Nina Gore

Nina Gore (July 25, 1903 – April 3, 1978), born Nina S. Gore, was an American actress and socialite. She was the daughter of U.S. Senator Thomas Gore (1870–1949) and his wife Nina Belle Kay (1877–1963), whose own father was a Texas plantation owner. Gore had one younger brother, Thomas Notley Gore (1910–1964). Her father, who had lost his sight during his youth, was widely characterized as an atheist with strongly misanthropic views.

Gore made her Broadway debut in 1928, appearing in the play Sign of the Leopard, which opened at the National Theatre. That single credit marked her professional stage career.

Her personal life encompassed three marriages. In 1922, she wed Eugene Luther Vidal, a commercial aviation pioneer, with U.S. Representative William A. Rodenberg walking her down the aisle in place of her ailing father. The marriage produced one child, the writer Gore Vidal (1925–2012), and ended in divorce in 1935. That same year, Gore married Hugh Dudley Auchincloss, Jr. (1897–1976), son of merchant and financier Hugh Dudley Auchincloss, Sr. and Emma Brewster Jennings. Hugh had previously been married to Russian noblewoman Maya de Chrapovitsky, with whom he had a son, Hugh Dudley Auchincloss III. Nina and Hugh had two children together: Nina Auchincloss, born in 1937, and Thomas Gore Auchincloss, born in 1939. They divorced in 1941, after which Hugh married Janet Lee Bouvier, mother of future First Lady Jacqueline Lee Bouvier. In June 1942, Gore married for the third time, to Robert Olds (1896–1943). Olds died on April 28, 1943, of pneumonia following hospitalization for constrictive pericarditis and Libman-Sacks endocarditis, at the age of 46, shortly before his son Robin Olds graduated from West Point.

From 1925 until 1950, Gore resided in Washington, D.C. She subsequently divided her time between Cuernavaca, Mexico, and Southampton, New York, and spent the final seven years of her life in San Antonio, Texas. In 1940, she served as an alternate delegate from Virginia to the Democratic convention, where she announced her support for Wendell Willkie over Franklin Roosevelt. In 1949, she lent her son Gore $3,000 toward his purchase of Edgewater, his estate on the Hudson River.

Gore was described by contemporaries as vivacious and unpredictable. Her son Gore Vidal characterized her as an alcoholic and stated that she likely suffered from bipolar disorder. She was candid about her personal relationships and was said to have had an affair with John Hay Whitney in the early 1930s, as well as a long intermittent affair with actor Clark Gable. Gore Vidal later remarked that meaningful conversation with his mother was rare, saying she did not truly see him.

Gore was the grandmother of artist Hugh Auchincloss Steers (1963–1995) and filmmaker Burr Gore Steers, born in 1965. She died on April 3, 1978, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital in New York City following a prolonged illness.