Nina S. Gore

Nina S. Olds (née Gore; July 25, 1903 – April 3, 1978)

Early life

Nina S. Gore was born on July 25, 1903, to U.S. Senator Thomas Gore (1870–1949) and his wife Nina Belle Kay (1877–1963), a Texas plantation owner's daughter. She had a younger brother, Thomas Notley Gore (1910–1964). Her father, who lost his eyesight during his youth, was said to have been an atheist and had a strong misanthropic streak. Nina's son would later write that "he was a genuine populist, but he did not like people very much. He always said no to anyone who wanted government aid." Thomas Gore died in 1949.

Life and Personality In 1928, Gore made her Broadway debut in Sign of the Leopard, which opened at the National Theatre. In 1940, Nina, an alternate delegate from Virginia to the Democratic convention announced her support of Wendell Willkie over Roosevelt.

From 1925 until 1950, she lived in Washington, D.C. She later split her time between Cuernavaca, Mexico, and Southampton, New York. In the seven years preceding her death, she lived in San Antonio, Texas. and was said to have had an affair with John Hay Whitney in the early 1930s while he was married to Liz Whitney Tippett, at the same time Liz had an affair with Nina Vidal's husband, Eugene Vidal. Nina also had "a long off-and-on affair" with the actor Clark Gable. She was also described thus:

"When she enters a room you feel here comes everything fresh, healthy, and beautiful. Her skin glows warmly and her huge brown eyes are bright. An outdoor woman, she is full of indoor charm. Rides every day of her life." They divorced in 1935. Together, they had one child:

Gore Vidal (1925-2012), the writer.

In 1935, Nina married Hugh Dudley Auchincloss, Jr. (1897-1976), the son of Hugh Dudley Auchincloss, Sr., a merchant and financier, and Emma Brewster Jennings. Hugh had previously been married to Maya de Chrapovitsky, a Russian noblewoman, from 1925 to 1932. Hugh and Maya had one child, Hugh Dudley Auchincloss III. Together, Nina and Hugh had two children:

Nina Auchincloss (born 1937), who married Newton Steers in 1957, after having briefly dated Ted Kennedy. They divorced in 1974 when she married Michael Whitney Straight, a member of the Whitney family who was a publisher and novelist. Straight was the son of Willard Dickerman Straight, an investment banker who died in Michael's infancy, and Dorothy Payne Whitney, a philanthropist. They divorced in 1998. Thomas Gore Auchincloss (born 1939),

Hugh and Nina divorced in 1941. Hugh remarried Janet Lee Bouvier, the mother of future First Lady Jacqueline Lee "Jackie" Bouvier and Caroline Lee Bouvier. Hugh and Janet had two children together, Janet Jennings Auchincloss and James Lee Auchincloss.

In June 1942, Nina remarried for the third and final time to Robert Olds (1896-1943). Robert died of pneumonia on April 28, 1943, after hospitalization for constrictive pericarditis and Libman-Sacks endocarditis, at the age of 46, just before his son Robin Olds' graduation from West Point.

Nina died on April 3, 1978, in New York City at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital after a long illness.

Descendants Olds was the grandmother of Hugh Auchincloss Steers (1963–1995), an artist and Burr Gore Steers (born 1965), a filmmaker.