Kiki Preston
Encyclopedia
Kiki Preston, née Alice Gwynne (1898 – 23 December 1946) was an American socialite, a member of the infamous Happy Valley set
, and the alleged mother of a child born out of wedlock with Prince George, Duke of Kent
, fourth son of King George V of the United Kingdom
. Notorious for her drug addiction, that earned her the nickname "the girl with the silver syringe", she was a fixture of the Paris and New York high social circles, and a relation to the powerful Vanderbilt and Whitney families. Her life was marred by several tragic losses and her own mental problems, which eventually led to her suicide at 48.
, Long Island
, New York
, the daughter of Edward Erskine Gwynne, Sr. (1869 – 10 May 1904) and his wife, the former Helen Steele (? – 4 January 1958). Edward Gwynne was the nephew of tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt II
and his wife, socialite Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt, making him a distant relation of the prominent and wealthy Whitney family
. Her mother, Helen, was a great-granddaughter of Justice Samuel Chase
, one of the signatories of the United States Declaration of Independence
, as well as a granddaughter of Joshua Barney
, commodore of the United States Navy
during the American Revolutionary War
. She was descended from Peter Jacquette, the second Dutch
governor of Delaware
.
Edward and Helen were married in New York City
on May 25, 1896. The marriage was a rocky one; Edward and Helen were separated at some point before reconciling. Besides Kiki, they also had two sons, one being Edward Erskine Gwynne, Jr.(1899 – 5 May 1948), who later became a writer, the publisher of the magazine Boulevardier, and a columnist for the European edition of the New York Herald Tribune
. Their other son, Edward C. Gwynne, joined the US air forces in his early youth and was killed when his aircraft was shot down. Between 1898 and 1904, Kiki and her family resided at different times in Paris
, France
, Lawrence, Nassau County, New York
and Park Hill, Yonkers
in New York
.
, Gwynne obtained a loan worth of several thousand dollars from a jeweler. On February 1901, Gwynne transferred his interest in his property to his mother, Louise Gwynne. On the fall of 1901, the Paris money lender filed suit against Gwynne, for an unpaid loan of nearly 50,000 dollars for diamonds. Shortly after his mother's death, on June 1902, Edward Gwynne filed a petition in bankruptcy, with liabilities of over 56,000 dollars and assets of 57 dollars. Two years later, on May 10, 1904, Kiki's father died of acute kidney problems at the age of 35, on the same day the case of the suit was to be brought up on the court. Kiki was only five at the time.
After Louise Gwynne's death, the property that had been conveyed to her by her son, was held in trust for Kiki and her siblings. However, on February 1908, the Paris money lender revived his legal attack against the Gwynnes, demanding their property on the unpaid loan of 40,000 dollars. On March, following a long discussion, the suit against the Gwynnes was dismissed . The judge ruled that the realty transferred performed by Edward to his mother was not made with the intent to defraud creditors. However, he also spoke rather harshly of Kiki's father, referring to him as a man who "may have had large expectancies, but seems to have been a drain upon his mother's financial resources".
Following her father's death, Kiki was mostly raised in Paris, together with her brothers, although the family would occasionally return to their New York residence for brief periods of time. Kiki was also educated in England. The money lender continued with a series of court appeals between 1910 and 1912, although the Gwynne family managed to emerge victorious from the lengthy legal battle.
According to writers Lynn Kear and John Rossman, Preston also worked as a cabaret performer in her early youth.
, such as Alice de Janzé
and Josslyn Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll
. The Happy Valley set was a community of mainly British expatriates in Kenya, in the Wanjohi Valley close to the Aberdare Mountains, which had become notorious for its hedonistic lifestyle. On November 1924, Kiki applied for divorce at the Paris courts, on the grounds of desertion. Horace R. B. Allen died on December 17, 1961, in Harbour Island, Bahamas.
In April, 1925, Kiki married investment banker Jerome "Gerry" Preston (15 March 1897 – 28 May 1934), a Harvard
alumnus from Colorado
, a man later described by writer Frédéric de Janzé in his memoirs as "a creature of instincts" and "untamed". Shortly afterwards, she formed a brief but close friendship with actress Kay Francis
. Following travel to the British East Africa colony, in Kenya, the home of the Happy Valley clique, Kiki and her husband were persuaded to permanently move there, after a friend of the couple gave them the land she had in the shores of Lake Naivasha
. The Prestons began to live in a Dutch-style house they built at the shores of Lake Naivasha and associated with the Happy Valley set. Both she and Jerome were successful as big game hunters and horse breeders. In their farm, they entertained several guests at times, including actor Gary Cooper
on one occasion. Friends of the couple in the community included Alice de Janzé, Lord Erroll and his wife, Idina
(Kiki was often entertained in their mansion), writer Evelyn Waugh
and aviator Beryl Markham
.
