The Woman Who Nearly Destroyed The Monarchy

Edward VII ruthlessly dumped his mistress Thelma Furness in favor of Wallis Simpson, but the repercussions of this twisted affair poisoned the rest of Thelma’s life. At the time of her death, the jilted mistress was found with one of Edward’s gifts tucked into her handbag, and it revealed everything. Edward VII’s marriage to Wallis Simpson is something straight out of a romance novel, but she wasn’t the future King’s only famous mistress. That dubious honor also goes to Thelma Furness, the aunt of the infamous Gloria Vanderbilt. And Furness’s life is just as wild, if not wilder, than the lives of the famous figures around her.

When Thelma was a child, her mother had a nasty habit of flying into random bouts of rage at the slightest provocation. According to Thelma, even something as simple as a nail file borrowed from her dressing table and not put back would cause a storm. However, her mother would just as quickly forgive her children for displeasing her. This emotional manipulation formed the bulk of Thelma’s childhood, and it was she, more so than her twin sister Gloria, who endured the brunt of her mother’s brutality.

Due to her father’s job as an American diplomat, Thelma and her family never stayed in one place for long. When Thelma was a toddler, her family moved from Lucerne, Switzerland to Barcelona. Thelma’s mother ordered everyone to only speak Spanish and forbade her from doing anything unladylike, such as roller skating, which she feared would cause the development of unsightly muscles. Although these restrictions angered Thelma, they didn’t push the little girl away from her mother. In fact, as Thelma grew, she developed an unhealthy sense of attachment to her mother. Her love for her mom made her easy to manipulate, even when her mom’s actions were cruel, or as one childhood event revealed, downright evil.

While Thelma’s mother was in America, the family doctor gifted her and her sister a pair of pigeons. Sure, okay. Thelma loved the pigeons, which soon had a brood of chicks. When her mother returned, Thelma excitedly showed her the new family pets. She expected her mother to be happy, but what her mother actually did next was something straight out of a horror movie. Thelma’s mother ordered a servant to release the adult pigeons and then to kill and cook the baby pigeons for dinner. Thelma, crying and wailing, refused to eat them.

In 1913, Thelma’s dad attempted to move the family to Germany for his next job, but her mother flat out refused to leave Barcelona. With little choice, the family’s patriarch left his precious daughter behind. Without her father to keep her mother in check, Thelma suffered even more from her mother’s cruelty. Her mother refused to spend money on Thelma and convinced her that her father was a womanizer who didn’t love them. World War I threw Thelma’s life into absolute chaos. Her mother sent the twins to a French boarding school in England while she went and joined their father in Germany. Left alone in a strange country, Thelma struggled.

In 1915, 11-year-old Thelma managed to pull off the scam of the century. That year, her father was bound for New York, and upon hearing this, Thelma cooked up a plan to sneak onto the ship. She forged a telegram from her father to the American Consul General requesting passage upon the ship for herself and her twin sister. A few weeks later, Thelma’s mother received a telegram that nearly gave her a heart attack. It confirmed that Thelma and her sister had accommodations aboard the SS New Amsterdam at the behest of their father. Her mother blew her top, and in the face of her explosive rage, Thelma confessed to her forgery. But by then, it was too late. Her dad, all too pleased to be taking charge of his little girls, took them aboard the ship, and Thelma’s new life was about to begin.

Thelma and her sister absolutely fell in love with the hustle and bustle of New York City. While her father’s job meant she left New York quite frequently, she always regarded the city as her true home. By the time she was 16, she’d convinced her mother to allow her and her sister to live by themselves. Poor, sheltered Thelma had no idea what she was getting herself into. While Thelma’s travels made her wise in many ways, she was still naive when it came to matters of the heart. It’s no wonder that a less than savory character quickly caught her in his web.

During a Christmas party, Thelma met James Vail Converse, the grandson of the former president of AT&T. His rakish good looks immediately drew Thelma in, but it was his wild, suspiciously unbelievable stories that kept her coming back for more. 16-year-old Thelma was flattered by the attention he heaped upon her. He wined and dined her and convinced Thelma that he loved her. Her heart was primed for the taking, and then an accident soon gave Converse his chance to steal her away.

