{{Short description|American socialite (1904–1965)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}} {{Infobox person | name = Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt | image = Gloria Morgan-Vanderbilt with daughter.jpg | caption = Vanderbilt with her daughter "Little Gloria" | birth_name = Maria Mercedes Morgan | birth_date = {{birth date|1904|8|23|df=y}} | birth_place = Grand Hotel National, Lucerne, Switzerland | death_date = {{death date and age|1965|2|13|1904|8|23|df=y}} | death_place = {{nowrap|Los Angeles County, California, U.S.}} | burial_place = Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California | education = Strathalan House, Scotland <br />Convent schools in Spain and Switzerland<br />Convent of the Sacred Heart<br />Skerton Finishing School<br />Miss Nightingale's School | occupation = Socialite | spouse = {{marriage|Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt|1923|1925|reason=died}} | children = Gloria Laura Vanderbilt | relatives = Vanderbilt family (by marriage) }}
'''Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt''' (born '''Maria Mercedes Morgan'''; 23 August 1904{{spaced ndash}} 13 February 1965) was an American socialite. Vanderbilt was the mother of fashion designer and artist Gloria Vanderbilt and maternal grandmother of television journalist Anderson Cooper. She was a central figure in ''Vanderbilt vs. Whitney'', one of the most sensational American custody trials in the 20th century.
==Early life== [[File:Morgan twins 1955.JPG|thumb|274px|Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt (left) with her identical twin, Thelma, Viscountess Furness]] Born at the Grand Hotel National<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.national-luzern.ch/ |title=Home |website=national-luzern.ch}}</ref> in Lucerne, Switzerland, as Maria Mercedes Morgan,<ref>"I was christened Mercedes. It was only after years in America when the girls at the Sacred Heart Convent shortened it to 'Mercy' and I did not like it, that I changed it to Gloria". Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, with Palma Wayne, ''Without Prejudice'' (E P Dutton, 1936), p. 31.</ref><ref>A 1918 U.S. passport application, accessed on 6 April 2015, gives her name as "Gloria Maria Mercedes Morgan</ref> she was a daughter of Henry Hays Morgan, Sr. (1860–1933), an American diplomat who served as U.S. consul general in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Berlin, Germany; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Havana, Cuba; and Brussels, Belgium.<ref name=Reggie/><ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=OH1ZAAAAIBAJ&pg=4056,1706408&dq=reginald+vanderbilt&hl=en|title=Harry Hays Morgan Passes in London|date=20 March 1933|publisher=Rochester Evening Journal|accessdate=15 March 2011}}</ref> Her mother was his second wife, the former Laura Delphine Kilpatrick (1877–1956); the couple married in 1894 and divorced in 1927.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=uP8cAAAAIBAJ&pg=1546,960836&dq=gloria+vanderbilt&hl=en|title=Vanderbilt-Whitney Suit Is Tinged With Pittsburgh's History|date=4 October 1934|accessdate=13 August 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,769163,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101125030541/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,769163,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=25 November 2010|title=Milestones June 27, 1927|publisher=Time|date=27 June 1927|accessdate=15 March 2011}}</ref>
Her maternal grandfather, Hugh Judson Kilpatrick (1836–1881), was a Union Army general during the American Civil War, who also served as the U.S. minister to Chile.<ref name=Reggie/> Her maternal grandmother, Luisa Kilpatrick, née Valdivieso Araoz, was a member of a wealthy Chilean family that had emigrated from Spain in the 17th century.