Kiki was a scandalous presence among the Happy Valley set, noted both for her great beauty, as well as her wild lifestyle, which included partying all-night long, rising from bed during dinnertime and drug abuse. Kiki had become a notorious drug addict by that point, especially of heroin,cocaine
and morphine
. She was nicknamed "the girl with the silver syringe", due to her habit of always carrying with her a syringe with which she injected herself. She was reported to often take out the silver syringe to inject herself, oblivious to onlookers. Swedish Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke
's second wife, Cockie, once wittily remarked of Kiki: "She's very clever with her needle". Kiki was one of the best clients of the chief drug dealer of the Kenya colony, Frank Greswolde Williams, until his death in 1932. Whenever she was out of morphine, she would send an aeroplane to pick up new supplies.
Kiki had many lovers during that time, including actor Rudolph Valentino
and Prince George, Duke of Kent
, whom she first met in the mid-1920s. Through 1928, she introduced him to cocaine, morphine and a variety of other drugs. Reportedly, Prince George shared Kiki in a ménage à trois
with Jorge Ferrara, the bisexual son of the Argentinian ambassador to England.
In his attempt to rescue his cocained-addicted brother from the influence of Kiki, Edward VIII of the United Kingdom
attempted for a while to persuade both George and Kiki to break off their contact, to no avail. Eventually, Edward forced George to stop seeing Kiki and also forced Kiki to leave England, while she was visiting George there in the summer of 1929. For years afterwards, Edward feared that George might relapse to drugs if he maintained his contact with Kiki. Indeed, in 1932, Prince George ran into Kiki unexpectedly at Cannes
and had to be removed almost by force.
. Kiki rushed back to Paris to be by his side, since it was believed he was close to dying. Erskine ultimately survived.
On November 16, 1933, her cousin, 26-year-old socialite William K. Vanderbilt, was killed in a car accident; her brother, Erskine, was also in the car, but suffered minor injuries. Bad luck seemed to follow Kiki's brother, though: on August 1935, he suffered another accident, when his car collided with a truck, injuring three. He was tried and fined 50 dollars and also sentenced to a thirty-day suspended sentence. On account of that accident, Erskine later suffered a paralysis in 1938.
On May 28, 1934, Kiki's husband, Jerome Preston, died at Hotel Pierre, in New York, aged 37, making her a widow at the age of 36. On February 1937, her brother-in-law (Jerome's brother), sportsman Lewis Thompson Preston also died, at age 37. On January 25, 1941, her friend, 22nd Earl of Erroll
, aged 39, was mysteriously murder
ed in Kenya. Later that year, on September 30, her friend and fellow American expatriate in Paris, Alice de Janzé, committed suicide
with a firearm. On 25 August 1942, her former lover, Prince George, was killed in a plane accident, aged 39.
On June 6, 1944, she endured possibly her greatest personal tragedy, when her son, Ethan Allen, was killed during the Normandy Landings. Allen was serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force.
of New York City
and landing in a courtyard of the hotel. According to her companion, Lillian Turner, Kiki had been in poor health, depressed and nervous. Turner had just given Preston a glass of milk and then went into the living room of the apartment to read. When she heard no sounds coming from Kiki's bedroom, she entered it, only to find a window open and Kiki gone. Kiki's pajama-clad body was soon discovered in an areaway behind the hotel. Preston's mother, Helen Steele, was also living at the same hotel at the time. Today, Kiki's home on Lake Naivasha
is inhabited by the 7th Earl of Enniskillen
.
and Laura, Duchess of Marlborough, Canfield's second wife, shared this belief.
