Cristina Ford

Maria Cristina Vettore Austin (June 24, 1929 – March 22, 2001), born in Vicenza, Italy, and educated in Milan. Her father was Edoardo Vettore of Milan, who died when she was a child.^[1] She became better known as Cristina Ford or Mrs. Henry Ford II.

Cristina was the second wife of Henry Ford II, chief executive officer of the Ford Motor Company (married on February 19, 1965^[1]). She was an Italian-born socialite, divorced from Robin Willoughby Merivale Austin (married on 20 August 1946), a Canadian from Montreal serving in the British Royal Navy. They divorced in Quebec, Canada in 1955.

While married to Henry Ford II, she was described by LIFE magazine as a “highly effective ambassadress for the Ford Motor Company”. In 1969, the Women’s Wear Daily called her “the complete Italian”. In 1973, Cristina Ford was listed on the International Hall of Fame of the International Best Dressed List.^[2]

She was a friend of former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos, the wife of former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos.^[3] In an interview with Walter Hayes, U.K. public relations executive for Ford, he related how Henry thought the two women were lovers, a charge which Cristina indignantly denied.^[4] The two women, as documented in a Filipino newsreel of Imelda Marcos' official visit to Iran to represent President Marcos at the 2500th Persian monarchy celebrations in October 1971, shared her assigned royal encampment tent [for which Mrs Marcos received personal permission from Queen Farah Pahlavi to do so] so that Mrs Ford could stay with her during the event rather than at a hotel in the city of Shiraz.^[5]

Cristina met Henry Ford II in 1960 during a party at Maxim’s in Paris, France.^[6] After eleven years of marriage, 58 year-old Henry Ford II and 47 year-old Cristina Ford ended the marriage in 1976, with Cristina receiving US$16 million.^[3] In 1988, Cristina Ford filed a suit against Henry Ford II’s estate seeking an expanded alimony claim worth an additional US$5 million.^[7]

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