Marriages
Astor was originally engaged to Eileen S.S. Gillespie, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Lewis Gillespie of New York City and Newport, Rhode Island in December 1933. However, she broke off the engagement two days before the wedding; reportedly, "She felt that he had grown up lonely ... He was a bit eccentric, and she felt he wasn’t mature enough to get married."
He married Ellen Tuck French at Trinity Church in Newport, Rhode Island on June 30, 1934. The couple was divorced in 1943; they had one child, William Astor.
Astor then married Gertrude Gretsch, daughter of Walter Gretsch, in New York City on September 18, 1944. The couple had a daughter, Mary Jacqueline (born 1949), but their marriage ended in divorce in 1954, though the Mexican divorce was ruled invalid in 1956. An American divorce soon followed. Gertrude Astor remarried, in 1961, to Sonio Coletti-Perucca.
He married a third time to Dolores Margaret Fullman (born 1929) on 6 August 1954 but they separated soon after returning from their honeymoon and divorced.
His fourth wife was Sue Sandford; she predeceased him, circa 1989.
John Jacob Astor VI had one son from the 1st, and one daughter from the 2nd marriage:
- William Astor (born 1935), married Charlotte Fisk. They had 2 children: William Backhouse Astor IV (born 1959) and G. Todd Astor (born 1966), who has three children: Alexandra Astor, Rebecca Astor and Stephen Astor. William Astor died on September 24, 2008.
- Jacqueline Astor (born 1949), married in 1984 to John R Drexel IV (born 1945) and they had one son, Nicholas.
Read more about this topic: John Jacob Astor VI
Famous quotes containing the word marriages:
“If marriages were made by putting all the men’s names into one sack and the women’s names into another, and having them taken out by a blindfolded child like lottery numbers, there would be just as high a percentage of happy marriages as we have here in England.... If you can tell me of any trustworthy method of selecting a wife, I shall be happy to make use of it.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Some marriages depend on domestic arguments the way the courts depend on litigation.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“You can no more keep a martini in the refrigerator than you can keep a kiss there. The proper union of gin and vermouth is a great and sudden glory; it is one of the happiest marriages on earth, and one of the shortest-lived.”
—Bernard Devoto (1897–1955)