Polly Lauder Tunney

Polly Lauder Tunney was an American philanthropist and Connecticut socialite. An heiress to the United States Steel fortune through her grandfather George Lauder and her great-uncle Andrew Carnegie, Tunney drew international fame during the 1920s for her secret romance and subsequent marriage to world heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunney. She almost died on her honeymoon of an abscessed appendicitis on the Croatian Islands of Brijuni. They had four children, including John V. Tunney (1934-2018), who was a U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from California from 1965 until 1977.