ABSTRACT
VANDERBILT, GLORIA (b. 1924) Artist, actress, and author. Gloria Vanderbilt, the great-great-granddaughter of the railroad fi - nancier Cornelius Vanderbilt, was born in 1924. Her father, the avid sportsman Reginald Claypool Vanderbilt, died when she was just 18 months old, and at the age of ten she became the the subject of a custody battle between her mother, Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, and her paternal aunt, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Her aunt won custody by proving that Gloria’s mother was an alcoholic who had pilfered her daughter’s inheritance. Gloria was taken not only from her mother but also, and perhaps more importantly, from her nurse, Dodo, the only person she really trusted.
