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Vanderbilt, Gloria Laura (20 February 1924–17 June 2019), socialite, fashion designer, and entrepreneur, was born in New York City, the only child of Reginald Vanderbilt, great-grandson of Cornelius (“Commodore”) Vanderbilt, a legendary nineteenth-century shipping tycoon, and Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, descended from a distinguished family of diplomats, judges, and a Civil War Union general. Reginald was a heavy-drinking heir to a railway fortune, a noted equestrian, and a playboy who was twenty-four years his wife’s senior. “Little Gloria,” as his daughter became publicly known, was a celebrity virtually from birth, heiress to a presumed fortune. Following Reginald Vanderbilt’s death in ...