Nina Gore Auchincloss Straight (formerly Steers, born January 10, 1937) is an American author, journalist, and socialite.
She is the mother of writer/director
Burr Steers and artist
Hugh Auchincloss Steers, half-sister of
Gore Vidal
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal ( ; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his acerbic epigrammatic wit. His novels and essays interrogated the Social norm, social and sexual ...
, step-sister of
First Lady Jacqueline Onassis and socialite Princess
Lee Radziwill
Caroline Lee Radziwill (; March 3, 1933 – February 15, 2019), previously known as Lee Canfield and Lee Ross, was an American socialite, public relations executive, and interior designer. She was the younger sister of former First Lady of the ...
.
Early life
Nina Gore Auchincloss is the daughter of
Hugh Dudley Auchincloss, Jr. and the former
Nina S. Gore. Her father was an American stockbroker and lawyer, and a cousin of the novelist and lawyer,
Louis Auchincloss
Louis Stanton Auchincloss (; September 27, 1917 – January 26, 2010)Holcomb B. Noble and Charles McGrath''The New York Times''. Retrieved on January 27, 2010. was an American lawyer, novelist, historian, and essayist. He is best known as a novel ...
. Her father had previously been married to Maya de Chrapovitsky, a Russian noblewoman with whom he had one son, Hugh Dudley Auchincloss III. Her mother had previously been married to
Eugene Luther Vidal, a commercial aviation pioneer, with whom she also had one son, the writer
Gore Vidal
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal ( ; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his acerbic epigrammatic wit. His novels and essays interrogated the Social norm, social and sexual ...
. Hugh and Nina had married in 1935 and besides young Nina, the marriage produced one additional child, Thomas Gore Auchincloss.
[ Kauffman, Bill (2006-11-20]
The Populist Patriotism of Gore Vidal
, '' The American Conservative'' Young Nina's parents divorced in 1941, and a year later, Hugh remarried for the third and final time to
Janet Lee Bouvier, in 1942. Janet was the mother of future First Lady
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier and
Caroline Lee Bouvier. Nina's father had two more children with Janet, half-siblings to young Nina,
Janet Jennings Auchincloss and James Lee Auchincloss. Hugh and Janet remained married until his death in 1976. Also in 1942, Nina's mother remarried for the third and final time to
Robert Olds, but only remained married a short time until Robert's early death of
pneumonia
Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...
in 1943, after hospitalization for
constrictive pericarditis and
Libman-Sacks endocarditis, at the age of 46, just prior to his son
Robin Olds' graduation from West Point.
Nina's paternal grandparents were
Hugh Dudley Auchincloss, Sr., a merchant and financier, and Emma Brewster (née Jennings) Auchincloss, the daughter of
Oliver Burr Jennings, one of the original stockholders in
Standard Oil
Standard Oil Company was a Trust (business), corporate trust in the petroleum industry that existed from 1882 to 1911. The origins of the trust lay in the operations of the Standard Oil of Ohio, Standard Oil Company (Ohio), which had been founde ...
.
Her maternal grandparents were
U.S. Senator Thomas Gore and his wife Nina Belle (née Kay) Gore.
Debutante
In 1955, Auchincloss made her debut at a formal ball given by her father and stepmother Janet (who lived in
McLean, Virginia
McLean ( ) is an Unincorporated area#United States, unincorporated community and census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. The population of the community was 50,773 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is ...
), at their summer home,
Hammersmith Farm in
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Rhode Island, United States. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and nort ...
. The ball was attended by over 700 guests.
In 1957, she inherited a $225,000 () trust.
Education and career
Nina attended the
Potomac School in Washington, D.C., and
Miss Porter's School in
Farmington, Connecticut
Farmington is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, Hartford County in the Farmington Valley area of central Connecticut in the United States. The town is part of the Capitol Planning Region, Connecticut, Capitol Planning Region. The populati ...
. She attended and graduated from
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh language, Welsh: ) is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as a ...
, just outside of Philadelphia.
Nina subsequently attended and earned a
master's degree
A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...
in journalism from
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
in 1961. While she attended Columbia, she worked part-time for columnist
Charles Bartlett. In 1964, she earned an
M.A. in history from Columbia, her second degree from Columbia. From 1963 until 1971, Nina worked as Washington correspondent and
bureau chief for the ''
Chattanooga Times'', while raising her three sons.
In 1981, her novel ''Ariabella: The First'', was published by
Random House
Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...
. At the time, she was in her second year of evening law school at
American University
The American University (AU or American) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Its main campus spans 90-acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, in the Spri ...
and was working on a biography of her maternal grandfather, Oklahoma Sen.
Thomas Pryor Gore.
Personal life
In 1957, Nina married
Newton Ivan Steers, Jr., who was 20 years her senior.
Jackie Kennedy was her matron of honor at the wedding
and then Sen.
John F. Kennedy was one of the groomsmen.
During their marriage, Steers became a member of the
Maryland State Senate.
Together, they had three sons:
*
Hugh Auchincloss Steers (1962–1995), a painter
* Ivan Steers
*
Burr Gore Steers (born 1965), a writer and filmmaker.
[Film; A Family's Legacy: Pain and Humor (and a Movie)]
, ''The New York Times'', September 15, 2002.
Nina and Steers separated in 1972
and divorced in 1974.
In 1976, Steers was elected to the
U.S. House of Representatives from
Maryland's 8th congressional district. Steers remarried to Inge Wirsich Irwin in 1978, to whom he remained married until his death in 1993.
In 1974, Nina married her second husband,
Michael Whitney Straight, 21 years her senior and a member of the
Whitney family
The Whitney family is a prominent American family descended from non-Norman English immigrant John Whitney (1592–1673), who left London in 1635 and settled in Watertown, Massachusetts. The historic family mansion in Watertown, known as The Elm ...
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. After his mother's remarriage to
Leonard Knight Elmhirst, Straight lived in England. The wedding was attended by
Janet Auchincloss,
Jackie Kennedy,
Renata Adler,
Beatrice Straight
Beatrice Whitney Straight (August 2, 1914 – April 7, 2001) was an American theatre, film, television and radio actress and a member of the prominent Whitney family. She was both an Academy Award and Tony Award winner, as well as a Primetime Em ...
, and
Peter Cookson.
Nina and Michael's marriage ended in divorce in 1998. He later married Katharine Gould, a child psychiatrist and art historian, to whom he remained married until his death in 2004.
Published works
*''Ariabella: The First'' (1981)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Straight, Nina
1937 births
Miss Porter's School alumni
Bryn Mawr College alumni
American socialites
Auchincloss family
Living people
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni
Writers from Washington, D.C.