Court Battles Expected Over Brooke Astor’s Charity Bequests

Brooke Astor, the philanthropist and New York socialite who gave away nearly $195-million over her lifetime, died of pneumonia last week. She was 105.

Several nonprofit causes will probably benefit from her estate, but which ones will get how much is not yet clear and her bequests are likely to be snared in court battles.

Her personal fortune was said to be approximately $130-million at her death, and a trust left to Mrs. Astor by her late husband, Vincent Astor, was worth more than $60-million.

The New York Public Library and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, both in New York, are named as major beneficiaries in Mrs. Astor’s will. A representative for Mrs. Astor’s estate could not be reached for comment.

The fate of Mrs. Astor’s fortune became entangled in a high-profile legal contest more than a year ago. Several of her close friends publicly expressed concern over the care Mrs. Astor was receiving from her son, Anthony D. Marshall, a Broadway producer and former diplomat. Her grandson Philip Marshall accused his father in a lawsuit of neglecting Mrs. Astor’s basic needs while trying to enrich himself with her fortune. Anthony Marshall denied those accusations.

Under a settlement reached in October, Anthony Marshall said he did nothing wrong but agreed to stop directing his mother’s finances and health care. He and his wife, Charlene, also agreed to relinquish their positions as executors of Mrs. Astor’s estate, and the settlement directed a judge to name a court-appointed executor after her death.

Closing Foundation

During her lifetime, Mrs. Astor was known for her beneficence to causes across New York City. She deliberately spent all the assets of the Vincent Astor Foundation, created with money from her third husband, so that it would not operate past her death. It closed in 1997.

As a philanthropist, Mrs. Astor was most closely associated with the New York Public Library, where she had served on the library’s Board of Trustees since 1959, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she had been a trustee since 1963.

She donated close to $25-million to the library over the years, but Mrs. Astor’s aid was especially crucial in the mid-1970s when the library was trying to regain its footing in the aftermath of New York’s fiscal crisis, which had forced the institution to reduce its hours to only a couple of days a week and slash most library services, says Paul LeClerc, the institution’s president.

In 1978, Mrs. Astor convinced Richard B. Salomon, a wealthy businessman, to become chairman of the library. Together, says Mr. LeClerc, Mr. Salomon and Mrs. Astor worked steadily to restore the library’s financial health.

After Mr. Salomon’s term ended, Mrs. Astor persuaded Andrew Heiskell, who had just retired as chairman of Time Inc., to become chairman, and she was also responsible for recruiting Vartan Gregorian, now the head of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, as president. All three men, says Mr. LeClerc, helped the library become a financially solid institution, and he credits Mrs. Astor for seeking them out.

She used her stature to attract other philanthropists. When Bill Blass, the fashion designer, gave the library $10-million in 1993, and Sandra and Frederick P. Rose, who made their fortune in real estate, donated $15-million in 1996, they publicly acknowledged Mrs. Astor as the one who had influenced their decision to give to the library. Lewis Cullman, a wealthy businessman and prominent philanthropist, and his wife, Dorothy, gave the library $10-million in 1998 in Mrs. Astor’s honor, as did David Rockefeller in 1985, when he gave $2.5-million.

“She brought corporate America, social America, and civic America together for the sake of the New York Public Library,” says Mr. Gregorian. “She believed that a public institution can be as great as a private institution.”