November 12, 2007
Rich People Behaving Badly
New York magazine has an extraordinary cover story on the life of Brooke Astor, months after the "doyenne" of the city's social scene passed away. It is a sordid tale of jealousy, greed, enmity, conflicting agendas, and familial conflict worthy of the most outlandish soap opera. Her son Tony is now under i investigation by a grand jury and control of her estate has passed to Astor's friend Annette de la Renta. The litany of shabby behavior runs the gamut.
- Astor's British butler physically blocked her son and his wife from seeing the woman and saying goodbye on the verge of her death.
- Tony Marshall, Astor's son by a prior husband, is accused of looting his mother's estate as she succumbed to dementia.
- Marshall was also accused of neglecting Astor--limiting physician visits and allowing her living situation degenerate to the border of elder abuse.
- Marshall's somewhat estranged son (Tony left Phillip when the boy was 8 years old) waged a public and legal battle against his father, accusing him of elder abuse.
- Annette de la Renta, Astor's friend and daughter-figure, parlayed her friendship with Brooke Astor into the realm of New York's blue blood social set through her friend's philanthropy.
- Astor passive aggressively belittled her son Tony and neglected him in favor of her husband Vincent, who is described as rather boorish. She was also disdainful of his wife Charlene, who left her Episcopal priest husband for Tony.
The feature will leave readers with a mixture of schadenfreude and sadness, contemplating privileged lives of wealth spent poorly--in the sense that almost everyone involved is embittered in the end. We imagine film treatments are already being drawn up, as Brooke Astor's life seems predestined for a screen as large as the city she lived in and endowed, personally and financially.
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Rich people = as stupid as everyone else!
Just shows that without a strong family foundation, regardless of your wealth, you can end up broken, feeble, and alone.
1. Tony didn't "leave Philip." Tony divorced Philip's mother. Annette divorced the father of her children, too. But did she "leave" them?
2. Philip's accusations of neglect turned out to be a load of crap, and Tony was fully exonerated. Why are so many people so attached to the idea that Tony neglected his mother that even though it has been shown to be false, they still need to lie about it?
3. Annette de la Renta didn't need Brooke Astor to reinforce her social creds. She needs to corral Brooke's money to reinforce her creds with the various charities who seemingly can't get enough. Charities can sometimes behave quite disgracefully, you know. Especially museum charities. Take a look through the NY Times archive, if you don't believe that.
4. Since when is Tony "under indictment" for anything? Have I missed another squalid headline in this saga? He's under investigation. "Investigation" does not equal "indictment," any more than being exonerated from charges of neglect is the same as being guilty of it. I think it's libel if you claim somebody's been indicted, when they haven't.
[3] You're absolutely correct. Marshall has not been indicted. New York magazine reported that a grand jury convened and is only considering indictments against Astor's son. I'll make the correction.
Actually, the article doesn't say that a grand jury is considering indictments against Astor's son at all.
The article says that only that the grand jury is considering indictiments, without specifying against whom.
Supposedly, it is considering indictments against the person who forged her signature -- assuming her signature was indeed forged.
And Tony Marshall was not present when the disputed document was signed.