Cornelius Vanderbilt IV

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Cornelius (Neil) Vanderbilt IV (1898-1974) was the son of Grace and Cornelius Vanderbilt III, worked in the newspaper industry, and wrote several books.

He attended Harstrom's Tutoring School and St. Paul's as a young man, then served in the Ambulance Service during the First World War where he became a driver when a general asked the enlisted men if anyone could drive a Rolls Royce. Vanderbilt was discharged from the army after WWI as a buck private. He reenlisted for World War II as a major.^[1] To his parents' dismay, he decided to become a newspaperman. His parents detested the press, seen by them as an invasion of privacy. He worked as a staff member of the New York Herald and later The New York Times. Considered a bohemian by his parents, he was frequently at odds with them.

In the early 1920s, Vanderbilt launched several newspapers and tabloids -- the Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News, the San Francisco Illustrated Daily Herald and the Miami Tab among them.^[1] Despite claiming to uphold the highest standards of journalistic excellence, the publishings lasted only two and a half years. Vanderbilt Inc. ceased operations with losses amounting to nearly $6 million. Vanderbilt subsequently went to work as an assistant managing editor of the New York Daily Mirror.

In addition to his memoirs, Farewell to Fifth Avenue, Vanderbilt authored other books, including a biography of his mother titled Queen of the Golden Age.

Vanderbilt's 1920 marriage to a well-connected New York socialite named Rachel Littleton ended in divorce in 1927. He was to marry six more times, including to Helen Varner Vanderbilt Frye who later married Jack Frye, founder of TWA.^[2]

Vanderbilt made his home in Reno, Nevada and continued to write and lecture on world affairs. He was a strong supporter of the newly created state of Israel. He died childless in 1974.