Canfield was born in 1926 and was the adopted son of Cass Canfield
, American publisher of Harper and Row. Michael Canfield served in the US Marine Corps in World War II and was wounded at Iwo Jima
. He graduated from Harvard University
in 1951 and worked as London representative of Harper and Row. He married twice, first to Lee Radziwill
, younger sister of Jacqueline Kennedy, in 1953 (divorced in 1958) and then to Laura, Duchess of Marlborough, in 1960. Canfield died on December 20, 1969, of heart attack, while on a New York-London flight, at the age of 43.
book White Mischief (1982). Together with other personalities of the Happy Valley set, she appears as a fictional character in Paul Di Filippo
's short story "A Happy Valley at the End of the World", included in the author's collection of short stories Lost Pages (1998). She also appears as a character in Clint Jefferies' play African Nights. The play is set in the Happy Valley community in Kenya, in the year 1928 and portrays, among other things, the romance between Kiki and Prince George. From May to June 2004, the play was performed on the Wings Theater in New York. Kiki was portrayed by actress Karen Stanion.
Happy Valley set
The Happy Valley set was a group of privileged British colonials living in the Happy Valley region of the Wanjohi Valley,near the Aberdare mountain range, in the colonies of Kenya and Uganda during the 1920s - 1940s...
, and the alleged mother of a child born out of wedlock with Prince George, Duke of Kent
Prince George, Duke of Kent
Prince George, Duke of Kent was a member of the British Royal Family, the fourth son of George V and Mary of Teck, and younger brother of Edward VIII and George VI...
, fourth son of King George V of the United Kingdom
George V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
. Notorious for her drug addiction, that earned her the nickname "the girl with the silver syringe", she was a fixture of the Paris and New York high social circles, and a relation to the powerful Vanderbilt and Whitney families. Her life was marred by several tragic losses and her own mental problems, which eventually led to her suicide at 48.
Early life
Alice "Kiki" Gwynne, later more commonly known as Kiki Preston, was born in 1898, in Hempstead, Nassau CountyNassau County, New York
Nassau County is a suburban county on Long Island, east of New York City in the U.S. state of New York, within the New York Metropolitan Area. As of the 2010 census, the population was 1,339,532...
, Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, the daughter of Edward Erskine Gwynne, Sr. (1869 – 10 May 1904) and his wife, the former Helen Steele (? – 4 January 1958). Edward Gwynne was the nephew of tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt II
Cornelius Vanderbilt II
Cornelius Vanderbilt II was an American socialite, heir, businessman, and a member of the prominent United States Vanderbilt family....
and his wife, socialite Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt, making him a distant relation of the prominent and wealthy Whitney family
Whitney family
The Whitney family is an American family notable for their social prominence, wealth, business enterprises and philanthropy, founded by John Whitney who came from London, England to Watertown, Massachusetts in 1635.-Rise to prominence:...
. Her mother, Helen, was a great-granddaughter of Justice Samuel Chase
Samuel Chase
Samuel Chase was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court and earlier was a signatory to the United States Declaration of Independence as a representative of Maryland. Early in life, Chase was a "firebrand" states-righter and revolutionary...
, one of the signatories of the United States Declaration of Independence
United States Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. John Adams put forth a...
, as well as a granddaughter of Joshua Barney
Joshua Barney
Joshua Barney was a commodore in the United States Navy, born in Baltimore, Maryland, who served in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.-Revolutionary War:...
, commodore of the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
during the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
. She was descended from Peter Jacquette, the second Dutch
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
governor of Delaware
Delaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
.
Edward and Helen were married in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
on May 25, 1896. The marriage was a rocky one; Edward and Helen were separated at some point before reconciling. Besides Kiki, they also had two sons, one being Edward Erskine Gwynne, Jr.(1899 – 5 May 1948), who later became a writer, the publisher of the magazine Boulevardier, and a columnist for the European edition of the New York Herald Tribune
New York Herald Tribune
The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...
. Their other son, Edward C. Gwynne, joined the US air forces in his early youth and was killed when his aircraft was shot down. Between 1898 and 1904, Kiki and her family resided at different times in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Lawrence, Nassau County, New York
Lawrence, Nassau County, New York
Lawrence is a village in Nassau County, New York in the USA. As of the United States 2010 Census, the village population was 6,483.The Village of Lawrence is in the southwest corner of the Town of Hempstead, adjoining the border with the New York City borough of Queens to the west and near the...
and Park Hill, Yonkers
Park Hill, Yonkers
Park Hill is a neighborhood in southwestern Yonkers, New York. The neighborhood is located east of South Broadway. Park Hill contains many vintage single-family homes, many overlooking the Hudson River. The neighborhood was developed in 1888 by the American Real Estate Company of Manhattan. The...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
.
