Kiki Preston

Kiki Preston (née Alice Gwynne; 1898 – 1946) was an American socialite, a member of the infamous Happy Valley set, and the alleged mother of a child born out of wedlock with HRH Prince George, Duke of Kent, fourth son of King George V of the United Kingdom.

A drug addict known as "the girl with the silver syringe", Alice "Kiki" Gwynne was the daughter of Edward Erskine Gwynne, Sr. and his wife, the former Helen Steele. Her brother, Edward Erskine Gwynne, Jr., was a writer, the publisher of the magazine "Boulevardier", and a columnist for the European edition of the New York Herald Tribune. Her great-aunt was Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt, the wife of Cornelius Vanderbilt II and a grandmother of the socialite, artist, and designer Gloria Vanderbilt.

She was married twice. Her first husband was Horace R.B. Allen, by whom she had one daughter, Alice Gwynne Allen (Mrs. Geoffrey Borden Russell). Her second husband was Jerome Preston (-1934), a banker whom she married in 1925. [Picknett, Lynn, Prince, Clive, Prior, Stephen & Brydon, Robert (2002). "War of the Windsors: A Century of Unconstitutional Monarchy", p. 58. Mainstream Publishing. ISBN 1-84018-631-3.]

Kiki Preston died after jumping out of a window of the Stanhope Hotel in New York City.

According to the memoirs of a friend, Loelia, Duchess of Westminster, Prince George's brother the Duke of Windsor believed that the son was Michael Canfield (1926 – 1969), the adopted son of American publisher Cass Canfield and the first husband of Lee Radziwill (sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis).

Notes and references