Brooke Russell Astor

Mrs. Astor was a prominent New York philanthropist and the widow of Vincent Astor, an heir to a real-estate fortune. Mrs. Astor, who was 105 when she died in 2007, left $42-million to the New York Community Trust to establish two funds: $35-million to create the Brooke Astor Fund for New York City Education to support reading programs for elementary schoolchildren; and $7-million to support education programs throughout New York State. Money for the first fund is to be spent over five years and the second within one year. A doyenne of New York society for decades, Mrs. Astor also bequeathed roughly $20-million to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for curatorial programs and art acquisitions. She had been a trustee of the museum since 1963. More than a year before her death, some of Mrs. Astor’s friends voiced concern about the way her son, a Broadway producer and former diplomat, was caring for her. Her grandson, Philip Marshall, filed a lawsuit accusing his father of trying to enrich himself with Mrs. Astor’s fortune while neglecting her basic needs. Anthony Marshall denied the accusations, but in a 2006 settlement he agreed to stop directing Mrs. Astor’s health care and finances, and he and his wife, Charlene, agreed to give up their positions as executors of his mother’s estate. A judge named a court-appointed executor after Mrs. Astor’s death.