Kiki Preston
| Kiki Preston | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1898 Hempstead, New York |
| Died | December 23, 1946 (aged 48) New York City, New York |
| Occupation | Heiress |
| Spouse(s) | Horace R. Bigelow Allen (m.1919-1924; divorced) Jerome Preston (m.1925-1934; his death) |
| Children | 3 (1 disputed) |
Kiki Preston, née Alice Gwynne (1898 - December 23, 1946) was an American socialite, a member of the Happy Valley set, and the alleged mother of a child born out of wedlock with Prince George, Duke of Kent, fourth son of King George V. Known for her drug addiction, which earned her the soubriquet "the girl with the silver syringe", she was a fixture of the Paris and New York high social circles, and a relation to the powerful Vanderbilt and Whitney families. Her life was marred by several tragic losses and her own mental problems, which eventually led to her suicide at 48.
Alice "Kiki" Gwynne, later more commonly known as Kiki Preston, was born in 1898, in Hempstead, Nassau County, Long Island, New York, the daughter of Edward Erskine Gwynne, Sr. (1869 – 10 May 1904) and his wife, the former Helen Steele (? – 4 January 1958). Edward Gwynne was the nephew of tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt II and his wife, socialite Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt, making him a distant relation of the prominent and wealthy Whitney family. Her mother, Helen, was a great-granddaughter of Justice Samuel Chase, one of the signatories of the United States Declaration of Independence, as well as a granddaughter of Joshua Barney, commodore of the United States Navy during the American Revolutionary War. She was descended from Peter Jacquette, the second Dutch governor of Delaware.
Edward and Helen were married in New York on May 25, 1896. The marriage was a rocky one; Edward and Helen were separated at some point before reconciling. Besides Kiki, they also had two sons, one being Edward Erskine Gwynne, Jr. (1899 – 5 May 1948), known as Erskine Dwynne, who later became a writer, the publisher of the magazine Boulevardier, and a columnist for the European edition of the New York Herald Tribune. Their other son, Edward C. Gwynne, joined the US air forces in his early youth and was killed when his aircraft was shot down. Between 1898 and 1904, Kiki and her family resided at different times in Paris, France, Lawrence, Nassau County, New York and Park Hill, Yonkers in New York.
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