Lillie Cranz Cullen di Portanova

Paolo di Portanova and Lillie Cranz Cullen married on December 16, 1932, and eight months later, on August 16, 1933, she gave birth to their first child. Hugh Roy Cullen did not disinherit his daughter, but she appears to have dropped out of his life. Only the barest details are known about Lillie Cranz Cullen di Portanova. She and her husband lived in Los Angeles, where they had two sons, Enrico (who inherited his father’s title of nobility) and Ugo. Lillie and Paolo divorced, she moved to New York City, and the sons ended up in Italy. Lillie di Portanova did not prefer the Cullens to her own sons, nor was she close to her younger sisters. The distance between them was such that acquaintances of the family in Houston assumed that Lillie di Portanova had been dead for years. As far as the Cullens were concerned, she was mentally incompetent. In 1963 Lillie di Portanova was living alone at the Times Square Motor Hotel in one of the seedier sections of New York City. Mrs. di Portanova stayed at the hotel for approximately ten years. Lillie di Portanova entered a hospital in New York City, where she died on December 23, 1966. Her estate was valued at $4.8 million.