Mrs. Astor Regrets (26 page)

Whitaker sent Christensen a letter demanding Mrs. Astor's previous wills and codicils and pointedly reminding him of the December 18 codicil. "Presumably you determined at that time that she was competent since you signed the codicil as a witness," Whitaker wrote. "I do not believe you have seen Mrs. Astor since then, and therefore wonder what personal knowledge you have that would lead you to question her competence now." Worried about what Christensen might do, Tony consulted yet another lawyer, Kenneth Warner, an aggressive litigator who had worked for such high-profile clients as George Steinbrenner, the owner of the Yankees.

After debating the matter with his partners, Christensen decided against embarking on a public battle. "I considered publicly contesting Sullivan & Cromwell's removal as Mrs. Astor's counsel," he says, "but I decided that it was not in Mrs. Astor's interest to do so." He sent off the estate-planning documents, as requested.

This was unequivocally the moment when Tony, Charlene, and Francis Morrissey should have left well enough alone. Tony and Charlene's financial woes had been solved, and Morrissey had been guaranteed a very large payday. Day, Berry & Howard estimated that the executors' fees for handling Mrs. Astor's estate would be $4.89 million, shared among Tony, Charlene, and Morrissey. In addition, an estimated $3.38 million in legal fees would be divided between the law firm and Morrissey.

But the guiding principle of estate planning is "Avoid unnecessary taxes at all costs." For the Marshalls and Morrissey, their subsequent efforts at prudent tax planning would result in truly disastrous emotional and legal consequences. On March 3, Morrissey arrived at the Park Avenue apartment bearing a new document for Mrs. Astor to sign. Compared to the prior two codicils, which had totally transformed the terms of Mrs. Astor's will, this piece of paper had a modest intent. In order to save on estate taxes, the codicil instructed her executors to sell her real estate (the duplex apartment at Park Avenue and Holly Hill) and include the proceeds in the estate.

Since Morrissey had not brought witnesses with him this time, the lawyer recruited her social secretary, Erica Meyer, and the maid, Lia Opris, to certify that she had signed. Two years later, Meyer's lawyer told the
New York Times
that Meyer had no recollection of witnessing Mrs. Astor signing the third codicil. Opris, who is Romanian, told the
Times
that she had a vague memory of the meeting but added, "For me, English is a foreign language, and I am a little bit hard of hearing. It was not easy for me to follow the lawyer."

Morrissey sent a jubilant letter afterward to Tony Marshall, albeit with an odd admission. The lawyer pointed out that Mrs. Astor's signature on the third codicil appeared quite different from the frail strokes on codicils one and two. He offered a comforting rationale: "I agree with Charlene that the primary energy driving your mother's heart was to give you recognition, recognize Charlene's contribution to your happiness, achieve an independence for both of you and most of all, to thank you. I think the strength of her signature on the third codicil reflects these truths."

In the same letter, Morrissey warned that Terry Christensen might present a problem. "We still must be vigilant and careful because Terry's words to you and his letters to us reflect a treacherous and strategic mind which has not yet surrendered complete control over your mother's matters," Morrissey wrote. But they had nothing to fear. On May 17, 2004, Christensen submitted Sullivan & Cromwell's final bill, after forty-five years, to Mrs. Vincent Astor: $31,257.33, for services rendered from October 14, 2003, through February 2004.

Mrs. Astor's displeasure at being asked to sign more legal papers was duly noted in the nurses' notes. "Her son arrive with an unexpected guest. They all sat down to sign some papers. She got a book from the lawyer Morrissey. They left, she shook her head, saying what can I do." But social niceties still mattered to the centenarian. She learned that same day that Annette de la Renta's mother, Jane Engelhard, had died. As she was unable to write a personal note, her secretary typed a pro forma note, which Brooke signed. Annette had cherished and saved all of Brooke's handwritten notes, which provide a history of their friendship, but this one was so distant that it added to Annette's anguish, and she threw it out. Having just lost her mother, Annette simultaneously had to confront another sign that her dearest companion was fading fast.

Pearline Noble was so upset that she wrote in her notes a few days later that she and the chauffeur had promised Mrs. Astor that "me and the driver will protect her she's not signing anything else."

