Madeleine Astor

Madeleine and John Jacob Astor IV, 1911

Madeleine Astor (born June 19, 1893 in Brooklyn , New York City as Madeleine Talmage Force ; † March 27, 1940 in Palm Beach , Florida ) became famous in 1911 by marrying the owner of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City, John Jacob Astor IV , who died on the night of April 15, 1912 in the North Atlantic when the Titanic sank.

Life

Madeleine was born in 1893 as the second of two daughters to William Hurlbut Force and his wife Katherine Arvilla Talmage. Her sister was Katherine Emmons Force (1891-1948).

While she was still in school, she met one of the richest men in the United States , John Jacob Astor IV , in Bar Harbor , Maine . At a dinner party on August 6, 1911, Madeleine was introduced to New York society as Colonel Astor's future wife. After a year-long relationship, the wedding between 47-year-old JJ Astor and 18-year-old Madeleine took place in Rhode Island on September 9, 1911 . This connection caused a major scandal at the time. Just a year earlier, Astor's troubled marriage to his first wife, Ava, had been divorced.

Survivors of the sinking of the Titanic

The honeymoon, which was not just because of the gossip and gossip, took them to Egypt and Europe . During this trip, Madeleine discovered her pregnancy. The newlyweds wanted their child to be born in the United States in order to obtain American citizenship. The couple booked a passage as first class passengers from Cherbourg for the maiden voyage of the Titanic in April 1912 and were accommodated in the luxury suite C62 / 64. It was in the constant company of three employees, her maid Rosalie Bidois, her nurse Caroline Endres and her valet Victor Robbins.

Madeleine Astor

On April 14, 1912 collided Titanic at 23:40 with an iceberg . The couple found themselves in a group waiting on the promenade deck to board lifeboat No. 4. After helping his wife into the boat, Colonel Astor asked to join as his wife was "in different circumstances." The second officer in charge , Charles Lightoller , refused, however, as he did not tolerate men in the lifeboats. Astor asked for the lifeboat number to make it easier to find later. Then he lit a cigarette and threw his gloves to Madeleine. At 2:20 a.m. - 25 minutes after lifeboat No. 4 was launched - the Titanic sank . A few hours later, Madeleine made it to safety on board the Carpathia that had rushed up , JJ Astor's body recovered the search ship Mackay-Bennett from the sea on April 22nd.

The son of JJ Astor's first marriage, 20-year-old William Vincent Astor , tried to pick up his stepmother Madeleine in his own yacht, but was not given permission.

On August 14, 1912 Madeleine Astor's first son was born, whom she named John Jacob Astor VI († 1992) (John Jacob Astor V was the son of JJ's cousin William Waldorf Astor). At the request of her late husband, she received an income of $ 5,000,000, but only as long as she did not remarry.

Next life

On June 22, 1916, she married a childhood friend in Maine, the banker William Karl Dick (1888-1953). He was Vice President of the Manufacturers Trust Company in New York. Due to the newly entered marriage, she received no more capital, she ceded the entire claim to the Astor property. She could no longer live in the Astor mansion in Manhattan and Newport , Rhode Island , either. With her second husband, she had two sons named William K. Dick, Jr. and John Henry Dick. Their marriage was divorced on July 21, 1933 in Reno , Nevada .

In the early 1930s she hired the fifteen years younger Italian boxer Vincenzo “Enzo” Fiermonte (1908–1993) to teach her son how to box. They fell in love and divorced their respective spouses in 1933. They married in New York City on November 27, 1933 and went on their honeymoon in Florida. This marriage did not last long either; they divorced on June 11, 1938 in Palm Beach , Florida . After that, she returned to her previous family name, Dick.

At the age of 46, Madeleine Talmage Astor Dick died of a heart attack on March 27, 1940 in Palm Beach, Florida. She was buried in Trinity Cemetery near Washington Heights .

Her son John Jacob Astor VI, who like his mother had been married three times, died on June 26, 1992 at the age of 79. He left two children.

In the later film adaptations of the shipwreck, Madeleine Astor was played by Charlotte Thiele ( Titanic , 1943), Frances Bergen ( sinking of the Titanic , 1953), Beverly Ross ( SOS Titanic , 1979), Janne Mortil ( Titanic , two-part TV series 1996) and Charlotte Chatton ( Titanic , 1997).

Web links

• Madeleine Astor in the Encyclopedia Titanica (English)