The Gilded Age: The Real-Life Ball That Inspired Bertha’s Extravagant Finale Event

Gilded Age creator Julian Fellowes knows a good story. The screenwriter earned an Oscar for Gosford Park, scores of awards and nominations for Downton Abbey (with another movie on the way this May), and growing interest in his latest upstairs-downstairs endeavor airing on HBO. So when the writer stumbled upon the tale of Alva Vanderbilt’s historic 1883 ball—and her astonishingly shrewd machinations, which essentially forced New York’s queen bee Caroline Astor into attendance—he knew he wanted to spotlight that real-life incident in the The Gilded Age’s season one finale. “I remember when I read about Alva’s ball, I thought, this… Read Full Article