Megan Marshack's Death Has Some Revisiting Her Relationship With Nelson Rockefeller

A decades-old death is being revisited following the news that Megan Marshack has died at the age of 70. Marshack was best known for being the aide to Nelson Rockefeller who was with the Republican governor when he died of a heart attack at the age of 79.

Speculation ran rampant at the time about the nature of their relationship, in part because of the shifting explanations about the circumstances around his death. Here's what we know about whether Marshack and Rockefeller were ever in a relationship.

We may never know for sure whether Marshack and Rockefeller had some sort of intimate relationship. Following the news of his death, the initial statement said that Rockefeller had died while at his offices in Rockefeller Center. A spokesperson for the family later contradicted this, though, saying that Rockefeller was working on an art book at offices elsewhere in Manhattan when he had his heart attack.

Initial statements also contradicted one another about the time of his death and who was with him at the time. Initial accounts suggested that Marshack was not with the governor. Marshack did not speak about Rockefeller's death for years, and eventually went on to become a journalist. In her obituary, though, which she wrote last year and was first reported on by The New York Times, she offers a few tidbits about their relationship.

Those details don't include any information about Rockefeller's death or about whether the two of them had any sort of relationship outside of work.

“All I know is they were very good friends. Beyond that, I don’t know,” her brother Jon Marshack told The Associated Press. “She never discussed it with me, and I never pried.”

Her obituary places special emphasis on the way that Marshack initially came to Rockefeller's attention.

At the time, she was working as a reporter for The Associated Press and was tasked with getting Rockefeller's attention when he was serving as vice president and answering questions in Spanish. She addressed him as "Señor Vice Presidente" before switching to English to ask her question, which was about the dire nature of the budget in New York City. After that meeting, they walked out of the room together.

Marshack then went on to serve as Rockefeller's deputy press secretary during the final year of his vice presidency, and then continued on in his employ after he returned to private life. She remained his deputy press secretary, and also managed his art collection and took on other duties. After his death, she returned to journalism and worked for CBS until leaving New York in 1998.

Marshack asked for there not to be any funeral proceedings following her death. She was preceded in death by her husband, Edmond Madison Jacoby Jr, and the two were married in 2003. She closed her obituary with a line from the song "What I Did for Love" from A Chorus Line. “Wish me luck, the same to you … (But I) won’t forget, can’t regret what I did for love.”