Thelma Furness, Viscountess Furness
| Thelma Furness, Viscountess Furness | |
|---|---|
Thelma, Viscountess Furness, in 1955.
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| Born |
Thelma Morgan 23 August 1904 Hotel Nationale, Lucerne, Switzerland |
| Died |
29 January 1970 (aged 65) New York |
| Resting place | Holy Cross Cemetery |
| Spouse(s) |
James Vail Converse (m. 1922; div. 1925) Marmaduke Furness, 1st Viscount Furness (m. 1926; div. 1933) |
| Partner(s) |
Edward, Prince of Wales Prince Aly Khan |
| Children | William Anthony Furness, 2nd Viscount Furness |
| Parent(s) | Laura Delphine Kilpatrick Harry Hayes Morgan, Sr. |
Thelma Furness, Viscountess Furness (23 August 1904 – 29 January 1970), born Thelma Morgan, was a mistress of King Edward VIII while he was still the Prince of Wales; she preceded Wallis Simpson (for whose sake Edward abdicated and became the Duke of Windsor) in his affections.
During most of her relationship with the Prince, she was married to a British nobleman, Marmaduke Furness, 1st Viscount Furness. That marriage ended the year before her relationship with the Prince ended.
Her first name was pronounced in Spanish fashion as "TEL-ma." Her identical twin sister was Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt who was married to Reginald Vanderbilt and had a daughter, Gloria Vanderbilt.
Born in Lucerne, Switzerland, she was a daughter of Harry Hays Morgan Sr., an American diplomat who was U.S. consul in Buenos Aires and in Brussels, and his half-Chilean, half-Irish-American wife, Laura Delphine Kilpatrick. Married in 1893, they were divorced in 1927.
Her maternal grandfather was a Union general, Hugh Judson Kilpatrick (1836–1881), who was also U.S. minister to Chile, and through her maternal grandmother Luisa Fernandez de Valdivieso, who was a niece of Crescente Errázuriz Valdivieso, Archbishop of Santiago, she reportedly was a descendant of Spain's Royal House of Navarre.
Thelma Morgan had two sisters: Gloria (her identical twin, the mother of Gloria Vanderbilt, the fashion designer and artist and mother of news anchor Anderson Cooper) and Laura Consuelo Morgan (aka Tamar), who was married to Count Jean de Maupas du Juglart (a French nobleman), to Benjamin Thaw, Jr. of Pittsburgh, and to Alfons B. Landa, president of Colonial Airlines and vice-chairman of the finance committee of the Democratic National Committee in 1948. She also had a brother, Harry Hays Morgan, Jr., who became a diplomat and then a minor Hollywood actor in such films as Abie's Irish Rose (1946), Joan of Arc (1948), and others. Her half-siblings, from her father's first marriage to Mary E. Edgerton, were Constance (1887–1892) and Gladys "Margaret" Morgan (1889–1958).
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