs as she recalls Mrs. Astor demonstrating her prowess and announcing, "This is how you do it."

As Brooke Astor faded, Tony, at age seventy-nine, was in the midst of an unexpected renaissance. The Marshalls were reveling in their roles as producers, thanks to Delphi's new play,
I Am My Own Wife,
a brilliant and innovative one-man account of a transvestite who survived in Nazi Germany. Richenthal discovered the property, by Doug Wright, but Tony and Charlene, his chief financial backers, revealed not only taste but artistic daring, since this show was unlikely to appeal to the suburban matinee crowd. The director, Moises Kaufman, was impressed by Tony's and Charlene's earnest and unpretentious attitude. "The first thing that struck me was how kind and unassuming they were," he says. "Usually producers walk into the theater with the sense of entitlement. This was a hard play to sell. They never wavered." He also enjoyed spending time with the third Mrs. Marshall. "Charlene has this kind of exuberance," Kaufman says. "I used to joke with her that she could talk to a wall and the wall would talk back to her."

For the first time in years, Tony was treated as more than his mother's escort. He was portrayed as an avant-garde producer in a profile on December 14, 2003, in
Variety.
The glowing account highlighted his service in the CIA and the battle of Iwo Jima. "The theatre is a little like going into battle. It is very tense," Tony said. "But you can't get killed, only wounded." Three days later he received the ultimate civilian medal—a gushing profile in the
New York Times
headlined "He Is His Own Producer, and Much More." Perhaps the most meaningful element of the article for Tony Marshall was that the story mentioned only in passing that he was Brooke Astor's son. How long had he waited to be acknowledged, praised, and recognized for his own merits? The
Times
's theater reporter, Jesse McKinley, wrote, "Even in an industry populated by moneyed eccentrics and grandiose credits, Mr. Marshall's resume stands out."

Although Mrs. Astor, her son's most important audience, would attend opening night, accompanied by Francis Morrissey again, she was not able to appreciate his triumph fully, given her declining health. On December 13 she was described in the nurse's notes as experiencing "periods of confusion and illusions. Continues to say being afraid and that someone is trying to kill her. Reassured of her safety. Did not want to be left alone. Pain in hip." The following day Mrs. Astor appeared to have lost the will to carry on. "Periods of confusion. Talks constantly about wanting to die. Involuntary tremors lasting 25–50 seconds." By December 17, as her deterioration accelerated, she could not complete full sentences or make her wishes understood. The day nurse wrote, "Paranoia, undecipherable words, disoriented after lunch." The night nurse noted, "Started conversations and then became incoherent."

The nurses saw Mrs. Astor unguarded, at her worst. Yet drawing on a lifetime of social skills, she could still pull herself together for guests, relying on snippets of recycled conversation. "She was on automatic pilot," recalls Barbara Goldsmith. "She would repeat favorite lines, like 'My mother always told me never to get above myself' or 'Vincent Always told me that I would have a lot of fun with the foundation.'" Annette, who went by at least once a week, marveled at Brooke's tenacity in clinging to social niceties. For a brief showing, Brooke could artfully perform like a wind-up doll who brightly repeats, "How nice to see you. How have you been? Would you like some tea?" But close friends were not fooled. They had spent too many years being entertained by, confided in, and bossed around by the genuine article.