MOMMIE DEAREST.

Byline: MELISSA WHITWORTH

The great and the good of New York have found a new lease of life: their latest cause follows claims of neglect of Brooke Astor by her only son.

The 104-year-old philanthropist has had her Estee Lauder face cream replaced with Vaseline, her apartment stripped of its treasures, and her dachshunds locked howling in the basement. Melissa Whitworth on the Astor disaster that's the talk of the town

Battle of New York Blue Bloods.' 'The Fight To Save Brooke.' These were the hysterical headlines from New York's tabloids last month. The downfall of the city's most beloved philanthropist and most powerful socialite, allegedly at the hands of her own son, has been making front-page news for days.

The genteel and very closed world of New York's high society - from Fifth Avenue to Palm Beach - has been shocked to the core by the discovery that Mrs Astor, at the age of 104, is living in a freezing cold, dilapidated flat in a Park Avenue building, being fed pureed peas and porridge through a straw. She is considered by many to be a New York icon, who in 1959 was left a $45 million fortune and the sole charge of the Vincent Astor Foundation by her third husband, Vincent Astor.

In her prime, Mrs Astor represented the American dream; she was the high priestess of philanthropy - the embodiment of old money, class and generosity - but also glamour. She was a national treasure, New York's equivalent of the Queen Mother. Her fur coats - she was never seen without one during the city's harsh winters - have now been replaced by torn nightgowns and mangy blankets.

Her French chef and multiple nurses have been sacked and replaced with cheaper alternatives.

'It's what everybody is talking about this summer - from Park Avenue to the Hamptons to Maine,' says Nadine Johnson, who was formerly married to New York's most powerful gossip columnist, Page Six editor Richard Johnson.

Nadine is not only a regular on New York's social scene but organises many of its most prestigious events with her boutique PR agency. She arranged the now infamous launch of Tina Brown's Talk magazine which involved a cocktail party at the base of the Statue of Liberty. People compared the event to Truman Capote's Black & White ball, and it goes down in New York party history.

'It's a shame that, after decades of good works to the city of New York, the first line of Mrs Astor's obituary will be the money scandal brought about by her greedy son and daughter-in-law,' Dominick Dunne, the investigative reporter and chronicler of high society, told ES.

The scandal erupted two weeks ago, when the New York Daily News broke the story that Mrs Astor's grandson, Philip Marshall, 53, had filed a lawsuit against his father Anthony Marshall, 82. Court papers say that as Mrs Astor's legal guardian, her only son and his third wife, Charlene, have been making cutbacks in order to save much of the Astor fortune for themselves. Anthony runs the estate and pays himself $2.3 million a year to do so.

The alleged budgeting includes less frequent visits from her doctor - Mrs Astor suffers from skin cancer, a heart condition and chronic anaemia - and instructions to the nurses to buy cheaper, diluted versions of prescriptions over the internet. Other reported cutbacks include replacing his mother's favourite Estee Lauder cosmetics with a tub of Vaseline, the refusal to buy a hospital bed with protective rails, despite the fact that she has fallen out of bed several times and has twice broken her hip.

According to the Daily News, an enzyme supplement Mrs Astor was taking for her heart and skin cancer was stopped. The drug costs $60 a bottle. Requests for air purifiers, non-slip socks, new nightgowns and hair dye have been denied, while artworks and statues have been removed from her once lavish Park Avenue apartment.

'My grandmother is one of the great philanthropists of our time,' Philip Marshall told New York's press. 'The sad and deplorable state of my family's affairs has compelled me to bring this guardianship action.' Philip is a professor of architectural preservation at the private Roger Williams University, in Rhode Island. He has a twin brother, Alec, who is a photographer. The twins are from Anthony's first marriage, to Elizabeth Cryan. After divorcing Elizabeth, Anthony was married to Thelma Hoegnell for 23 years before leaving her for Charlene.

'My grandmother has devoted her life to making the world a better place,' Philip continued, saying he was unable to give his father advance warning of the legal action because he felt it would have enraged his stepmother, Charlene. 'I love my father, but I felt he is under such influence from Charlene that I couldn't talk to him.' In court papers he says, 'My grandmother owns valuable jewellery, art and furniture. I cannot estimate the value of these items.

However, I am aware that my father sold one of my grandmother's favourite paintings.' It was reported the painting is valued at up to $12 million.

