It was her all right. I read an interview with her in 1986, during filming, before she died.
She COULD walk, with braces, but not much as it was too painful. And the cameo part showed only her face and her hand through a window-which she is washing. You can tell it’s her if you’ve seen her pictures.
And all of the cast members vouch for having met her at least once.
Is this the article you read?
If we accept that article as true and believe that Andrews died in 1986, then she must have died in either October, November or December of that year, because the article says that she was seen on the set on a “a mid-October day”. The only “Virginia Andrews” in the SSDI that died in October, November or December of '86 was born on March 16, 1918, had a last known residence in Nespelem, Washington, and was issued a Social Security card in the state of Washington. It’s possible that this person is “VC Andrews,” but it seems pretty odd. How did she end up with a Social Security card issued in Washington state? And why would “VC Andrews” have a last known residence ten miles north of the Coulee Dam in central Washington (especially when the article says she lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia)?
I didn’t find any “Cleo Andrews” or “Cleopatra Andrews” that died in October, November or December of 1986.
If I look for anybody with the just the last name of “Andrews” that died in October, November or December of 1986 that had a last known residence or last benefit location in the state of Virginia, I came up with the following:
Eugene A Andrews
Everett Andrews
Robert Andrews
Sultana Andrews
Minnie Andrews
Raymond Andrews
Thomas Andrews
I’m going to ignore Eugene, Everett, Robert, Raymond and Thomas. I suppose it’s certainly possible that “VC Andrews” was actually a man, but I’ll let the hardcore conspiracy freaks work on that particular angle.
Sultana Andrews was born on April 28, 1918, died in December 1986, had a last known residence in Chesapeake, Virginia, and was issued her Social Security card in Virginia. A little old, perhaps, but certainly possible. Chesapeake is probably less than fifteen miles from Virginia Beach.
Minnie Andrews was born on March 26, 1898, died in December 1986, had a last known residence in Petersburg, Virginia and was issued her Social Security Card in Virginia. Probably too old to be “VC Andrews,” in my opinion.
The author of Flowers in the Attic may indeed have died in 1986, but if that’s the case, then either the SSDI is incorrect, or her real name probably wasn’t “Virginia Andrews”. It might possibly have been “Sultana Andrews”, but I’m just not buying that the Virginia Andrews in Washington state was the author.
On the other hand, if the author of Flowers in the Attic actually did die in 1979, then somebody went to an awful lot of trouble to perpetrate an elaborate hoax.
Something’s fishy here, but I have no idea what the real story is.
The site you listed also has a picture of her grave with a birth date of June 6, 1923 and death date of December 19, 1986. It lists her name as Cleo Virginia Andrews and states the following here:
It still doesn’t explain why they used V.C. instead of C.V. though. Maybe they just thought it sounded better.
The dates on that gravestone don’t make things a whole lot clearer. Here’s a list of all the people born on June 6, 1923 who died in December of 1986, acording to the Social Security Death Index:
[ol][li]Bernard Cox, (last residence Lewiston, ME; last benefit Lewiston, ME; SSN issued in Maine)[/li][li]Sylvia Kapp (last residence Redondo Beach, CA; last benefit Redondo Beach, CA; SSN issued in Massachusetts)[/li][li]H Norman Bendict (last residence Mentor, OH; last benefit Mentor, OH; SSN issued in Connecticut)[/li][li]Joseph Burke (SSN issued in Pennsylvania)[/li][li]Dorothy Allen (last residence Quincy, IL; SSN issued in Illinois)[/li][li]Peter Maretta (last residence Ft. Lauderdale, FL; SSN issued in Illinois)[/li][li]Josephine Greiber (last residence Waunakee, WI; last benefit Waunakee, WI; SSN issued in Wisconsin)[/li][li]Robert Wilson (last residence Jacksboro, TN; last benefit Jacksboro, TN; SSN issued in Tennessee)[/li][li]Norris Patterson (last residence Rockwall, TX; SSN issued in Texas)[/li][li]Flora Perkins (last residence Marshalltown, IA; last benefit Marshalltown, IA; SSN issued in Missouri)[/ol] Maybe one of the people listed above really is buried beneath the gravestone shown in the link Arhat provided, but I still think something’s hinky. Maybe it’s with the SSDI database, itself.[/li][QUOTE=Arhat]
It lists her name as Cleo Virginia Andrews
[/QUOTE]
I looked up every “Cleo Andrews” that’s listed in the SSDI. There were twelve people. None were born in 1923. None died in 1986. None had a last residence location or last benefit location in Virginia. None had a Social Security number issued in Virginia.
I also looked up “Cleopatra Andrews.” There were no hits at all for that particular name.
Do any of the “VC Andrews” biography sites list her Social Security number? That would be the way to confirm where the error lies.
It was never “Cleopatra”, just Cleo Virginia, and she was called Virginia.
