Audrey Emery | |
---|---|
Princess Romanovskaya-Ilyinskaya | |
Born | Anna Audrey Emery January 4, 1904 Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. |
Died | November 25, 1971 67) West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S. | (aged
Spouse | |
Issue | Prince Paul Dmitriievich Romanovsky-Ilyinsky |
House | Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov (by marriage)[ citation needed ] Jorjadze (by marriage) |
Anna Audrey Emery (January 4, 1904 – November 25, 1971) was an American heiress and socialite who was the wife of one of the last Russian grand dukes.
Audrey was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on 4 January 1904. She was the youngest daughter of John Josiah Emery (1835–1908), a real-estate millionaire, and his wife, the former Lela Amelia Alexander (1867–1953), [1] daughter of General Charles T. Alexander, of Washington. She had two sisters, Alexandra [2] (Mrs. Benjamin Moore [3] and Mrs. Robert Gordon McKay) and Lela (Mrs. Alastair Mackintosh and Duchess of Talleyrand), and two brothers, Thomas Emery and John Josiah Emery Jr. (who married Irene Gibson Post, the daughter of the artist Charles Dana Gibson and niece of Lady Astor). [4]
After her father's death, her mother remarried to the Hon. Alfred Anson, a British stockbroker living in New York City, in 1912. [5] Anson was the seventh son of Thomas Anson, 2nd Earl of Lichfield and Lady Harriett Georgiana Louisa, daughter of James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Abercorn. [6]
Her maternal grandparents were General Charles Tripler Alexander and Julia (née Barrett) Alexander of St. Paul, Minnesota and Bar Harbor, Maine. [1]
Following the death of her mother, she inherited a $40-million real estate fortune. [7]
Her romantic attachments, including an involvement in summer 1926 with the popular novelist Michael Arlen, attracted press attention. [8] In November 1926, she married, morganatically, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia (1891–1942), an exile after the 1917 Russian Revolution, [9] in Biarritz. [10] The Grand Duke, a son of Grand Duke Paul and the late Princess Alexandra of Greece, was a grandson of both Tsar Alexander II of Russia and King George I of Greece. [4] [11] Dmitri's cousin, Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich of Russia, elevated Audrey to Russian rank of knyaginya (a noble, not dynastic "princess") with the usual name Romanovsky and granted her the suffix, Ilyinsky, from Dmitri's former property at Ilyinskoye in Krasnogorsky District, Moscow Oblast, Russia. [10] Before their eventual divorce in 1937, she was the mother of one son: [12]
Prince Paul Romanovsky-Ilyinsky (1928–2004), who became an American citizen, served in the U.S. Marine Corps, and was a three-time mayor of Palm Beach, Florida. [13]
After her divorce, Audrey moved to France with her son, marrying that same year to Georgian Prince Dimitri Djordjadze (1898–1985). [7] Audrey and Djordjadze also divorced. After the end of both marriages, she resumed her maiden name and was known as Mrs. Audrey Emery.
In the 1940s, she lived in South Carolina, later moving to Biarritz, France. Over the years, she owned several houses in Palm Beach (she was a member of the Everglades Club [7] ), Florida. In the 1960s, she built a house in Cincinnati, Ohio, to which she moved in order to be closer to her son and his family. [14]
She died in Palm Beach on November 25, 1971. [7]
Holstein-Gottorp or Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp is the historiographical name, as well as contemporary shorthand name, for the parts of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, also known as Ducal Holstein, that were ruled by the dukes of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, a side branch of the elder Danish line of the House of Oldenburg. Other parts of the duchies were ruled by the kings of Denmark.
Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia was a son of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia, a grandson of Tsar Alexander II of Russia and a first cousin of Tsar Nicholas II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
Prince Dimitri Aleksandrovich Jorjadze was a Georgian nobleman, Ambassador Hotel executive, and race car driver.
Paul Dmitrievich Romanovsky-Ilyinsky was a three-time mayor of Palm Beach, Florida, and the only child of Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia and his morganatic wife, Cincinnati heiress Audrey Emery. He was a great-grandson of Tsar Alexander II of Russia and, following the death of Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich in 1992, the heir-male House of Romanov, a first cousin once removed of Nicholas II, first cousin of Lennart Bernadotte and the second cousin of Charles III.
Princess Frederica of Hanover was a member of the House of Hanover. After her marriage, she lived mostly in England, where she was a prominent member of society.
Theresa Alice "Tessie" Fair was an American socialite. She went from being the daughter of a hard-scrabble California miner to become heiress to a fortune in Comstock Lode gold and silver, the wife of steamship magnate Hermann Oelrichs, mistress of the Rosecliff estate in Newport, Rhode Island, and a member of the elite "Triumvirate" of American society."
Thomas George Anson, 2nd Earl of Lichfield, known as Viscount Anson from 1831 to 1854, was a British politician from the Anson family.
John Josiah Emery Jr. was an American real estate developer including of the Carew Tower (1931) in Cincinnati, Ohio, at the time the tallest building west of the Alleghenies, and the Netherland Plaza Hotel, opened at the same time. He was a major figure in the city's cultural life for more than four decades.
Hermann Oelrichs was an American businessman, multimillionaire, and agent of Norddeutsche Lloyd shipping.
Edith, Lady Queenborough was an American-born British socialite, author, conspiracy theorist, and anti-Mormon agitator.
Olive, Lady Baillie was an Anglo-American heiress, landowner and hostess. She is best known as the owner of Leeds Castle, near Maidstone, Kent, England. On her death the castle was bequeathed to a charitable trust to enable it to be open to the public.
Rosa Frederica FitzGeorge was an English socialite.
Raymond Thomas Baker was a wealthy United States businessman who was Director of the United States Mint from 1917 to 1922.
Allene Tew Hostetter Nichols Burchard Reuß zu Köstritz de Kotzebue was an American socialite during the Gilded Age who became a European aristocrat by marriage.
Clement Clarke Moore was an American architect and soldier who was prominent in New York society during the Gilded Age.
Ambrose Lanfear Norrie was an American businessman and social leader during the Gilded Age.
Major John Vernou Bouvier Jr. was an American Wall Street lawyer and stockbroker. He was the father of John Vernou Bouvier III as well as a grandfather of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and socialites Princess Lee Radziwill and Edith Bouvier Beale.
Amos Tuck French was an American banker who was prominent in society.
Richard Francis Roger Yarde-Buller, 4th Baron Churston VRD was a British peer and a naval officer.