During the trial it came up that she was seen with her arms around another woman in bed, like they were lovers. She denied a lesbian tryst - but was she bi? Or was this just a BS story that Gertrude concocted to get custody of little Gloria?
shareThe matter came out during the trial, when big Gloria's lawyer asked her personal maid one question too many, one of the most famous lawyerly goofs in history.
"You never witnessed Mrs. Vanderbilt getting drunk?"
"No."
"You never witnessed Mrs. Vanderbilt running around with men?"
"No."
"Aha! So you never witnessed Mrs. Vanderbilt doing anything outrageous at all?"
"No. Well, now you mention it, actually, there was this one funny little thing...."
"Oh, a 'funny little thing', eh? What was that?"
30 seconds later, the judge cleared the court "in the interest of public decency".
So it's presumably true, especially since the woman in question was the Marchioness of Milford Haven, whose husband was closely related to King George, and was much too powerful to risk telling a cheap lie about.
But big Gloria had a long history with men, so she doesn't seem to have been a proper lesbian. Bi, or curious, or maybe just pissed off at the time with the entire male race, I guess.
I remember that scene, and thinking about it years later it just strikes me as being pure BS on a gut level.
Why the hell would it matter anyway?
It's not BS; it happened in public with dozens of eyewitnesses.
Why would it matter? In a custody trial? In 1934? Are you joking? (They were lucky they weren’t sent to prison. Legend has it that the only reason lesbianism wasn’t a crime in England was that no one wanted to explain it to Queen Victoria.)
"Why would it matter? In a custody trial? In 1934? Are you joking? (They were lucky they weren’t sent to prison. Legend has it that the only reason lesbianism wasn’t a crime in England was that no one wanted to explain it to Queen Victoria.)"
That's not the case. Most counties that criminalize male homosexuality leave lesbianism legal. That was true not only of Victorian England, but also of other, virulently homophobic societies, such as Nazi Germany & Stalinist Russia. Also, Queen Victoria was not that naive and certainly was aware that lesbians existed.
I originally thought yeh, it's BS...but "Little" Gloria alludes to the truth of it in her bio "Once Upon a Time: A True Story" saying she walked in one time during a visit on her mom and friend Helen Thomas. I wish I could remember the wording she used in the description (it was from a child's point of view, so she obviously didn't say "They were doin' it" :P), and I no longer have the book, but it was definitely implied...
shareIt's not exactly uncommon. Like Tallulah Bankhead always said, "Daddy always warned me about men and liquor, but he never said a thing about women and cocaine."
shareI just read that book and saw nothing implied between Gloria and Helen Thomas. Guess I will check it again before I take it back to the library.
I had the chance to work with Michael Jackson who was as brilliant as they come.
Tommy Mottola
Gloria Vanderbilt spoke about it in a 60 Minutes interview as to her mother being lesbian, so it was rumored and she was aware of what was being said. I didn't watch all of the interview, but it seems it wasn't a misunderstanding by the maid in the movie, like Cindy Brady did with Alice and the postman on The Brady Bunch to Sam the butcher over the phone.
share