Astor family biography samples

Two More Codicils

According to the indictment, in revising Tony’s original strategy, Morrissey was obliged to rewrite history. Although Brooke’s dementia had all too evidently worsened in the four years since Tony described her symptoms, she now had to be perceived as in full possession of her wits: a generous old lady intent on handing over her fortune to her beloved son and daughter-in-law of her own free will.

Tony claims that Brooke was never officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. However, one of Tony’s associates—David Richenthal, who had produced three Broadway plays with him, and who had been working out of an office on the first floor of Brooke’s apartment—told The New York Times that “her doctors had diagnosed Alzheimer’s several years ago,” and that she was “in an all but vegetative state. She had no idea where she was,” he said, “and doesn’t know [the Marshalls] are in the room.”

The year 2004 would prove to be Brooke’s annus horribilis. Tony spells out the master

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