Family bankruptcy
A socialite without a regular employment, Kiki's father was described as a man that "had extravagant tastes, expended money lavishly and was without business employment", a fact which would lead his family to legal troubles. On 1899, while in ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Gwynne obtained a loan worth of several thousand dollars from a jeweler. On February 1901, Gwynne transferred his interest in his property to his mother, Louise Gwynne. On the fall of 1901, the Paris money lender filed suit against Gwynne, for an unpaid loan of nearly 50,000 dollars for diamonds. Shortly after his mother's death, on June 1902, Edward Gwynne filed a petition in bankruptcy, with liabilities of over 56,000 dollars and assets of 57 dollars. Two years later, on May 10, 1904, Kiki's father died of acute kidney problems at the age of 35, on the same day the case of the suit was to be brought up on the court. Kiki was only five at the time.
After Louise Gwynne's death, the property that had been conveyed to her by her son, was held in trust for Kiki and her siblings. However, on February 1908, the Paris money lender revived his legal attack against the Gwynnes, demanding their property on the unpaid loan of 40,000 dollars. On March, following a long discussion, the suit against the Gwynnes was dismissed . The judge ruled that the realty transferred performed by Edward to his mother was not made with the intent to defraud creditors. However, he also spoke rather harshly of Kiki's father, referring to him as a man who "may have had large expectancies, but seems to have been a drain upon his mother's financial resources".
Following her father's death, Kiki was mostly raised in Paris, together with her brothers, although the family would occasionally return to their New York residence for brief periods of time. Kiki was also educated in England. The money lender continued with a series of court appeals between 1910 and 1912, although the Gwynne family managed to emerge victorious from the lengthy legal battle.
According to writers Lynn Kear and John Rossman, Preston also worked as a cabaret performer in her early youth.
Marriages and Happy Valley
In 1919, Kiki married Horace R. Bigelow Allen, after he completed his service with the American army. In later years, Allen would become an executive in a plastics corporation. Kiki and Horace had a daughter, Alice Gwynne Allen, who later married pilot officer Geoffrey Borden Russell, as well as a son, Ethan Allen. Living in Paris with her husband, Kiki met and befriended some of the future key members of the infamous Happy Valley setHappy Valley set
The Happy Valley set was a group of privileged British colonials living in the Happy Valley region of the Wanjohi Valley,near the Aberdare mountain range, in the colonies of Kenya and Uganda during the 1920s - 1940s...
, such as Alice de Janzé
Alice de Janzé
Alice de Janzé, née Silverthorne , also known as Alice de Trafford and holder of the noble title Comtesse de Janzé for a few years, was an American heiress who spent years in Kenya, as a member of the Happy Valley set of colonials...
and Josslyn Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll
Josslyn Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll
Josslyn Victor Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll and 5th Baron Kilmarnock was a British peer, famed for the unsolved case surrounding his murder and the sensation it caused during wartime Britain.-Early life:Hay was the eldest son of the diplomat Victor Hay, Lord Kilmarnock and his wife...
. The Happy Valley set was a community of mainly British expatriates in Kenya, in the Wanjohi Valley close to the Aberdare Mountains, which had become notorious for its hedonistic lifestyle. On November 1924, Kiki applied for divorce at the Paris courts, on the grounds of desertion. Horace R. B. Allen died on December 17, 1961, in Harbour Island, Bahamas.
In April, 1925, Kiki married investment banker Jerome "Gerry" Preston (15 March 1897 – 28 May 1934), a Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
alumnus from Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
, a man later described by writer Frédéric de Janzé in his memoirs as "a creature of instincts" and "untamed". Shortly afterwards, she formed a brief but close friendship with actress Kay Francis
Kay Francis
Kay Francis was an American stage and film actress. After a brief period on Broadway in the late 1920s, she moved to film and achieved her greatest success between 1930 and 1936, when she was the number one female star at the Warner Brothers studio, and the highest paid American film actress...
. Following travel to the British East Africa colony, in Kenya, the home of the Happy Valley clique, Kiki and her husband were persuaded to permanently move there, after a friend of the couple gave them the land she had in the shores of Lake Naivasha
Lake Naivasha
Lake Naivasha is a freshwater lake in Kenya, lying north west of Nairobi, outside the town of Naivasha. It is part of the Great Rift Valley. The name derives from the local Maasai name Nai'posha, meaning "rough water" because of the sudden storms which can arise...
