Home Front - Celebrities at Fort Riley
For a few months in 1942, Gloria Vanderbilt – socialite, artist, fashion designer, and heiress – lived in Manhattan while her husband, Pasquale “Pat” DiCicco was stationed at Ft. Riley. Gloria met Pat DiCicco in Hollywood, where he worked as an actor’s agent. Gloria was 17 when they married in December 1941, which was just a few weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor and at a time when many Americans were joining the military to help with the war effort. Pat enlisted in the Army and was stationed at Ft. Riley while training. In order to be near her husband, Gloria rented the house located at 409 North 17th Street in Manhattan and lived there for the duration of Pat’s training, which was approximately five months. The DiCiccos packed up and headed for Texas when Pat was transferred to Ft. Bliss. They left behind a few hundred dollars in unpaid bills in Manhattan, and the sheriff seized and planned to auction furniture they had left in storage to pay the bills. The DiCiccos eventually paid their bills and reclaimed their possessions prior to the scheduled auction.
Oleg Cassini, who was a well-known fashion designer, friend of the DiCiccos, and assigned to the cavalry, was also stationed at Ft. Riley during this same time period. His wife, film actress Gene Tierney, lived in Junction City and reportedly had a victory garden. In a letter she wrote to a California newspaper later, Gene was positive about her time in Kansas and said she enjoyed Kansas’ corn-on-the-cob and the strawberries grown in the Smoky Hill River valley. She also mentioned picking wild gooseberries in the Council Grove area and was partial to their tang. In Oleg’s memoir In My Own Fashion, he described their time spent in Junction City and Ft. Riley as the happiest in their marriage.
