And the child?little Gloria herself?shunted out of her mother?s life, carted around Europe, depending for her existence on her neurotically overprotective nurse, Dodo, who never left her for a single day, and her mad Morgan grandmother, who insisted that her own daughter might murder the child for the Vanderbilt millions. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Reginald?s sister, a formidable Society woman, a sculptor and the founder of the Whitney Museum of American Art, a woman who conformed?on the surface?to everything expected of American royalty and yet lived a hidden second life as a passionate bohemian. Gloria Morgan?s twin, Thelma, who, as Lady Furness, was for years the mistress of the Prince of Wales (until she introduced him to her ?best friend? Wallis Simpson). Reggie Vanderbilt, at forty-three a worn-out alcoholic who had managed to go through almost $25 million in fourteen years and who died only two years after his marriage to Gloria, leaving his beautiful young widow nothing but their baby, their baby?s untouchable trust fund, and the Vanderbilt name. And what she wanted was ?little Gloria.? The leading characters: Gloria Morgan, who was one of the fabled Morgan Twins (invented by society reporter ?Cholly? Knickerbocker as the quintessential Café Society beauties) and who, as a shy, stammering eighteen-year-old, living on nothing a year, did what she was raised to do, becoming the wife of. This is a story of money, glamour, and scandal (on the highest level) a story of American society and of European royalty a story of family strife exploding into one of the most dramatic and publicized court battles of the century?the battle for a solemn ten-year-old child, ?little Gloria? Vanderbilt, who in 1934 was the object of the epic custody suit between her mother, the beautiful and penniless Vanderbilt widow, and her aunt, the famous Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, whose $78 million could buy her anything she wanted.

Other Powers by Barbara Goldsmith