American newsmaker from a noted family, the daughter of actress Mary Astor and her second husband Dr. Franklyn Thorpe, she was born during a trip to Hawaii. Her first name combined her parents’ names and her middle name is Hawaiian.
Her parents’ marriage turned unhappy soon after her birth due to Thorpe having a short temper and a habit of listing Astor’s faults; she wanted a divorce by 1933. At a friend’s suggestion, she took a break from movie-making in 1933 and visited New York alone. While there, enjoying a whirlwind social life, she met the playwright George S. Kaufman, who was in a strong but open marriage. She documented their affair in her diary. Thorpe, by now making use of his wife’s income, had discovered Astor’s diary. He indicated her liaisons with other men, including Kaufman, would be used to claim she was an unfit mother in any divorce proceedings.
Dr. Franklyn Thorpe divorced Mary Astor in April 1935. A legal battle drew press attention to Astor in 1936 when a custody battle resulted over four-year-old daughter, Marylyn. Astor’s diary was never formally offered as evidence during the trial, but Thorpe and his lawyers constantly referred to it, and its notoriety grew. Astor admitted that the diary existed and that she had documented her affair with Kaufman, but maintained that many of the parts that had been referred to were forgeries, following the theft of the diary from her desk. The diary was deemed inadmissible as a mutilated document because Thorpe had removed pages referring to himself and had fabricated content. The trial judge, Goodwin J. Knight, ordered it sealed and impounded.
Ultimately, the scandals caused no harm to Astor’s career, which was actually revitalized because of the custody fight and the publicity it generated. In 1952, by court order, Astor’s diary was removed from the bank vault where it had been sequestered for 16 years and destroyed.
Marylyn Thorpe appeared in the film Racket Squad (1950). She married Frank Roh.
Marylyn’s younger half-brother, Anthony del Campo, came from her mother’s third marriage to Mexican film editor Manuel del Campo. Her mother died on 25 September 1987 at age 81.
Link to Wikipedia biography