Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt - Custody Trial

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), 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 the Marchioness of Milford Haven, and a brief engagement to HSH Gottfried, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (rumored to be a fortune-hunter)—led to a new standard in tabloid newspaper sensationalism.

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. Two years later, the custody issue was re-opened, giving her another chance to re-gain guardianship of her daughter. This time, the case was brought before the Supreme Court of the United States. The court declined to hear the matter and it once again came before the State of New York's Supreme Court. The result was an agreement that Gloria would spend more time with her mother than was previously granted. 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.