. The Prestons began to live in a Dutch-style house they built at the shores of Lake Naivasha and associated with the Happy Valley set. Both she and Jerome were successful as big game hunters and horse breeders. In their farm, they entertained several guests at times, including actor Gary Cooper
Gary Cooper
Frank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...
on one occasion. Friends of the couple in the community included Alice de Janzé, Lord Erroll and his wife, Idina
Idina Sackville
Lady Myra Idina Sackville was a British aristocrat and member of the infamous Happy Valley set. Her deviant behaviour and promiscuous lifestyle scandalised upper class society.-Life and marriages:...
(Kiki was often entertained in their mansion), writer Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
and aviator Beryl Markham
Beryl Markham
Beryl Markham was a British-born Kenyan aviatrix, adventurer, and racehorse trainer. During the pioneer days of aviation, she became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west...
.
Kiki was a scandalous presence among the Happy Valley set, noted both for her great beauty, as well as her wild lifestyle, which included partying all-night long, rising from bed during dinnertime and drug abuse. Kiki had become a notorious drug addict by that point, especially of heroin,cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
and morphine
Morphine
Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic medication and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. It was first isolated in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, first distributed by same in 1817, and first commercially sold by Merck in 1827, which at the time was a single small chemists' shop. It was more...
. She was nicknamed "the girl with the silver syringe", due to her habit of always carrying with her a syringe with which she injected herself. She was reported to often take out the silver syringe to inject herself, oblivious to onlookers. Swedish Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke
Bror von Blixen-Finecke
Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke was a Swedish baron, writer, and African big-game hunter.Born to an aristocratic Swedish family, he married his Danish second-cousin Karen Blixen in 1913...
's second wife, Cockie, once wittily remarked of Kiki: "She's very clever with her needle". Kiki was one of the best clients of the chief drug dealer of the Kenya colony, Frank Greswolde Williams, until his death in 1932. Whenever she was out of morphine, she would send an aeroplane to pick up new supplies.
Kiki had many lovers during that time, including actor Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...
and Prince George, Duke of Kent
Prince George, Duke of Kent
Prince George, Duke of Kent was a member of the British Royal Family, the fourth son of George V and Mary of Teck, and younger brother of Edward VIII and George VI...
, whom she first met in the mid-1920s. Through 1928, she introduced him to cocaine, morphine and a variety of other drugs. Reportedly, Prince George shared Kiki in a ménage à trois
Ménage à trois
Ménage à trois is a French term which originally described a domestic arrangement in which three people having sexual relations occupy the same household – the phrase literally translates as "household of three"...
with Jorge Ferrara, the bisexual son of the Argentinian ambassador to England.
In his attempt to rescue his cocained-addicted brother from the influence of Kiki, Edward VIII of the United Kingdom
Edward VIII of the United Kingdom
Edward VIII was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, and Emperor of India, from 20 January to 11 December 1936.Before his accession to the throne, Edward was Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay...
attempted for a while to persuade both George and Kiki to break off their contact, to no avail. Eventually, Edward forced George to stop seeing Kiki and also forced Kiki to leave England, while she was visiting George there in the summer of 1929. For years afterwards, Edward feared that George might relapse to drugs if he maintained his contact with Kiki. Indeed, in 1932, Prince George ran into Kiki unexpectedly at Cannes
Cannes
Cannes is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera, a busy tourist destination and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival. It is a Commune of France in the Alpes-Maritimes department....
and had to be removed almost by force.
Tragic losses
In the 1930s and 1940s, Kiki experienced a long string of tragic losses, as many people from her circle of relatives and friends found untimely deaths. Previously, on May 1929, her 30 year-old brother, Edward Erskine Jr., almost died of a heart attackMyocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
. Kiki rushed back to Paris to be by his side, since it was believed he was close to dying. Erskine ultimately survived.
On November 16, 1933, her cousin, 26-year-old socialite William K. Vanderbilt, was killed in a car accident; her brother, Erskine, was also in the car, but suffered minor injuries. Bad luck seemed to follow Kiki's brother, though: on August 1935, he suffered another accident, when his car collided with a truck, injuring three. He was tried and fined 50 dollars and also sentenced to a thirty-day suspended sentence. On account of that accident, Erskine later suffered a paralysis in 1938.
On May 28, 1934, Kiki's husband, Jerome Preston, died at Hotel Pierre, in New York, aged 37, making her a widow at the age of 36. On February 1937, her brother-in-law (Jerome's brother), sportsman Lewis Thompson Preston also died, at age 37. On January 25, 1941, her friend, 22nd Earl of Erroll
Josslyn Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll
Josslyn Victor Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll and 5th Baron Kilmarnock was a British peer, famed for the unsolved case surrounding his murder and the sensation it caused during wartime Britain.-Early life:Hay was the eldest son of the diplomat Victor Hay, Lord Kilmarnock and his wife...
