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Laura and Harry Cushing. Mr. Cushing’s
father, the late Harry Cushing IV, was the grandson
of Reginald Vanderbilt, and great-grandson of Cornelius
Vanderbilt II, who built the mansion that spanned the
block between 57th and 58th Streets and Fifth Avenue, where Bergdorf
Goodman stands today, as well as the Breakers in Newport.
The Cushings were an earlier American family than the Vanderbilts, having arrived
at the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the late 1600s. They founded Hingham, Mass.,
named after the English village whence they came.
Reginald Vanderbilt was one of the most famous
playboys of his day. Today he’d be
diagnosed a compulsive gambler and an alcoholic, and
coming from the wealth that he came from, he’d
probably be in, on his way to, or on his way out of re-hab.
Unfortunately such opportunities were unavailable in
those days to even men as rich and privileged as Reggie
Vanderbilt. So instead he drank and gambled away about
$25 million (think a half billion in today’s dollars)
and died in 1925 at age forty-five.
Reggie Vanderbilt had a daughter by a first marriage, Cathleen,
who first married Mr. Cushing with whom she had Harry IV. After
divorcing Cushing, she married a television executive named Larry Lowman who
was part of the original William Paley team that created CBS.
Cathleen’s son (and only child) was, for most of his life, what used to
be called a “sportsman,” that being a very rich fellow who didn’t
work but rather played, and at times athletically. And at times, rather well.
Harry Cushing IV played polo and kept a string of his own ponies for years. He
moved to Rome (with ponies) after the Second World War (during which he lived
in Hollywood) and on comparatively very little money could live the way a Vanderbilt
was used to living.
He later started a newspaper there before
returning to America. Married four times,
he lived comfortably as a man of independent means for
the rest of his life without any sharply defined employment.
Like so many of his generation, he had a reverence for
the family history. In his New York apartment he kept
portraits of the original Commodore Vanderbilt,
and his son William H., who doubled
the family fortune in less than ten years after the Commodore’s
death, and who was also Harry Cushing IV’s great-grandfather.
Reggie Vanderbilt also had a very famous second daughter — the most famous
Vanderbilt of the 20th century — Gloria Vanderbilt, by
a second marriage to a girl half his age, Gloria Morgan.
Gloria Vanderbilt is therefore a great-aunt of the present Harry Cushing. Which
means, if you can keep track, that Harry Cushing V is also first cousin, once
removed of Anderson Cooper, the CNN anchorman. And potentially
the most famous Vanderbilt descendent of the 21st century. The Vanderbilts were
a big big family, to say the least.
Today’s young Cushings, unlike their ancestors, fit the profile of many
modern young married couples. Both have professional lives and a young family.
Laura Cushing works with the legendary style photographer Slim Aarons and
writes the Slim Aarons page for Quest each month. Harry Cushing works
in the textile business here in New York for Clarence House. The couple live
in Bedford, New York. |
Albemarle,
Rufus
Aston, Muffie Potter
Basso, Dennis
Benedict, Daniel
Capehart, Jonathan
Cominotto, Michael
Curry, Boykin
Dahl, Tessa
DeWoody, Beth Rudin
Duchin, Peter and Brooke
Duff, Patricia
Eaton, Phoebe
Fales-HIll, Susan
Fekkai, Frederic
THE FULL LIST
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