Despite being a part of high society, Thelma had comparatively little income. To supplement this, Thelma entered the dubious profession of acting. While the shame of being an actress was bad enough, it was about to get a whole lot worse. While on the set of “The Young Diana,” a fan blew dust and debris into her eyes for hours. The next day, she realized the full extent of the damage caused to her eyes, and the diagnosis was unspeakable. To her horror, Thelma realized that she’d gone blind. Her sister immediately called for a doctor who prescribed hourly doses of castor oil to heal her eyes. The prospect of being permanently blind terrified Thelma, and in her fragile emotional state, Converse stayed right by her side. After days of the agonizing castor oil treatment, Thelma’s sight returned. It was a moment of celebration, quickly followed by a decision she later regretted: Converse proposed marriage. At this point, Thelma suddenly had misgivings. Did she really want to marry a man 10 years her senior and who she barely knew? Turns out the answer was yes.

In February of 1922, 17-year-old Thelma eloped with Converse. For the first time ever, Thelma left her twin sister behind to live with her new husband, where it quickly became clear that her fairy tale marriage was in reality a nightmare. After a thoroughly fantastic honeymoon, Thelma returned home in April of 1922, where her relationship took a dark turn. Her new hubby drank heavily, and when drunk, he was a mean man. When Thelma became pregnant, her marriage only got worse. Poor naive Thelma didn’t expect her husband’s reaction when she announced her pregnancy. Instead of joy, Thelma’s husband was upset and jealous at the idea of having to compete with a baby for Thelma’s attention. Tragically, her husband didn’t need to worry for long. A few months into her pregnancy, she miscarried.

Thelma, in a state of utter despair, had no one to turn to, and her husband’s response was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back. While laid up in the hospital, Thelma’s husband dropped by to visit her, and he was overjoyed by the news of the miscarriage. At that moment, Thelma lost all love for her husband. She separated from him despite his protest and began traveling. Her newfound freedom meant that she could do practically anything she wanted, but even she didn’t predict the next wild turn her life suddenly took.

During an evening with several big Hollywood hotshots, famed director Allan Dwan offered her a small part in a film called “The Society Scandal.” Thelma soon packed her bags for Hollywood. The move completely scandalized her twin sister and her mother, who thought Hollywood was no place for a 19-year-old girl. Within two months of her move, director Sam Goldwyn got her a small part in the film “Cytherea,” one of the first color films ever made. Unfortunately, Thelma didn’t go on to make more groundbreaking films, all due to her relationship with one man.

During a dinner party held by her twin sister, Thelma met a British nobleman, the fabulously named Marmaduke Furness. From the moment she laid eyes on him, Thelma thought Marmaduke was special. After an evening of partying, she knew that he was the one. Thus began her descent into the truly insane world of royal life.

Thelma’s new love introduced her to something that she grew to enjoy: power. Marmaduke’s money and name meant that many doors were suddenly open to her, and along with that came many perks. She traveled with servants, ate at ritzy locations, and even had food flown to her at the drop of a hat. But Thelma’s relationship with Marmaduke came with one major downside: the press. They hounded her wherever she went, and the fact that she was still technically married to Converse only made them more hungry for gossip. That meant that everything from finalizing the divorce to her wedding with Marmaduke itself was kept under wraps. After months of stonewalling the press until they lost interest in her, Thelma finally got the chance to marry her one true love.

On June 27th, 1926, the two tied the knot in a small, private ceremony surrounded only by close friends and family. Thelma felt like she had it all: someone that loved her and who she loved in return, money, power, and fame. But then life threw her a curveball the very next day. She met another man.

The day after her wedding, Thelma received an invitation to a party hosted in Londonderry, and the Prince of Wales, Edward the VIII himself, was attending. When Thelma laid eyes on him, she thought him very handsome, but their infamous affair didn’t start right then and there. That happened three years later, when Thelma’s husband pushed her over the edge. Pretty soon, Thelma became pregnant with Marmaduke’s child. The pregnancy made her indescribably happy. Unfortunately, misfortune came for her once again. In spite of having her loving husband and stepchildren at her side, Thelma gave birth prematurely to a son named William Anthony on March 31st, 1929. The birth left her weak, and while in this state, her husband’s actions took a strange turn.

A few months after the birth of her son, Thelma was at a party when she made an innocent bet with her husband. Peggy Hopkins, one of the most glamorous women in America, was attending the party. Thelma bet her husband that he wouldn’t be able to get her to dance with him. To her annoyance, Marmaduke did manage to dance with Hopkins, and she lost the bet. Over the coming months, Thelma’s husband was more absent than not. Rumors began to swirl that Marmaduke was being unfaithful, but Thelma ignored them. After all, the penalties for divorce in England were severe, and moreover, her husband loved her.

