Consuelo Vanderbilt-Balsan (formerly Consuelo Spencer-Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough; born Consuelo Vanderbilt; March 2, 1877 – December 6, 1964) was a socialite and a member of the prominent American Vanderbilt family. Her first marriage to the 9th Duke of Marlborough has become a well-known example of one of the advantageous, but loveless, marriages common during the Gilded Age; as such, she was known as one of the earliest dollar princesses. The Duke obtained a large dowry by the marriage, and reportedly told her just after the marriage that he married her in order to "save Blenheim Palace", his ancestral home. Although the teenage Consuelo was opposed to the marriage arranged by her mother, she became a popular and influential Duchess. For much of their 25-year marriage, the Marlboroughs lived separately and the marriage was finally annulled. Her first marriage produced two sons, John Spencer-Churchill, the 10th duke, and Lord Ivor Spencer-Churchill. She went on to marry the wealthy French aviator Jacques Balsan and continued her charitable endeavours. She lived in France before World War II, when she and Balsan returned to live in New York. When she died, she was buried near her son, Lord Ivor, not far from Blenheim Palace. Life Early life Born in New York City, Consuelo Vanderbilt was the only daughter and eldest child of William Kissam Vanderbilt, a New York railroad millionaire, and his first wife, a Southern belle and budding suffragist Alva Erskine Smith (1853–1933, who later married Oliver Belmont) from Mobile, Alabama (a daughter of Murray Forbes Smith). Her Spanish name was in honor of her godmother, Consuelo Yznaga (1853–1909), a half-Cuban, half-American socialite who created a social stir a year earlier when she married the fortune-hunting George, Viscount Mandeville, a union of Old World aristocracy and New World money that caused the groom's father, the 7th Duke of Manchester, to openly wonder if his son and heir had married a "Red Indian". Consuelo and her friends were the inspiration for Edith Wharton's unfinished novel The Buccaneers. Consuelo Vanderbilt was largely dominated by her mother, who was determined that her daughter would make a great marriage like that of her famous namesake. In her autobiography, Consuelo Vanderbilt described how she was required to wear a steel rod, which ran down her spine and fastened around her waist and over her shoulders, to improve her posture. She was educated entirely at home by governesses and