Gloria Vanderbilt’s father, Reginald Vanderbilt, was a degenerate gambler and alcoholic. That’s bad. He died when she was just 18 months old, from liver cirrhosis. That’s also bad. However, because he was fantastically wealthy – even with all the money frittered on fast women and slow horses – he was able to leave her $2.5 million (around $75m in modern money) in a trust fund on his death. That’s good! But she became the centre of a tug-of-love custody battle between her mother and aunt, which became a tabloid sensation involving allegations of wanton behaviour and lesbian affairs with British royals. The aunt won out in the end and Gloria went on to live a long, marriage-riddled life (she tied the knot four times) as a philanthropist, finding time to set up an eponymic 1980s blue jeans company and give birth to Anderson Cooper.
Gloria Vanderbilt
February 20, 1924 – June 17, 2019
Died aged 95 (two picks)