, aged 39, was mysteriously murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
ed in Kenya. Later that year, on September 30, her friend and fellow American expatriate in Paris, Alice de Janzé, committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
with a firearm. On 25 August 1942, her former lover, Prince George, was killed in a plane accident, aged 39.
On June 6, 1944, she endured possibly her greatest personal tragedy, when her son, Ethan Allen, was killed during the Normandy Landings. Allen was serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Death
After suffering from mental disorders for several years, Kiki committed suicide on the night of December 23, 1946, jumping out of a window of her fifth-floor apartment in the Stanhope HotelStanhope Hotel
995 Fifth Avenue is a 16-story co-op condominium building at 995 Fifth Avenue and East 81st Street in New York City, across Fifth Avenue from Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was constructed in 1926 as The Stanhope Apartment Hotel and designed by Rosario Candela...
of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and landing in a courtyard of the hotel. According to her companion, Lillian Turner, Kiki had been in poor health, depressed and nervous. Turner had just given Preston a glass of milk and then went into the living room of the apartment to read. When she heard no sounds coming from Kiki's bedroom, she entered it, only to find a window open and Kiki gone. Kiki's pajama-clad body was soon discovered in an areaway behind the hotel. Preston's mother, Helen Steele, was also living at the same hotel at the time. Today, Kiki's home on Lake Naivasha
Lake Naivasha
Lake Naivasha is a freshwater lake in Kenya, lying north west of Nairobi, outside the town of Naivasha. It is part of the Great Rift Valley. The name derives from the local Maasai name Nai'posha, meaning "rough water" because of the sudden storms which can arise...
is inhabited by the 7th Earl of Enniskillen
Earl of Enniskillen
Earl of Enniskillen is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1789 for William Cole, 1st Viscount Enniskillen. He had already been created Viscount Enniskillen in the Peerage of Ireland in 1776 and had inherited the title Baron Mount Florence, of Florence Court in the County of...
.
Illegitimate child allegations
It has been alleged for years that American publishing executive Michael Temple Canfield (1926 – 1969) was the illegitimate son of Prince George and Kiki Preston. According to various sources, both Prince George's brother, Duke of WindsorEdward VIII of the United Kingdom
Edward VIII was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, and Emperor of India, from 20 January to 11 December 1936.Before his accession to the throne, Edward was Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay...
and Laura, Duchess of Marlborough, Canfield's second wife, shared this belief.
Canfield was born in 1926 and was the adopted son of Cass Canfield
Cass Canfield
Augustus Cass Canfield was an American publishing executive who was the longtime president and chairman of Harper & Brothers, later Harper & Row.-Early life:...
, American publisher of Harper and Row. Michael Canfield served in the US Marine Corps in World War II and was wounded at Iwo Jima
Iwo Jima
Iwo Jima, officially , is an island of the Japanese Volcano Islands chain, which lie south of the Ogasawara Islands and together with them form the Ogasawara Archipelago. The island is located south of mainland Tokyo and administered as part of Ogasawara, one of eight villages of Tokyo...
. He graduated from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
in 1951 and worked as London representative of Harper and Row. He married twice, first to Lee Radziwill
Lee Radziwill
Caroline Lee Bouvier Canfield Radziwill Ross best known as Lee Radziwill, is an American socialite, public relations executive, and former actress and interior decorator. She is the younger sister of the late First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis...
, younger sister of Jacqueline Kennedy, in 1953 (divorced in 1958) and then to Laura, Duchess of Marlborough, in 1960. Canfield died on December 20, 1969, of heart attack, while on a New York-London flight, at the age of 43.
Legacy
Preston is referenced in James Fox's best-selling investigative non-fictionNon-fiction
Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...
book White Mischief (1982). Together with other personalities of the Happy Valley set, she appears as a fictional character in Paul Di Filippo
Paul Di Filippo
Paul Di Filippo is an American science fiction writer. He has been published in Postscripts...
's short story "A Happy Valley at the End of the World", included in the author's collection of short stories Lost Pages (1998). She also appears as a character in Clint Jefferies' play African Nights. The play is set in the Happy Valley community in Kenya, in the year 1928 and portrays, among other things, the romance between Kiki and Prince George. From May to June 2004, the play was performed on the Wings Theater in New York. Kiki was portrayed by actress Karen Stanion.