His cousin Richard Cryan, 50, told The New York Times that he was acting out of 'concerns about the wellbeing of his grandmother' not 'greed'. Cryan said Anthony Marshall was a 'classic father of the Fifties' devoted to his career and 'not very accessible to Philip emotionally'.

Mrs Astor's circle of famous friends are horrified. Her closest ally, Annette de la Renta, who is a fellow philanthropist and the wife of fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, was appointed (along with an executive from JPMorgan Chase bank) as Mrs Astor's temporary legal guardian by a Manhattan judge on 26 July. Mrs Astor was moved to a private hospital. De la Renta, the daughter of a prominent German banker, Dr Fritz Mannheimer, has served on the board of directors of Rockefeller University for 25 years, in addition to the boards of the Metropolitan Museum, the New York Public Library, the Morgan Library and the Engelhard Foundation. She issued a statement saying: 'Because of the failure of Ms Astor's son, Anthony, to spend her money properly, the quality of life of Ms Astor has been significantly eroded.' Mrs Astor has been the grande dame of New York society for decades. She has dined with Cole Porter, the Reagans and the Queen. Her friends were Truman Capote, Cecil Beaton, Noel Coward, and Elsa Maxwell, the gossip columnist who entertained royalty and members of the high society, earning the title 'the hostess with the mostest'. In 1998, Mrs Astor was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Bill Clinton and has hosted dinners for Kofi Annan, Camilla Parker Bowles (on her visit in 1999) and many other dignitaries. The word 'doyenne' could have been invented for her. Aside from luxuries such as daily massages and couture clothing, she took yoga classes well into her nineties. She liked to walk her dachshunds, Boysie and Girlsie, across Central Park.

The dogs are now allegedly barricaded in the basement.

Born Brooke Russell in New Hampshire, she was married twice before marrying into the Astor family. She had an idyllic, loving childhood, growing up in China where her father was a Marine commandant. Her grandfather was a descendant of one of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence. Her mother told her that she never had another child after Brooke because she 'stopped at perfection'.

At the age of 17 she married John Dryden Kuser, a wealthy man from New Jersey. Anthony was their only child. After ten rocky years, Kuser left her and his son. Three years later she married Charles Marshall, a financier, whom she adored and was married to for 20 years until he died in 1952.

Anthony adopted Marshall's surname when he was 18.

Determined never to marry again, she met 62-year-old Vincent Astor six months later at a party and he relentlessly pursued her. She refused his offer of marriage twice before giving in. 'He was an unhappy person,' she once said of the man she called 'Captain'. His childhood had been spent in boarding schools and being looked after by nannies. 'I wanted to give him some happiness.' Before Vincent died in 1959, after six happy years of marriage, he famously told her, 'Pookie, you are going to have a hell of a lot of fun with the money when I'm gone.' And she

did. Between 1959 and 1997 she gave away $200 million to New York charities large and small. In the Eighties she gave $24 million to the New York Public Library, saving it from bankruptcy.

The president of the New York Public Library, Dr Paul LeClerc, says, 'Our library's brilliance today derives directly from Brooke Astor's extraordinary patronage and advocacy. Her kindness, her love of reading and of good books, and her passion for helping all New Yorkers through the library and its programmes are beyond compare.' She was as happy attending a white-tie fundraiser as visiting a small project in an impoverished part of The Bronx, friends say. She would travel by chauffeur-driven car - wearing a hat and gloves - to see how her money was being spent at small organisations on the Lower East Side or in Harlem.

She never invested in a project she hadn't seen and would tell people that dressing down to meet the poor was patronising and disrespectful.

'The money was made in New York, so it must be spent in New York,' she once said. Another favourite saying was, 'Money is like manure. It should be spread around.' The foundation was disbanded in 1997 because of Mrs Astor's advancing years. Some believe it is the source of the rancour between mother and son.

The other is Mrs Astor's quiet disapproval of her son's third wife, who is from the small town of Northeast Harbor in Maine, and had left her Episcopal minister husband, Rev Paul E Gilbert, in 1990 for Anthony. They were married in 1992 and he gained two stepdaughters, Arden Delacey, who is the music director at the Cathedral School of the Cathedral of St John the Divine, New York, and Inness Hancock, an artist. Nan Lincoln, arts editor of the Bar Harbor Times, said last week, 'It was no small scandal, when she ran off.' It has been rumoured that Mrs Astor, ashamed of the situation, made donations to Charlene's ex-husband's church.

