THE ADVOCATE 617
VOL. 80 PART 4 JULY 2022
anti-Semitism and an army cover-up. Nevertheless, Dreyfus was convicted
for a second time. Due to an enormous public outcry, he was offered and
accepted a pardon, which meant an admission of guilt by him, but which
also meant he did not have to return to Devil’s Island. Officially, Dreyfus
remained a traitor, so he could not rejoin the army. Later, in 1906, he
received a full exoneration by a military commission and was readmitted to
the army the next day with a promotion to the rank of major.
THE VANDERBILT CUSTODY TRIAL
Gloria Laura Vanderbilt was an American actress, fashion designer, heiress
and socialite. She was the only child of railroad heir Reginald Claypoole
Vanderbilt and his second wife Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt. When young Gloria
was 18 months old, her father died, and she became the heiress to a US$5
million trust fund (it was 1926 and the equivalent fortune today would be
worth about US$77 million). Gloria’s mother controlled the trust fund and
for years travelled to and from Paris taking her daughter with her. They
were accompanied by Gloria’s nanny, “Dodo”, and her mother’s identical
twin sister, Thelma (who was the mistress of the Prince of Wales).
When Gloria was about ten years old, the mother’s finances came under
the scrutiny of an aunt, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who sought custody
of her niece, alleging that the child’s mother was unfit to be guardian. The
trial became something of a scandal and a rather shocked judge closed it to
the public when the nanny, Dodo, accused Gloria’s mother of having a lesbian
affair with a member of the British royal family. Auntie Gertrude, who
won custody of Gloria, was played by Angela Lansbury in the 1982 TV
miniseries Little Gloria … Happy at Last. Gloria Vanderbilt went on to lead a
colourful life and died in 2019 at the age of 95, amassing her own fortune in
fashion design along the way.
THE THORPE AFFAIR
Jeremy Thorpe was a British Member of Parliament and leader of the Liberal
Party. In 1977, he was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and
incitement to murder. Thorpe was an Eton- and Oxford-educated man
known for his excellent debating skills and scathing wit. He was also a
homosexual at a time when such activity was illegal in the United Kingdom,
and he desperately kept this fact about himself away from the public eye,
going so far as to marry a woman because it gave him a five per cent advantage
in election polls.
In 1961, Thorpe began a relationship with Norman Scott, a stable boy he
had met about a year earlier. Thorpe arranged accommodation for Scott