THELMA MORGAN - VISCOUNTESS FURNESS
1904-1970
Thelma was the identical twin sister to Gloria Morgan who married Reggie Vanderbilt in her youth. The sisters were New York socialites and heiresses who together were known as the "Magnificent Morgans". But the association with the Vanderbilts, perhaps the richest family in America at the time, stuck and they are both often erroneously called Vanderbilts. At the age of 17, in 1922, Thelma first married James Vail Converse, whose bank account her mother liked. He was a decade or so older and a womanizer who had been divorced himself. Their marriage lasted until 1925. But soon after, as she could only do better, the still very young Thelma married a British nobleman and shipping magnate, Marmaduke Furness, 1st Viscount Furness. Thelma gained a title as his wife as Viscountess Furness. She and her husband were in the aristocracy of Great Britain and socialized with the the future King, the Prince of Wales.
As a married woman, Thelma became the acknowledged mistress of Prince Edward Albert, Prince of Wales, an arrangement that her husband didn't protest too much but also didn't like. She affectionally called the Prince David, as did his family. Though perhaps there was some understanding that the Prince liked married women as mistresses and would never marry a divorcee, or a Catholic, Thelma's marriage to Furness did not last. She is said to have been the Prince's constant companion from 1929 through 1934. She was separated from Marmaduke for three years and they divorced in 1933. What had been speculated was that when a woman became available for marriage, the Prince was turned off. But maybe the relationship had been winding down, for it would seem that all it took was Thelma taking a vacation, going back to America, for the Prince to rather quickly transfer his affections to Wallis Simpson, who had also been divorced and was married to her second husband, Ernest Simpson, at the time they met.
Thelma had aspirations, in her early years during the Silent Screen era, to become an actress. She mixed some with early Hollywood's moguls and actors, including Samuel Goldwyn and the comedic Charlie Chaplin. While she set up her own movie production company (like some other women I've profiled here at Mistress Manifesto such as Gloria Swanson) and starred in a movie called Aphrodite, she was no great actress. When Chaplin proposed marriage, her mother ordered her back to New York where she could keep control of her. She and Chaplin seem to have remained friends, at least for a while.
It's my idea that it's the children of controlling mothers so often feel the need to go wild for a while. And when her twin, Gloria Morgan, married into the Vanderbilt family by marrying Reggie, twice her age, and that marriage ended two years later when he died, and then another of Gloria's marriages failed, the two beautiful sisters were ready to find better men with, if possible, bigger fortunes. They had been raised to do so. But did they?
When Thelma went back to America in 1934, thinking that upon return she would resume being a loving and caring Mistress to the Prince, it is said she had a brief interlude with Prince Aly Khan. It may have only been a flirtation, but it became known, and certainly the Prince heard about it. Was that really the reason he moved on?
Thelma and her sister may have reassessed what happiness they might find in marriage or in men, for as high profile as they were, neither remarried and in the end they lived together in New York and in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, where they were far less social, even reclusive. Gloria Morgan was either bisexual or lesbian and because of this lost custody of her only child, daughter Gloria Vanderbilt, who you may know of as a fashion and interior designer and artist whose son is journalist Anderson Cooper.
In 1958, the two co-authored a memoir titled Double Exposure: A Twin Autobiography, which I read years ago.
Thelma had a son, Anthony, Viscount Furness, who was rumored to have been fathered by the Prince. I attempted to find a photograph or two of Thelma when she was young and involved with the Prince that was in the public domain without success, but I did see one of her and her son. I could say there's a resemblance to the Prince though perhaps there is also a resemblance to the man who claimed him as a son too. (There were other rumors that the Prince had children with other women he never married.) When he was seventeen, in 1946, Tony won a $6,000,000 settlement from the $16,000,000 estate of Lord Furness. Mother and son were photographed at New York's Stork Club celebrating.
Let's find out more!
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Note: Andrew Morton's, Wallis in Love, has been reviewed by others as providing an understanding of Wallis Simpson that has more insight and detail about Wallis. This month's posts are based on Andrew Morton's book but also other research including Wikipedia and Google - AI.
In my archives : You may also be interested in reading:
January 2010
WALLIS SIMPSON aka the Duchess Wallis Windsor
The American Divorcee Whom a King Gave Up His Throne For
January 2019
MARGUERITE ALIBERT - Sex Worker, Courtesan, Mistress, Wife - Her Men
MARGUERITE ALIBERT - Sex Worker, Courtesan, Mistress, Wife - Her Men
(As a young man Prince Edward had a potentially scandalous relationship with her.)
June 2015
BETTINA
Red Head, Freckled - The First Supermodel and Mistress of Aly Khan, International Playboy
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