The Last Mrs. Astor: A New York Story | 
|  | | | Title: | The Last Mrs. Astor: A New York Story | | Author: | Frances Kiernan | | Publisher: | W. W. Norton | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 19 May, 2008 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0393331601 / 9780393331608 | | List Price: | $15.95 | | You Save: | $6.22 | | Amazon Price: | $9.73 | |
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Product Description
"Kiernan's sharp-eyed biography brings back a woman who, far into her 90s, relished the dance of life."—O Magazine
The fabulous life of Brooke Astor, a pioneer of philanthropy and for decades a luminary of New York society. Hers is a story out of Edith Wharton. After a disastrous early marriage, Brooke Astor wedded the notoriously ill-tempered Vincent Astor, who died in 1959. In a highly publicized courtroom battle, Brooke fought off an attempt to break Vincent's will, which left some $67 million to the Vincent Astor Foundation. As the foundation's president, Brooke would use this legacy to benefit New York, where the Astor fortune had been made.
Brooke would personally visit each grant applicant and charm anyone she met. At her one-hundredth birthday, princes and presidents honored her, but in 2006 a grandson petitioned the courts to have his father removed as Brooke's guardian. Once again an Astor court battle became the stuff of headlines. This biography—based on firsthand knowledge and interviews with Brooke's friends and the heads of New York's great cultural institutions—gives us back the woman so loved and admired, whose hands-on approach would inspire future philanthropists. 24 pages of photographs.
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Customer Reviews:
• Mrs. Astor Book 27 May, 2008
Overall, a good comprehensive look at Brooke Astor's life and trials. I didn't know much about Mrs. Astor other than from the newspapers so this gave much further insight as to her life before Vincent Astor and aspects of her childhood.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AR189AQZ6ASNQ
• Book Club Flop 05 October, 2008
This was a book club selection that was unanimously voted "thumbs down." Since the inception of our club, this was a first ever voting event. We are a diverse group of (mostly retired) women, educators, businesswomen, homemakers, etc. We felt that we could have saved our time by reading Mrs. Astor's "Footprints" instead since so much of the author's writing referenced this publication. We, as a whole, felt it was simply a chronicle of a name-dropping, superficial, pearl-wearing, aristocrat we couldn't have cared less about. It did not hold our collective interest and most were too bored to finish the book.
- Reviewed by customer ID: ALV92SN0R1D49
• The Author Accomplishes The Impossible 04 July, 2008
One would think it couldn't be done. But the author has turned the dazzling Mrs. Astor into a consummate bore.
I think we'd better wait for the next biography.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1RTR53EL856Z0
• A "tactful And Admiring" Biography Of An Admirable Woman 02 May, 2008
"The Last Mrs. Astor," by Frances Kiernan, is rightfully subtitled "A New York Story," as the last Mrs. Astor did, indeed, have a lot to do with building the New York we have today. Kiernan, a former editor at The New Yorker, and author of "Seeing Mary Plain: A Life of Mary McCarthy," is herself a New Yorker, and had the privilege of meeting Mrs. Vincent Astor several times, and interviewing many friends, and family members. Her book is nicely done -- and why wouldn't it be--and although short, appears to have been thoroughly researched, though other reviewers have pointed out copy editing problems within. The book is, however, noticeably "tactful and admiring," as the author herself says of the newspaper coverage for Mrs. Astor's 100th birthday; it's not going to give you the real inside scoop on New York's famous, longtime benefactor: and surely Mrs. Astor would have preferred it that way.
Although Mrs. Astor, Virginia -born as Roberta Brooke Russell, only child, daughter of a naval commandant and an ambitious, flirtatious Southern belle, always did have a taste for flirting, dancing, and fun. The author quotes Mrs. Astor's good friend, television journalist Barbara Walters, as saying: "She is very kind. She is also very witty and likes being slightly wicked. She will tell a story about some young man she was sitting next to at dinner who was trying to impress her. The man said,'Mrs. Astor, how many lovers have you had?' And she said, `That's how I count myself to sleep.'"
Mrs. Astor's first marriage, entered at a young age, was not a happy one: her husband drank excessively and abused her. Nor was the son, Tony, born of that marriage, who would be her only child, going to give her much joy. So she took her leave of that unsatisfactory situation, without, unfortunately, stopping to nail down alimony for herself. She moved to New York, as a single mother, and became a hard-working, talented editor at Conde Nast's magazine "House and Garden," and so supported herself and her son. She was in New York at an exciting time, after the First World War. She met Noel Coward, Somerset Maugham, Osbert Sitwell, Aldous Huxley, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Linda and Cole Porter, Ezra Pound, Max Beerbohm, and the actor Brian Aherne, with whom she would have a close relationship, among others. As she worked at Conde Nast, she also became acquainted with the very beautiful young society widow Claire Booth Brokaw, an editor at Vogue, who was stiff competition in the contest of young society women looking for their next rich husband: Brokaw would eventually marry Henry Luce, founder of "Time" magazine. Astor remarked that although the other woman was more beautiful, they liked, found appealing, and were found appealing by very different men: there was no problem.
Astor married again, to Buddie Marshall; it was a happy, fairly long-lived marriage, and although Marshall never adopted her son Tony, the boy did take his last name. Unfortunately, Marshall died, leaving her a widow in her late 50's, not the best age at which to snag another rich husband. But Vincent Astor was around, of a rich and famous old New York family: some years before, Mrs. Caroline Schermerhorn Astor had made herself the gatekeeper of New York society, admitting only a select 400 people to her celebrated balls. Vincent already had a wife: but he was reputed to drink heavily, was not considered too pleasant a man, and his current wife wanted out. She thought her best route to leaving with alimony was to find him his next wife, and there was Brooke. For better or worse, Vincent lasted only five more years, leaving Brooke a relatively rich, healthy energetic widow in her early 60's. Vincent left the little-known Astor Foundation behind.
Brooke gained control of the foundation, and used it to pursue her charitable interests. It is fair to say that such essential New York institutions as The Metropolitan Museum, The Bronx Zoo, Central Park, the South Street Seaport, and The New York Public Library, among others, would not be what they are today without her generous support. Along the way, she wrote five well-reviewed books, and published many articles. She was 99 years old at the tragedy of September 11, 2001, and not what she had been, but then, too, she threw herself into the struggle to help her adopted city recover. Kiernan quotes Brooke's old friend Freddy Melhado as saying: "There's a term for a racehorse of known quality....The sort of horse you can always bet on. Does not disappoint."
Unfortunately, at the end of her life, as many readers will know, Astor's son Tony Marshall gained control of her affairs, and dishonestly abused his power, greatly mistreating his mother. As Shakespeare said in "King Lear," "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." It's tempting to continue with Shakespeare, and quote him from "Macbeth," when Malcolm says of the Thane of Cawdor, "Nothing in /her/ life became /her/ like the leaving it," as her sad story, late in life, threw needed light on the problem of elder abuse, and undoubtedly helped many others. But it wouldn't be true: for most of her long life, she was a becoming ornament of New York social and civic life.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3RNP5X8ZGZIEI
• Mrs Aster 31 July, 2008
This book was what I wanted to know about Mrs. Aster's life and her charitable giving. I was very interested and enjoyed the book.
- Reviewed by customer ID: APVKOTPFKOV61
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