Morgan, who adopted the name Gloria as a teenager, had five siblings:
* Laura Consuelo Morgan (17 December 1901 – 26 August 1979), aka Tamar. She married Count Jean de Maupas du Juglart, Ambassador Benjamin Thaw Jr., and Alfons B. Landa (né Alfonso Beaumont Howard Landa).<ref>She is buried at Allegheny Cemetery, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, beside her second husband</ref> * Thelma Morgan (1904–1970), her identical twin. She became a mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales and married James Vail Converse and Marmaduke Furness, 1st Viscount Furness. * Harry Hays Morgan Jr. (1898–1983), who became a film actor. He was married to Ivor Elizabeth O'Connor, Edith Churchill Gordon, and Sybil Robertina "Robin" Boyce Willys. * Constance Morgan (1887–1892), a half sister, a child of her father's first marriage to Mary E. Edgerton.<ref>She was a daughter of David Morgan Edgerton and his wife, the former Jane Harper Ford. After her divorce from Morgan, she married Henry C. Etz.</ref><ref>Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, with Palma Wayne, ''Without Prejudice'' (E P Dutton, 1936), p. 16</ref> * Gladys Morgan (14 September 1889 – 15 August 1958), another half sister from her father's first marriage; she was known as Margaret and married Lieut. John W. Henderson in 1919 in New York.<ref>''New York Herald'', 4 May 1919, p. 13.</ref>
Gloria Morgan was educated by governesses and in convents in Europe as well as New York City, where she attended the Catholic Convent of the Sacred Heart (in the Manhattanville section of the city), the Skerton Finishing School, and Miss Nightingale's School.<ref>Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, with Palma Wayne, ''Without Prejudice'' (E P Dutton, 1936), p. 75.</ref> In October 1921, with their father's permission, Morgan and her sister Thelma, both reportedly 16 years of age, ended their schooling and moved by themselves into an apartment at 40 Fifth Avenue, a private townhouse. The sisters had some minor roles in silent movies, using the names Gloria and Thelma Rochelle.<ref name="Vanderbilt Bride Was Movie Actress">{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=khZgAAAAIBAJ&pg=2908,3644822&dq=gloria+morgan+vanderbilt&hl=en |title=Vanderbilt Bride Was Movie Actress|date=7 March 1923|publisher=The Evening News|accessdate=15 March 2011}}</ref> Their debuts were as extras in the 1922 Marion Davies vehicle ''The Young Diana''.<ref name="Vanderbilt Bride Was Movie Actress"/>
Known as "The Magnificent Morgans", Gloria and Thelma Morgan were popular fixtures in the American high society, even as teenagers. British photographer Cecil Beaton described them as "alike as two magnolias, and with their marble complexions, raven tresses, and flowing dresses, with their slight lisps and foreign accents, they diffuse a Ouida atmosphere of hothouse elegance and lacy femininity. ... Their noses are like begonias, with full-blown nostrils, their lips richly carved, and they should have been painted by Sargent, with arrogant heads and affected hands, in white satin with a bowl of white peonies near by."<ref>Barbara Goldsmith, ''Little Gloria ... Happy at Last'' (Random House Digital, 2011)</ref>
==Marriage and widowhood== On 6 March 1923, in New York City, at the townhouse of friends, Gloria Morgan — then 18 years of age and having received the legal consent of her father to wed — became the second wife of Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt, age 42, an heir to the Vanderbilt railroad fortune.<ref name=Death/><ref>Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, with Palma Wayne, ''Without Prejudice'' (E P Dutton, 1936), page 96.</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=YNxgAAAAIBAJ&pg=4123,2380685&dq=gloria+morgan+vanderbilt&hl=en|title=Reginald C. Vanderbilt and Gloria Morgan To Wed Tomorrow|date=5 March 1923|publisher=Providence News|accessdate=15 March 2011}}</ref>
On 20 February 1924, their only child, Gloria Laura, was born in New York City. thumb|left|The recently wed Vanderbilts returning from their European honeymoon Reginald Vanderbilt died on 4 September 1925 of what was described in news reports as "a throat infection which had caused internal hemorrhages" <ref name=Reggie>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=BeBPAAAAIBAJ&pg=6411,4674316&dq=gloria+morgan+vanderbilt&hl=en|title=Vanderbilt Dead After Hemorrhage Last Night|date=4 September 1925|work=The Evening Independent|accessdate=15 March 2011}}</ref><ref name=Death>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=0qZIAAAAIBAJ&pg=3863,182902&dq=reginald+vanderbilt&hl=en|title=Reginald Vanderbilt Dies Suddenly Today|date=4 September 1925|publisher=The Meridien Daily Journal|accessdate=15 March 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,721070,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090203095834/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,721070,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=3 February 2009|title=Sport:Reginald Vanderbilt|date=14 September 1925|magazine=Time}}</ref> or cirrhosis due to alcoholism. Following his death, his young widow became the administrator of a $2.5 million trust left to their daughter, Gloria, and spent the better part of the next six years living in Paris, Biarritz, and London, with her mother and child and often in the company of her sisters and brother, all of whom lived in France and England with their respective spouses.