By 1929, Thelma spent much of her time either alone or with her children. Her husband was frequently gone, and when he was home, the two spent much of their time arguing. Thelma’s stepdaughter, sensing her loneliness, invited her to the Leicester Fair, and that’s when fate stepped in. She bumped into someone she never expected to: the Prince of Wales, Edward. Recognizing Thelma from the party at Londonderry, he immediately walked up to her and invited her out for dinner and dancing in London. Against her better judgment, Thelma accepted.

Her first private meeting with Edward was like something out of a dream. They met in Edward’s private sitting room where they talked and drank. As the months wore on, Thelma and the prince began spending long weekends together at Fort Belvedere, a place close to Edward’s heart. It became clear that the two weren’t just having fun weekend hangouts together. Thelma spent many happy months with Edward, but the arrival of another infamous woman abruptly ended her joy. Sometime between 1930 and 1931, Thelma met someone that changed her life, and that of Edward: Wallis Simpson.

In fact, it was Thelma who introduced Edward to Simpson. Although Thelma didn’t know it at the time, she had just doomed her own relationship with Edward. By now, Thelma and her husband practically lived separate lives, so she was surprised when she suddenly received a telegram asking her to join him in Nairobi and promising to work on their relationship. When Thelma joined her husband in Nairobi, he was attentive and kind for a while. Quickly, his old habits slipped through the cracks, and the frequent arguing started up again. Soon enough, both Thelma and Marmaduke came to an earth-shattering realization: there was simply no salvaging their marriage. The two separated, and she returned to Edward.

Upon telling Edward of the news, the two were incredibly joyful, but there was also an undercurrent of sadness. Thelma knew in her heart that marriage to Edward was impossible. Edward would one day be the king and would bear an incredible amount of responsibility along with that title. Obviously, he wouldn’t and couldn’t marry her. In the moment, though, she was just happy to be with someone who loved her and whom she trusted.

In January 1934, Thelma’s twin sister invited her to California for a visit. She’d be gone for five or six weeks. Edward was less than happy to be away from her for so long, and that’s when Thelma had a stroke of genius. She asked her good friend Wallis Simpson to keep Edward company. Yep, genius. No way can this backfire.

For now, Thelma busied herself in America while exchanging frequent telegrams and calls with Edward. In all respects, her relationship with the future king seemed to be going well. Even if she didn’t expect it to lead to marriage, in her mind, she was more or less taken. But that didn’t stop suitors in America from making their moves. While in New York, Thelma met the handsome and dashing Prince Aly Khan. Although she only had eyes for Edward, Khan was absolutely taken by her, to the point where he asked Thelma to delay her trip back home to London for his sake. She said no, of course, but that didn’t stop him from bombarding her with flowers and declarations of love.

Upon her return to London, Thelma met with Edward, and she immediately knew something was off. Edward wasn’t himself. He remarked that he heard rumors of Khan’s extravagant shows of affection for her. Confused and distressed by Edward’s coolness, Thelma turned to a friend for advice. When Thelma met with Simpson, everything clicked into place. While Thelma was in the middle of inviting her to a couple’s weekend getaway, Simpson received a direct phone call from Edward. For Thelma, the alarm bells were screaming. Then, during that weekend get-together, she noticed the secretive glances shared between Edward and Simpson. At that moment, Thelma knew that both of them had betrayed her, and she wouldn’t stand for it.

Angry at the prince for stabbing her in the back, Thelma got her revenge. She started seeing Prince Aly Khan, the man that pined for her during her trip to America. Khan was the perfect escape; he allowed Thelma to bury her heartache deep into the back of her mind. But the relationship didn’t last. Eventually they drifted apart.

Thelma felt more alone than ever, but she still had one person to lean on. In 1947, Thelma reunited with her twin in New York to care for her after a surgical procedure. Tragically, the procedure went wrong, and Thelma desperately spent every penny she had to keep her twin alive. In 1955, Thelma received news that her mother, the towering titan that once ruled over her childhood, was ill. Thelma and her twin went to see her at once. Despite the pain her mother had caused her, she still saw her as family. A month later, her mother was gone. Thelma’s twin received $80,000 from her mother’s will, and the two of them started a new life together.

However, this didn’t mean that Thelma had completely forsaken her past. In fact, she kept a token of remembrance—one that was utterly heartbreaking. On January 29th, 1970, at the age of 65, Furness’s life came to an end while she was on the way to see her doctor. She had a heart attack at the corner of Lexington and 73rd Street in Manhattan. According to her niece, Gloria Vanderbilt, in Thelma’s bag was a miniature teddy bear that the Prince of Wales had given her years before, and it was worn down to the nub.

If you enjoyed this video, please give it a like and subscribe.