The Phantom of Fifth Avenue: The Mysterious Life and Scandalous Death of Heiress Huguette Clark by Meryl Gordon Page B
Authors: Meryl Gordon
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means—to prepare themselves for the unequal struggle in life is fruitful in gratifying results,” Clark said. Gratifying indeed, judging by the devotion expressed toward him by Anna La Chapelle.
The journalist ended the interview by asking Clark whether he would follow in the footsteps of three other senators who, “in the autumn of their lives,” had recently wed. Clark laughed at the question, replying, “I can not tell you how happy I was with my beautiful wife, who died in 1893. I believe in marriage when one can afford that luxury, but I am not seriously considering it.” Then he added, with another chuckle, “I am quite too young to think of it yet.”
A few weeks later, Clark was reminded of his own mortality when he developed mastoiditis, an acute ear infection that spread into his skull. With a high fever and intense pain, Clark underwent two operations and was confined to bed for several weeks at his New York apartment. Even as he was recovering, tragedy struck the family yet again. The wife of his son Charles, who was visiting friends and staying at the Algonquin Hotel in New York, became ill and died suddenly in January 1904. Both of Clark’s sons had now become widowers, within just two years of each other.
In April, word spread that Clark was on his deathbed. MODERN CROESUS A VERY SICK MAN. CLARK MAY NOT LIVE TO RETURN TO BUTTE. HIS WEALTH, ESTIMATED FROM $50,000,000 TO $200,000,000, LIKELY TO GO TO HIS SONS AND DAUGHTERS AND HIS GRANDSON, W.A. CLARK III was the headline of the April 22, 1904, story in the
Minneapolis Journal
. The article noted that the senator had recently had a falling-out with his namesake lawyer son. “It has been reported in Butte for a year or more that W. A. Clark Junior has become estranged from his father and the rest of the family and certain things have happened to lend color to this report.” (The reason for the estrangementnever became public, but years later a Clark family retainer went public with a vivid description of Junior’s energetic sexual pursuit of attractive young men.)
The deathbed reports were exaggerated, but Clark’s health remained poor. Clark sailed to Europe on the American liner
Princess
with plans to cruise the Mediterranean, announcing that he was taking a trip that might last seven weeks to “put the finishing touch” on his convalescence. Anna joined him.
By now, William Andrews Clark had painted himself into a corner in terms of his relationship with Anna La Chapelle. He had repeatedly insisted publicly that the relationship was platonic. He had lied to his four older children, neglecting to mention his bouncing new baby, Andrée. He told the Dallas newspaper that he had no plans to remarry.
But Clark had decided that he was ready to officially acknowledge Anna in his life as his wife. He was sixty-five years old, and there was never going to be a good time to explain their tangled past. But before he went public, he needed to break the news to his children. Clark’s dilemma: finding a palatable way to explain the existence of his and Anna’s nearly two-year-old daughter. There was only one quasi-respectable solution: backdate the year of a supposed wedding and claim it occurred prior to Andrée’s birth.
On June 30, the senator returned from Europe and met with his two daughters, Katherine and May, to apologetically break the news of their new stepmother and half sister. Katherine described her reaction to this painful revelation in a letter to her younger brother Will Jr., writing: “A line only, dearest Will, as of course you know by now of our father’s marriage—while May and I are greatly grieved and disappointed we must all stand by our dear father and try to make it as easy for him as possible because he realizes his mistake—your heart would have ached could you have seen him the night he left us for St. Louis, and I can’t get over the way he looked so badly. Don’t let anyone know that I have written
The journalist ended the interview by asking Clark whether he would follow in the footsteps of three other senators who, “in the autumn of their lives,” had recently wed. Clark laughed at the question, replying, “I can not tell you how happy I was with my beautiful wife, who died in 1893. I believe in marriage when one can afford that luxury, but I am not seriously considering it.” Then he added, with another chuckle, “I am quite too young to think of it yet.”
A few weeks later, Clark was reminded of his own mortality when he developed mastoiditis, an acute ear infection that spread into his skull. With a high fever and intense pain, Clark underwent two operations and was confined to bed for several weeks at his New York apartment. Even as he was recovering, tragedy struck the family yet again. The wife of his son Charles, who was visiting friends and staying at the Algonquin Hotel in New York, became ill and died suddenly in January 1904. Both of Clark’s sons had now become widowers, within just two years of each other.
In April, word spread that Clark was on his deathbed. MODERN CROESUS A VERY SICK MAN. CLARK MAY NOT LIVE TO RETURN TO BUTTE. HIS WEALTH, ESTIMATED FROM $50,000,000 TO $200,000,000, LIKELY TO GO TO HIS SONS AND DAUGHTERS AND HIS GRANDSON, W.A. CLARK III was the headline of the April 22, 1904, story in the
Minneapolis Journal
. The article noted that the senator had recently had a falling-out with his namesake lawyer son. “It has been reported in Butte for a year or more that W. A. Clark Junior has become estranged from his father and the rest of the family and certain things have happened to lend color to this report.” (The reason for the estrangementnever became public, but years later a Clark family retainer went public with a vivid description of Junior’s energetic sexual pursuit of attractive young men.)
The deathbed reports were exaggerated, but Clark’s health remained poor. Clark sailed to Europe on the American liner
Princess
with plans to cruise the Mediterranean, announcing that he was taking a trip that might last seven weeks to “put the finishing touch” on his convalescence. Anna joined him.
By now, William Andrews Clark had painted himself into a corner in terms of his relationship with Anna La Chapelle. He had repeatedly insisted publicly that the relationship was platonic. He had lied to his four older children, neglecting to mention his bouncing new baby, Andrée. He told the Dallas newspaper that he had no plans to remarry.
But Clark had decided that he was ready to officially acknowledge Anna in his life as his wife. He was sixty-five years old, and there was never going to be a good time to explain their tangled past. But before he went public, he needed to break the news to his children. Clark’s dilemma: finding a palatable way to explain the existence of his and Anna’s nearly two-year-old daughter. There was only one quasi-respectable solution: backdate the year of a supposed wedding and claim it occurred prior to Andrée’s birth.
On June 30, the senator returned from Europe and met with his two daughters, Katherine and May, to apologetically break the news of their new stepmother and half sister. Katherine described her reaction to this painful revelation in a letter to her younger brother Will Jr., writing: “A line only, dearest Will, as of course you know by now of our father’s marriage—while May and I are greatly grieved and disappointed we must all stand by our dear father and try to make it as easy for him as possible because he realizes his mistake—your heart would have ached could you have seen him the night he left us for St. Louis, and I can’t get over the way he looked so badly. Don’t let anyone know that I have written
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