However, the conditions of Vanderbilt's will and the custody of their child were complicated by the general belief that his widow had not reached the legal age of majority, which meant that she required a guardian. Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt believed that she was 20, rather than 21, because her mother had long declared the twins' birth year as 1905 rather than 1904.<ref>U.S. passport documents for Thelma Morgan as a child give her birth year as 1906.</ref> The discrepancy was discovered upon an examination of the Morgan twins' childhood passports and their birth certificates during the Vanderbilt custody trial in 1934. No reason, however, was given as to the change of birth years. As Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt wrote in her 1936 memoirs, ''Without Prejudice'' (E P Dutton), "Had I not thought myself a minor at this time ... there would have been no necessity for a guardian for myself ... [or] for a legal guardian for my child's person .... On this untruth—irrevocable and irremediable—hinged the currents of my child's life and my own."<ref>Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, with Palma Wayne, ''Without Prejudice'' (E P Dutton, 1936), p. 317.</ref>
==Custody trial== Influenced by reports from private detectives as well as family servants and Laura Morgan (who appears by all published accounts to have been somewhat emotionally and mentally unbalanced and who testified on Mrs. Whitney's side at the trial),<ref name="Happy">{{citation|editor-last=Goldsmith|editor-first=Barbara|title=Little Gloria...Happy at Last|year=1982|publisher=Dell|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eWHchDT559sC&q=little+gloria+happy+at+last|isbn=0-440-15120-1|accessdate=13 August 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=9IosAAAAIBAJ&pg=6983,2729873&dq=prince+hohenlohe&hl=en|title=Mrs. Vanderbilt Is Offered Aid|date=5 October 1934|newspaper=Herald-Journal|accessdate=13 August 2010}}</ref> members of the Vanderbilt family came to believe that Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt was a bad influence and neglectful of her daughter. A custody battle erupted that made national headlines in 1934. As a result of a great deal of hearsay evidence admitted at trial, the scandalous allegations of Vanderbilt's lifestyle—including a purported lesbian relationship with Nadezhda de Torby, the Marchioness of Milford Haven,<ref name="Happy"/><ref>{{cite web|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=hwkmAAAAIBAJ&pg=5122,3574958&dq=gloria+vanderbilt&hl=en|title=Vanderbilt Case Delayed; 3 Crossing Ocean to Help|date=6 October 1934|newspaper=Gettysburg Times|accessdate=13 August 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=_6kLAAAAIBAJ&pg=3920,3387233&dq=gloria+vanderbilt&hl=en|title=Judge May Close Court's Doors on Vanderbilt Fuss Over Custody of Heiress|date=4 October 1934|newspaper=The Evening Independent|accessdate=13 August 2010}}{{Dead link|date=June 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> and a brief engagement to Gottfried, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg<ref>{{cite web|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=wv8cAAAAIBAJ&pg=4924,5374243&dq=prince+gottfried+hohenlohe&hl=en|title=Mrs. Whitney Ritzes Prince in Grand Way|date=16 October 1934|newspaper=The Pittsburgh Press|accessdate=13 August 2010}}</ref><ref name="Happy"/><ref>{{cite web|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=9ygiAAAAIBAJ&pg=3073,308315&dq=gloria+vanderbilt&hl=en|title=Nobility Hastens To Defense of Gloria|date=4 October 1934|newspaper=San Jose Times|accessdate=13 August 2010}}</ref>—led to a new standard in tabloid newspaper sensationalism.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=d0wbAAAAIBAJ&pg=1293,5389320&dq=gloria+vanderbilt&hl=en|title=Child's Mother Faces Loss Of $1,000 A Month|date=22 November 1934|newspaper=Pittsburgh Press|accessdate=13 August 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=CdEgAAAAIBAJ&pg=4045,90630&dq=gloria+vanderbilt&hl=en|title=Mrs. Vanderbilt's Paris Life Exposed|date=2 October 1934|newspaper=Lewiston Daily Sun|accessdate=13 August 2010}}</ref>
Regarding her mother's relationship with Nada, Lady Milford-Haven, Vanderbilt's daughter later wrote: <blockquote>I was at school, at Farmington, when I realized for the first time that what those boys had done to each other, what I had with my friend, had something in common with my mother and the energetic Lady Milford-Haven. The realization terrified me. [...] A scarlett letter - ''Lesbian'' - publicly branded on my mother would haver as a shadow over me, and the humiliation she experienced haunted me for years. It took me a long time to resolve the feelings I had about her bisexuality, and until I did, there was the hovering fear that I might be like her. In my head I knew there would be nothing wrong in that, but knowing and believing are two different things.