Happy Rockefeller, Whose Marriage to Governor Scandalized Voters, Dies at 88 [View all]

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Happy Rockefeller, Whose Marriage to Governor Scandalized Voters, Dies at 88




Happy Rockefeller on the campaign trail with Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York in 1964. Credit Bob Gomel/The LIFE Images Collection, via Getty Images


Happy Rockefeller, the socialite whose 1963 marriage to Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York, soon after both had been divorced, raised a political storm in a more genteel time and may have cost him the Republican presidential nomination in 1964, died on Tuesday at her home in Tarrytown, N.Y. She was 88.

The family said in a statement that she died after a brief illness.

Beyond the 1964 nomination, won by Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona, the scandal helped scuttle any further presidential hopes Mr. Rockefeller had. While his governorship remained secure until 1973, he came no closer to the Oval Office than the vice presidency, to which President Gerald R. Ford appointed him in 1974, ending the musical-chairs turmoil set off by the Watergate scandal.

In an era when marital infidelity and divorce were toxic for presidential candidates, many Americans were shocked when Margaretta Fitler Murphy, called Happy, and Mr. Rockefeller, who was nearly 18 years older than she, married on May 4, 1963. He was in the second of his four terms as governor and a leading contender for the presidency at the time, having run strongly in 1960.




Mrs. Rockefeller with her son Nelson Rockefeller Jr. at their New York City apartment in 1965. Credit Associated Press

As the couple left for a honeymoon in Venezuela, exposés retailed gossip of their extramarital affair and detailed their out-of-state divorces — Mr. Rockefeller’s in 1962 from Mary Todhunter Clark Rockefeller, his wife of 31 years and the mother of his five children; Mrs. Murphy’s from Dr. James Slater Murphy, to whom she surrendered custody of their four children five weeks before marrying Mr. Rockefeller.


Mrs. Rockefeller in 1991 at the Kykuit estate, at Pocantico Hills, N.Y., overlooking the Hudson River in Westchester County. Credit Suzanne DeChillo

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