Finally, having read all of her books up to the Rain books, I’m pretty familiar with her style and the ghostwriter’s. I used to belong to a huge V. C. Andrews fan club and mailing list, and we determined that she wrote all of the FITA books except for Garden of Shadows, which she only had an outline for, and the Heaven books up until Dark Angel. After that, you can see the influence of the ghost writer, who would take passages and descriptions from her earlier work and reinsert them, word for word, into the later books. (I guess it’s not plagarism when you’re writing AS that author).
So, she wrote at least MOST of her early work. And if you become familiar with it, you’ll see that the stuff she wrote wasn’t bad-it was your basic pulp entertainment, morbid and sensational, yeah, but fun. The ghostwriter, however, got really glurgy and sentimental, and it just didn’t have the same “feel.”
So unless someone mascaraded as Virginia for years, then she died in 1986. (I don’t know about the SSDI-does it list EVERYONE who ever died?)
The Social Security Death Index is, in fact, supposed to be a list of EVERY social security number holder who has died.
Who is “the estate of V.C. Andrews?” Do her loyal fans know the names of any of these family members and how they were supposedly related to her?
I just guessed that “Cleo” might have been short for “Cleopatra.” After I’d struck out looking through all the Virginias and Cleos, I took a flyer.
One possibility that occurred to me was that the author of Flowers in the Attic “borrowed” the name of a real person (who died in 1979) to use as her pen name. From then on, the author only ever appeared in public under her nom de plume.
It seems far-fetched, I admit, but if the author had been reclusive, maybe there were very few people outside her own family who knew her original name.
Everyone who was ever issued a Social Security number should end up listed there. Personally, I’ve always found the SSDI to be remarkably reliable. All the information is there and correct for all of the dead relatives of mine that I’ve looked up.
In fact, I think the SSDI tends to be more reliable than many other sources. Lots of people lie about their age to their friends or family, but far fewer are willing to forego benefits they’re entitled to (or risk federal fraud charges) by lying to the Social Security Administration.
I certainly wouldn’t rule out the possibility that there’s a problem with the SSDI in this case, but it does seem peculiar. If it is just an error in the data, why hasn’t the VC Andrews Estate contacted the Social Security Administration to have the information corrected? It’s easy to do (if you can produce the necessary documentation) and doesn’t cost anything. I’d think they’d want to set the record straight. Especially since doing nothing gives the appearance that the Estate has been perpetrating an elaborate deception–even to the point of erecting a fraudulent gravestone.
In any event, after trying to figure out what’s going on with “VC Andrews” for a couple of days now, I think Tapioca Dextrin may have nailed it right from the beginning: “The truth about who or what VC Andrews is will probably never be known.”
This SSDI site you’re using, is by an ancestry site, right? I just looked up my great-grandmother, who had a SSN and collected for the last few years of her life. No hits. So I looked up my dad’s parents, because I thought maybe it didn’t like the fact that she wasn’t born in this country. Neither grandparent is listed for anything either.
To experiment and see how well the index worked, I searched for a few of my deceased family members:
Mother’s father is listed
As is her stepfather…
Mother’s grandfather is not listed
I’m pretty sure I found my great-great grandfather (died the same year my mother was born [1954]…but it looks like they misspelled his name…) but then I found his wife’s name…also spelled wrong. IF the listing for my great-great grandmother is correct (and I’m fairly sure it is b. 1894 d. 1981) the listing for my great-great grandfather doesn’t seem right. They have his birthdate listed as 1903, which would make him 9 years younger than his wife. I guess it’s not unheard of, but it seems unusual for the time. Both SS#s were issued in the correct states, and hers lists the death in the proper state.
The grandfather who is not listed would be their son-in-law. He died in 1998 (b. 1913) though, maybe they’ve not updated that far yet?
Interesting experiment…and now I’ll be forced to play around with this more.
As for V.C. Andrews, I guess she and my great grandfather are anomalies. Or, her real name wasn’t what we think it is. Happens a lot with writers. ivy, the books aren’t literary gold, that’s for sure, but they can be a decent distraction. One thing I’ve enjoyed about them is the way she …or he…describes these rural American areas. Stereotypical, yes…but then again, not all stereotypes are wrong.
Regarding the SSDI: It is far from inclusive. It hardly contains anyone who died pre-1960s and even then it excludes a lot of people. Self-employed farmers were “specially treated” for a long time, for example. But it should be reliable for the type of person that is the topic of this thread.
I have never read the books or seen the movie. I just find it interesting that there is a controversy whether she actually existed (I heard see had a fling with Cecil but thats just a rumor). At one of my other favorite sites Findagrave, they also have an entry here. If you click on the link to all the pictures you will see it’s a pretty big monument. Seems like a lot of trouble and expense for someone who didn’t exist.