As the reigning authority figure in Mrs. Astor's employ, Chris Ely was the person whom everyone else looked to for advice, the keeper of confidences. Ever since the troubling sale of the Childe Hassam painting, he had been trying to signal to Brooke's friends that things were awry. But as a butler, he still had to practice indirection, dropping hints rather than saying anything outright.

Invited to lunch at David Rockefeller's country house near Holly Hill one weekend, Mrs. Astor got dressed up and went downstairs to depart. Then she told Ely to cancel—she did not want to see anyone. Knowing her devotion to the Rockefeller family, the butler insisted that she get in the car and express her regrets in person. When Rockefeller and two guests eagerly came out to greet her, she promptly announced that she was not staying for lunch. "It's okay," Ely said in a loud voice designed to be overheard by Rockefeller. "There's nobody here waiting for you to sign papers."

The butler's ruse worked. David Rockefeller went to dinner at the home of Henry and Nancy Kissinger and mentioned the strange episode. As Nancy Kissinger says, "She wouldn't get out of the car. David went up and said, 'Brooke, it's me, David.' She said, 'It's the men in blue suits, they make me sign things.'" Henry Kissinger adds, "David Rockefeller told me there was an incident where Brooke was afraid to go into a house." The story was burnished and embellished with each retelling on the Upper East Side. It was a sad but riveting piece of gossip. But no one knew what it meant, or ultimately how to respond.

Philip Marshall also had a scary moment in that March of 2004 that brought home to him how much his grandmother was losing her mooring in reality. He and Nan were in Manhattan with their children. Nervous about running into his father, Philip took the suggestion of Mrs. Astor's veteran housekeeper, Mily Degernier, that the family might be able to catch Brooke in her apartment lobby. They arrived just as she was being wheeled out of the elevator by a nurse. Brooke did not immediately recognize them and appeared to panic, unsure whether they were friends or foes. "She looked like a deer caught in the headlights," recalls Nan. "She got into the car, and the four of us leaned our heads in and began speaking to her soothingly. Philip started stroking her cheek, saying 'Gagi, it's Philip and Nan and Winslow and Sophie, we're all here and we love you.' Tears starting rolling down her cheeks."

Even though Mrs. Astor was not going out much anymore, her jewelry was. At the nationally televised Tony Awards that June,
I Am My Own Wife
won the award for best play. Charlene, Tony, David Richenthal, and Doug Wright proudly bounded up onstage to collect the trophy. Charlene was wearing a distinctive diamond necklace, which the members of Brooke's social circle recognized immediately as Mrs. Astor's prized snowflake necklace. Charlene later insisted that Brooke had graciously lent her the diamonds for the evening and that when she had tried to return them, her mother-in-law had told her to keep them. This jewelry was earmarked for Charlene in Brooke's will, but the sight of Charlene ascendant wearing Brooke's signature pieces raised eyebrows.

Brooke had begun to opt for passive resistance, pretending to be asleep when Tony and Charlene visited. "She played possum," recalls her chauffeur, Marciano Amaral. "After the son left, she would talk to the staff. She was powerless but trying to defend herself." Yet at 102 years old, almost in spite of herself, she showed an impressive will to carry on. The physical therapist Sandra Foschi, who worked with Mrs. Astor three times a week starting in 2004, says, "She was always frail, petite, but with a real strength and strength of character to complete the task. She would express fatigue, but she always tried."

Even though Mrs. Astor dined alone at home most evenings, she still dressed for dinner. She wore her wig and full makeup, choosing among an array of gold, red, and blue silk caftans adorned with sequins and matching the outfit with a pair of custom-made Belgian flats. Jewelry was mandatory. Mrs. Astor made a ritual out of selecting her adornments: a large gold bangle, multiple diamond bracelets with sapphires or emeralds, her teardrop pearl and diamond earrings, and perhaps a three-strand pearl necklace. It did not matter that she was only going down the hall to the dining room or even eating at a tray in front of the television in the blue sitting room—she still carried a matching evening bag.

Whatever was hurting, however she was feeling, she was ready for dinner at 7
P.M.
She had standards to meet, and it was in the small things, the manners and gestures, that she continued to rise to the occasion. One evening a temporary aide neglected to help her change for dinner. When Minnette Christie came in on the night shift, Mrs. Astor was furious. As Christie recalls. "She said, 'Ever since I was a little girl, I always dressed up for dinner.'"