'Brooke Astor has a wonderful aura of goodness about her,' says Nadine Johnson, 'coupled with a wicked and very sharp insight into people. What is happening must be devastating for her - as families like the Astors have a principle of never washing their dirty laundry in public.' Banker, statesman and oil scion David Rockefeller (grandson of John D) said of the scandal: 'I have known Brooke Astor since the late Forties, and consider her a very close friend of mine. I am concerned about her welfare and hope that guardians are appointed to look after her needs.' Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said: 'I believe that Annette de la Renta would make an excellent temporary guardian for Ms Astor, and an excellent permanent guardian.' The New York Post's gossip columnist Cindy Adams wrote: 'Brooke is not entitled to suffer the evils of that ingrate, useless, underemployed, disgusting male heir to whom she gave birth. An insect who was never successful at anything beyond spending his mother's money, he specialises in nothing.' But the fact is that Anthony Marshall has had a full and successful career. He was a marine in the Second World War and fought in the battle of Iwo Jima.

He was an intelligence officer with the CIA in the Fifties and a US ambassador to Kenya, after a stint in Istanbul. He went on to become a Broadway producer who won two Tony Awards, in 2003 and 2004, for productions of Long Day's Journey into Night and I Am My Own Wife. 'All I have are good memories of Tony,' one of his Broadway co-producers has said.

The court hearing on behalf of his mother took place on 8 August. Nurses, aides and former staff members are all thought to have come forward and the latest development will surely have come to the judge's notice. It was reported by the New York Post that Anthony and Charlene recently bought a $1 million yacht and in 2003 transferred the deeds of Mrs Astor's estate in Maine to Charlene's name. The couple's spokeswoman said the property was a gift.

On Marshall's side are colleagues who have come forward to defend him. One is an editor at Conde Nast Traveler in New York, where Marshall has been a contributing editor for years. 'He's an old-world gentleman.

He is a sweet person and he spoke so kindly of his mother,' says Irene Schneider. David Richenthal, a theatre producer and friend, said: 'Mrs Astor has lived to 104 because of Tony's care. He has been a loving, dutiful son, and she adores him. The grandson is a troubled young man.' Some have even suggested that the rift was caused by a dispute over who would be Brooke Astor's heir.

In a statement issued on 28 July, Marshall said: 'I am shocked and deeply hurt by the allegations against me, which are completely untrue. I love my mother and no one cares more about her than I do. Her wellbeing, her comfort and her dignity mean everything to me. While I appreciate the many expressions of concern for my mother's wellbeing, I regret that a number of well-intentioned people have been misled and misinformed about this situation. I have always taken good care of my mother, including overseeing annual expenditures of over $2.5 million for her care and comfort alone. My mother has a staff of eight with instructions to provide her with whatever she needs and whatever they think she should have. I am very troubled that allegations like thesewould first be made in a court petition, instead of discussing any concerns with me directly.' The Astor family made their fortune when John Jacob Astor, the son of a German butcher, emigrated to America in 1784 and became a successful furrier trading with the native Indians. By 1840 he was the country's first millionaire. His son, William Blackhouse Astor, and grandsons built on the fortune by buying up property in Manhattan.

They also built the famous Waldorf-Astoria hotel.

It was John Jacob Astor IV, the father of Vincent, who died on the Titanic in 1912 after eloping with an 18-year-old and getting her pregnant. JJ's wife, Madeleine, survived the disaster and their son Vincent was born four months later.

The British arm of the family has also flourished, but not without its own scandals. John Jacob's grandson, William Waldorf Astor, came to England in 1891 after a family feud. He bought Cliveden, and later Hever Castle, Kent.

It was at a party at Cliveden that John Profumo met Christine Keeler and began the scandal that rocked the Tory party. The Astors continue to be influential in British society.

Society-watchers in New York are hopeful that Brooke Astor will be saved from her Miss Havisham-like existence and regain some of her spry wit. Once, while out dressed in all her finery, she was approached by a potential mugger. He lost his nerve when she said, 'Excuse me, we have not been introduced properly. I'm Mrs Astor.'