Consuelo Vanderbilt

✶March 2, 1877

†December 6, 1964

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About their life

Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan was an American socialite. She was a member of the Vanderbilt family and only daughter of William Kissam Vanderbilt and Alva Erskine Smith. Her first marriage to Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough has become a well-known example of the advantageous but loveless marriages common during the Gilded Age. The Duke obtained a large dowry through the marriage and reportedly told her – on their honeymoon — that he had married her only "because he felt obliged to save Blenheim," his ancestral home.

American socialite (1877-1964)

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Biography from the article Consuelo Vanderbilt on the English Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.