Philip Marshall was traveling with a friend in Cambodia when he e-mailed his father to ask if they could meet in New York when he returned. Now fifty-one, he and Nan had started work on an estate plan for their family, and he wanted to know what he would inherit from his grandmother. With Cove End gone, he correctly assumed that his grandmother had left him a cash bequest. But with his father, money had always been a taboo topic. Looking back on his emotions in broaching the topic, Philip says, "To me, just writing this was 'Oh my God, this is so weird, it's such a simple question but so loaded. What is he going to think?'" He felt an obligation to try to get the information, adding, "I had a mother who had just lost her husband and was worried about money, and I had a brother who is a freelance photographer with no equity." Alec, in fact, had already asked Tony about his inheritance, and all his father had said was that the twins would be "comfortable." But what did that mean? Philip and Alec had never seen any of their grandmother's many wills, nor did they know that the bequests had changed direction in recent months.

Philip's meeting with Tony and Charlene was warmer than the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, but not much warmer. All three of them came out of the meeting at the Marshalls' apartment with colossal misunderstandings. As Philip tells it, Charlene, who did most of the talking, was determined to present Tony as the good father who had recently persuaded Brooke to show a little generosity to her grandsons. "Charlene says my brother and I were going to get $10,000, and my father had been able to change it so it would be $1 million," Philip recalls. This was inaccurate, although Philip did not know it at the time. In a 1992 will, Brooke had indeed left Philip and Alec a comparatively modest $150,000 each (a far cry from the $10,000 mentioned by Charlene). In the will dated September 20, 1993, she had raised her bequests to the twins to $1 million each, and that figure remained unchanged in subsequent wills. If Tony had sweet-talked his mother into that seven-figure sum, he had done so eleven years earlier, but Charlene made it sound like this was hot-off-the-press news.

Tony later told reporters that Philip "acted strangely" after the $1 million bequest was revealed. This reaction, he argued, signified Philip's avaricious disappointment that he was not going to be showered with riches by his grandmother.

Philip admits that he was very upset by the conversation, but for an entirely different reason. He says that he "freaked" at the idea that his father had been able to "change" Brooke's will, since she had Alzheimer's disease. "I was thinking," he says, "if it happened in the last few years, it wasn't appropriate for my grandmother to have signed this. She didn't have the capacity." What else, he wondered, had been changed in his grandmother's will?

As Annette de la Renta headed out the door after a visit at 778 Park, she asked Pearline Noble what she could bring for Mrs. Astor the next time. "A man," Noble playfully replied. The following week Annette took that advice and turned up with one of Brooke's male friends, much to Brooke's evident delight. She became so engrossed in her gentleman caller that she completely ignored Annette. As Noble recalls, "I said, 'How you doing, Mrs. D?'" Laughing at her irrelevance, Annette replied, "Pearline, I'm toast."

Brooke was still alert enough to point with a mixture of amusement and horror every time Annette visited wearing designer jeans, much like an elderly mother who cannot stop criticizing her middle-aged daughter's clothes. As Annette says, "She thought I should be more feminine."

Affectionate, playful moments like these were recompense to Annette for more difficult days when Brooke was incoherent. Even though she was never certain what to expect, Annette frequently popped by for an hour or so. She would kneel on the rug so that Brooke, who had difficulty holding her head up straight, could see her. "Mrs. Astor would stroke her hair and kiss her head," recalls Minnette Christie. Noble concludes, "She was like a child in Mrs. Astor's eyes."

But many of Brooke's other longtime friends drifted away because it was so painful to behold her in her sad state. "I went to see her, and she had shrunk," Vartan Gregorian says. "I said 'Brooke, I'm here,' and she opened her eyes and grabbed my hand and said, 'I love you.' I kissed her hand and said, 'I love you too.'" Philippe de Montebello also gave up. "I would go to have tea with her with Annette, and Brooke would say, 'Who is that man?'" he says, grimacing with sorrow at the memory. "She wouldn't recognize me."

At the end of 2004, Brooke Astor's universe narrowed even further. Holly Hill, with its majestic view, landscaped gardens, and winding trails, was placed off-limits. Just before Thanksgiving, Brooke became seriously ill with a fever while visiting her Westchester retreat and spent several days in nearby Phelps Memorial Hospital Center. For Tony and Charlene, that was the breaking point—they decreed that Brooke was too fragile to ever go to the country again.