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Center left: Betty's mother-in-law, Evalyn Walsh McLean, wearing the Hope Diamond, 1913. Above: Betty Brooke Blake, circa 1934. architect's most spectacular achievements. The fabled 1,000-acre, 50-room Georgian fortress is best known as the inspiration for The Philadelphia Story, a play by Philip Barry that became a movie starring Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and Jimmy Stewart. Hepburn's madcap character, Tracy Lord, was based on social butterfly Hope Montgomery, whose family still lives in Ardrossan. Although Hope was a few years older, she and Betty were friends. They'd both attended the Foxcroft School in Virginia, and their families often traveled together — and at one point, even went into business together. Betty's mother, Lucile Stewart Polk, was a Baltimore debutante of genteel lineage. A descendant of President James Polk and the great-great granddaughter of the first speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, she was a great beauty. Lucile's striking clothes — and antics — were often chronicled in newspapers. By one account, she startled Newport society one summer season, dressed head-to-toe in flaming red. Athletic, she was reported to be the first woman to play polo riding astride, and she was often seen driving her own six-horse carriage through the busy streets. Other ladies of the era spent time reading, sewing, and receiving guests; Lucile preferred to play the stock market. After her marriage to coal-mining heir William Ernest Carter, the couple moved to Europe — their servants and William's string of polo ponies in tow. It was on a return trip to the United States in 1912 that they booked first-class passage on the RMS Titanic. The boat, as we are all now privy, sank after hitting an iceberg. Lucile and her husband survived, along with Betty's 11-year-old half-brother and 14-year-old half-sister. (Betty would be born four years later, when her mother divorced William and married banker and steel manufacturer, George Brooke Jr.) After the disaster at sea, Lucile was hailed as a heroine for helping row lifeboat No. 4, packed with women and children, in the frigid waters to safety. Her husband didn't fare as well in the court of public opinion, however. Lucile sued for divorce, citing "cruel and barbarous treatment." Her sworn testimony, obtained by the press, revealed that William had left his family to fend for itself while the Titanic sank. British and U.S. government inquiries into the tragedy documented that her husband escaped in a collapsible lifeboat with Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line, which built the Titanic, arriving to safety long before others. Betty steadfastly refused to talk publicly about the Titanic for most of her life. "It happened before I was even born!" she'd exclaim in exasperation when asked. While she remained mostly mum, a wealth of documented information about the Titanic inextricably entwines her family to the disaster forever. When James Cameron's film was released, it was peppered with Carter family details: The now-famous Renault automobile in the ship's cargo, a gift from William to Lucile, became the setting for a tryst between Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. David Nelson Wren, who interviewed Betty a year before her death, says she credited John Astor with helping her 11-year-old half-brother, Billy Jr., escape by placing a woman's hat on him. (Even though he was a child, some officers would only let women and girls aboard lifeboats, provided they were first-class passengers.) The real-life scenario, told to her by her mother, became inspiration for a similar scene in the movie. "What Betty seemed to ponder, though, was where the hat came from," says Wren. "She said she didn't know (continued on page 54) Seafair, Betty Blake's home in Newport, Rhode Island, circa 1950s. Betty Blake in Newport, 1966. 53