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Vanderbilt |first=Gloria |url=https://archive.org/details/itseemedimportan00vand/page/8/mode/2up |title=It seemed important at the time |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=2004 |location=New York |publication-date=2004 |pages=8–9}}</ref></blockquote>Vanderbilt lost custody of her daughter to her sister-in-law Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Granted limited parental rights, Vanderbilt was allowed to see young Gloria on weekends in New York. The court also removed Vanderbilt as administrator of her daughter's trust fund, whose annual investment income had been her only source of support.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=INEgAAAAIBAJ&pg=3135,4193225&dq=gloria+vanderbilt&hl=en|title=Gloria Vanderbilt Is Ward of Court|date=21 November 1934|newspaper=Lewiston Daily Sun|accessdate=13 August 2010}}</ref> Two years later, the custody issue was re-opened, giving her another chance to re-gain guardianship of her daughter.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=CScbAAAAIBAJ&pg=5119,196775&dq=gloria+morgan+vanderbilt&hl=en|title=Gloria Vanderbilt Seeks Girl Again|date=1 December 1936|newspaper=The Pittsburgh Press|accessdate=15 March 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=J2BgAAAAIBAJ&pg=3803,6832741&dq=gloria+morgan+vanderbilt&hl=en|title=Court Reopens Gloria Suit|date=20 November 1936|newspaper=Rochester Journal|accessdate=15 March 2011}}</ref> This time, the case was brought before the Supreme Court of the United States.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=dlxkAAAAIBAJ&pg=1814,1307904&dq=gloria+morgan+vanderbilt&hl=en|title=Mother of Gloria Vanderbilt Flayed in Supreme Court|date=14 March 1936|newspaper=St. Joseph News-Press|accessdate=15 March 2011}}</ref> The court declined to hear the matter and it once again came before the State of New York's Supreme Court.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Bf0sAAAAIBAJ&pg=1113,3387833&dq=supreme+court+gloria+vanderbilt+custody+case+1936&hl=en|title=Gloria Vanderbilt To See Mother More|date=9 December 1936|newspaper=The Palm Beach Post|accessdate=15 March 2011}}{{Dead link|date=June 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> The result was an agreement that Gloria would spend more time with her mother than was previously granted.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=jeM-AAAAIBAJ&pg=5803,7111073&dq=supreme+court+gloria+vanderbilt+custody+case+1936&hl=en|title=New Plan Agreed Upon For Gloria Vanderbilt|date=9 December 1936|newspaper=The Tuscaloosa News|accessdate=15 March 2011}}</ref> In 1946, the widow was once more in the news when her daughter announced she would no longer be paying her mother an annual $21,000 allowance. Saying that her mother was able to work and had done so in the past, Gloria Vanderbilt stated the annual allowance would now be given to a charity for blind and starving children.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=C2FSAAAAIBAJ&pg=5430,1434390&dq=gloria+morgan+vanderbilt&hl=en|title=Poor Mrs. Vanderbilt Gets 2 Nice Job Offers|date=14 March 1946|newspaper=The Deseret News|accessdate=15 March 2011}}</ref>
==Later years== From the 1940s until their deaths, Gloria and her sister Thelma Furness, Viscountess Furness lived together in New York City and in Los Angeles, California. They wrote a dual memoir called ''Double Exposure: A Twin Autobiography'', published in 1958''.''
Vanderbilt died in 1965 of cancer and was interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6ctIAAAAIBAJ&pg=2576,4446192&dq=gloria+morgan+vanderbilt&hl=en|title=Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, Socialite, Dies of Cancer|date=15 February 1965|newspaper=Meredien Journal|accessdate=15 March 2011}}</ref>
==Portrayals== * In 1978, a New York City socialite and writer, Philip Van Rensselaer, wrote a book about Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt titled ''That Vanderbilt Woman''. * Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt was portrayed by British actress Lucy Gutteridge in the 1982 television miniseries ''Little Gloria ... Happy at Last''.
==Sources== *Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, with Palma Wayne, ''Without Prejudice'' (E P Dutton, 1936) *Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt and Thelma, Lady Furness, ''Double Exposure: A Twin Autobiography'' (D McKay, 1958)
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== {{commons category}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vanderbilt, Gloria Morgan}} Category:1904 births Category:1965 deaths Category:20th-century American actresses Category:Swiss emigrants to the United States Category:American expatriates in Switzerland Category:American people of Chilean descent Category:American Roman Catholics Category:American socialites Category:Burials at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City Category:Deaths from cancer in California Category:Convent of the Sacred Heart (NYC) alumni Category:Schools of the Sacred Heart alumni Category:Manhattanville University alumni Category:Identical twin actresses Category:People from Lucerne Category:American twins Gloria Morgan Category:Nightingale-Bamford School alumni