Madeleine Astor
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Madeleine Talmage-Dick (neé Talmage-Force, previously Astor and Fiermonte) (June 19, 1893 – March 27, 1940) was born in Brooklyn, New York City and became famous in 1911 when she married millionaire John Jacob Astor IV.
While traveling abroad to avoid the gossip generated by her marriage, Madeleine Astor became pregnant. Wanting to have the baby born in the United States, the Astors booked passage on the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic. The ship sank on April 14, 1912 and, while Madeleine was rescued, her husband died in the disaster. A few years after the sinking she gave up the Astor fortune to marry William K. Dick. That marriage ended in divorce seventeen years later and shortly after she again remarried, this time to boxer Enzo Fiermonte, which also ended in divorce.
She was portrayed by Charlotte Chatton in the 1997 film Titanic.
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[edit] Early life
Madeleine Talmage Force was born on June 19, 1893 in Brooklyn, New York to William Hurlbut Force and Katherine Arvilla Tamlage. She first met John Jacob Astor IV, one of the richest men in the United States, in Bar Harbor, Maine while she was still in school. On September 9, 1911 the eighteen-year-old Madeleine married the forty-seven year old John Jacob Astor in Beechwood, the Astor family's Newport, Rhode Island home. The marriage caused a scandal since Astor had divorced his first wife two years before.
John Jacob Astor was one of the 1,500 people who died in the disaster, and his partially crushed body was recovered on April 22. Madeleine and the other survivors were rescued by the RMS Carpathia and afterwards Madeleine did not talk about the disaster except to mention her last memory of the sinking was seeing John Jacob Astor's pet Airedale, Kitty, pacing on the deck.
[edit] Post-Titanic
Madeleine gave birth to John Jacob Astor VI, named after his father, on August 14, 1912. According to John Jacob Astor's will, Madeleine would have received income from a $5,000,000 trust fund as long as she did not remarry.
Remarriages
Madeleine's first remarriage was on June 22, 1916, in Bar Harbor, Maine. She married her childhood friend and banker William Karl Dick (1888-1953), who at twenty-eight years old was vice president of the Manufacturers Trust Company of New York and a part owner and director of the Brooklyn Times. As stated in the will, Madeleine lost her stipend from the trust fund and the right to live in the Astor mansion in Manhattan. During the marriage they had two sons: William Karl Jr. and John Henry Dick. The marriage to William Dick did not last and they divorced on July 21, 1933 in Reno, Nevada.
Just 4 months later on November 27, 1933 Madeleine married twenty-six-year-old Italian boxer Enzo Fiermonte in a civil ceremony in New York City. They divorced five years later on June 11, 1938 in West Palm Beach, Florida and Madeleine went back to using the surname Dick.
[edit] Death
Madeleine Force Astor Dick died of a serious heart ailment in Palm Beach, Florida, in 1940 at the age of forty-six. She was buried in Trinity Church Cemetery in New York City.
[edit] References
- Behe, George, Phillip Gowan, Hermann Sōldner. Mrs Madeleine Talmage Astor (nèe Force). Encyclopedia Titanica. Retrieved on July 15, 2005.
- "Mrs. Fiermonte Dead in Florida", New York Times, March 29, 1940.
- Madeleine Astor at Find-A-Grave
- January 7, 1989
- Madeleine Astor at Titanic-Passengers.com
(On Board the Titanic The Complete Story with Eyewitness Accounts) Marshall. 882 1/2 Questions and Answers You Wanted to know about the Titanic.
