American heiress and socialite, the only child of the cereal tycoon C.W. Post, born after 13 years of her parent’s childless marriage. She possessed a sharp mind, a beauty that increased with age and a kind of fortune that embarrassed the most enthusiastic capitalists. With all the advantages and none of the responsibilities of monarchy, she took charge of a vast family fortune at 27, some $250 million. She had the strength of character to command her fortune rather than fall hostage to it, and with a life-relishing zest, she created the most lavish living pattern ever seen in modern times. Along with a strong will and a rigid sense of discipline, a brilliant and shrewd businesswoman, Post had three magnificent estates, jewels and Czarist treasures.
As a girl, Marjorie’s world revolved around her doting father. As her parents developed a rift, it caused her much pain, and she never forgave the secretary who became her step-mother in 1904. She herself made four marriages, the first in 1905 to a smitten suitor, Ed Close, five years older than her schoolgirl 18. She was still daddy’s girl, the pet of her beloved father, and though Ed was a haven, the thrills and glamour in her life were still associated with dad. In 1914, beset with depression and business problems, her dad shot himself to death. Marjorie’s reaction as a stoic ability to function in the face of disaster.
In 1919, she was finished with her marriage to Ed Close, though they remained cordial. Essentially, she was closing the chapter of her childhood.
Many of the main events of Marjorie’s life occurred with her second husband, E.F. Hutton. She established General Foods and the frozen food industry, purchased her sprawling Adirondacks camp and her Long Island estate, and had three major spending binges, a Palm Beach estate, a Manhattan apartment and the decoration of an ocean-going yacht. The young couple, attractive and rich, also set a social splash. The marriage produced a daughter, Nedenia Hutton, who later became a movie star named Dina Merrill. Hutton had a sharp eye for a pretty woman and after a decade, his extracurricular activities became too much for Marjorie to ignore and when she caught him with a chambermaid in their own bedroom, the marriage ended.
Her third husband, Joseph Davies, was a rich layer and a White House insider whom she met on a transatlantic crossing while he was still married. In a cool transaction, her lawyers met with Mrs. Davies offering Marjorie’s check for $2 million for her to give Joe his freedom. Married to Davies in December 1935, she became the wife of the Ambassador to the Soviet Union and relished the waters of social politics. After they had two daughters, as Joe became impotent, he became increasingly possessive and jealous. For the first ten years of their marriage, he was an adored husband and for the last ten, a problem that had to planned around and finally, avoided.
In June 1958, a strikingly beautiful woman of 71, Marjorie married handsome 65-year-old Herbert A. May, a prominent Pittsburgh businessman and top executive of Westinghouse. The trouble with their marriage soon came out. He preferred members of his own sex and complained to a friend, “My God, she wants to do it every night!” With a sparkle in her eye, Post was still interested in men into her 80s. She lived to 86, dying on 12 September 1973 in Hillwood Estate, Washington, D.C.
Link to Wikipedia biography