Julian Fellowes’s The Gilded Age chronicles the social lives—and melodramas—of the wealthy New York elite in the 1880s and ’90s. Carrie Coon plays Mrs. Russell. This is the new-riche wife of a controversial railroad magnate. She quickly discovers that real currency can not be bought with social currency. Then there’s Donna Murphy’s Mrs. Astor, the de facto ringleader of the city’s elite, who surrounds herself with a curated crowd. Nathan Lane plays Ward McAllister, a proud Southern gentleman who thinks he is a cultural man-about town. The HBO show is a grand, guilty pleasure—one that, like any good historical fiction, very much borrows from reality.
All three characters mentioned above are based upon (or at least bear a striking similarity with) real-life people of the period. Wondering who’s who? Here’s a breakdown The Gilded AgeBelow are the characters and their real-life counterparts.
Caroline Schermerhorn Astor
Julian Fellowes doesn’t mask the true identity of Donna Murphy’s character in The Gilded Age: Mrs. Astor was indeed a real person and was the queen bee in New York society. Even though there were other women with the same family name as Mrs. Astor, only one was considered to be the best. The Mrs. Astor: Caroline Schermerhorn. Frank Crowninshield. Vogue society writer who knew Mrs. Astor, described her power as “absolute” and “long continued” in a 1941 issue.
Coming from an old Knickerbocker family—the descendants of the wealthy Dutch class that settled New York—Caroline Schermerhorn married William Backhouse Astor, whose grandfather had amassed a fortune through fur trading and real estate. Her husband’s extreme wealth, combined with her social pedigree, allowed her to reach and remain at the top of the upper echelon.
Source: Glamour