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Gloria Mott is a wealthy socialite widow whose troubled son, Dandy Mott, wishes to join Elsa Mars' freak show. She is determined to keep him away from the troupe at all costs, which turns out to be for the best.. She is a character in Freak Show portrayed by Frances Conroy.

Background[]

A wealthy heiress of fine taste and living, Gloria Mott was a woman descended from endless generations of aristocrats. Her father was hit hard by the crash of 1929 and in order to maintain her lifestyle, Gloria married her second cousin. After her husband committed suicide by hanging himself in the estate's garden, Gloria became the sole parent of Dandy.[1] Her reputation and class meant almost as much to her as her son, Dandy. As a single mother, Gloria was prone to spoiling her precious man-child of a son, giving him anything that money can buy. This would end up having more and more serious consequences, though Dandy Mott would eventually be able to make money by himself.

Personality and Appearance[]

Gloria was a woman of appearances, generally wearing expensive 50's-style dresses accompanied by a pair of fine gloves and, occasionally, a string of pearls. Gloria's carefully curled hairdo was strawberry blonde in color and often topped with a lace hat.

As the tortured mother of a spoiled son who just can't ever be satisfied (though she never tells him that money alone won’t buy him happiness, and she herself doesn’t seem to realize that), Gloria's personality was generally mild-mannered and subservient to her offspring, though she was terrified when she discovered that Dandy had decided to murder Dora. Additionally, her strong attachment to Dandy often caused her to lose control of her emotions and break down in tears or hysteria. Gloria was also a woman in denial, refusing to be associated with anything that didn't live up to her standard. This denial extended to the most heinous actions of her son (though she was horrified by Dora’s death, she still covered it nevertheless), even when Dandy’s therapist warns Gloria that she herself could be in danger.

And ultimately, it turned out she was her own worst enemy.

Story[]

Intrigued by the freak show's newly advertised headliner, Gloria bought out the entire house to ensure that her spoiled son, Dandy, could have any seat he wanted. After the show Gloria attempted to purchase the Tattler Twins for her son, offering as much as 10,000 dollars. When her offer was refused, she and Dandy promptly left, but not without a spiteful barb at Elsa's performance.[2]

Gloria admonished her son's pursuits of a thespian life, reminding him of the importance of maintaining their family reputation and recommending that he find a nice girl to whom he could give her grandchildren. Her advice went unheeded, and her son ran off to join the circus. With Dandy absent, the family servant Dora told Gloria of the remains of the neighbor's cat that she found out by the shed, implying that her son was responsible. Gloria argued that Dandy was guilty of nothing more than boredom (even though he was gradually becoming dangerous) and left to find him. Her search found, not her son, but a dirty clown walking along the road. Despite his intimidating appearance, she solicited him for a private party to entertain her son. When Dandy returned home, Gloria ushered him to his playroom to reveal her surprise. Believing her son to be in the presence of a harmless local clown, Gloria left them alone to have their fun.[3]

Upon the arrival of Halloween, Gloria continued to put forth her best effort to cheer up her son. Wearing her annual homage to Doris Duke, the frantic mother had decorated the entire dining room and even stuffed Dora into a Woody the Woodpecker costume despite her feelings on the matter, Dandy's favorite cartoon character. However, he was less than impressed with the array of tricks and treats on the table and absolutely livid about the Howdy Doody costume that Dora and Gloria had been working on for weeks. With Dandy throwing a complete tantrum and smashing all the fine china, Gloria scurried off to town with the promise of bringing back a better costume.[4]

When Gloria came downstairs the following morning to discover the freshly slain corpse of her beloved housemaid, she wasted no time in laying the blame at Dandy's feet. She ignored his feigned innocence and sent him to his room, as to a disobedient child that had broken a family heirloom, and declared that she didn't want to see him for the rest of the day. The next day Gloria set her plan to cover up Dora's murder into action. On the premise of planting flower bulbs, two handymen were hired to dig a hole in the backyard. When asked why a 12-foot hole was needed for a bulb that requires 18 inches of soil, Gloria demanded that they not question her and get back to work. Once the laborers were gone and the body was interred, she and her son proceeded to plant the flowers over Dora's remains. At Dandy's apology for his misbehavior, Gloria attempted to comfort him with knowledge of their family's history of inbreeding and its tendency to produce a psychopath every once in a while.

Gloria later received a call from Dora's daughter, Regina. Worried about why her mother had missed their weekly telephone call, Regina was calling to check and make sure everything was alright. Gloria lied, claiming Dora was at the market and tried to hang up, but the concerned daughter insisted she has her mother call her the minute she got home. Then, in a moment of weakness, Gloria asked Regina what she thought of her when she and Dandy were children. Regina admitted that she honestly didn't see her very often and awkwardly ended the conversation.

That same day, Gloria received a visit from Elsa, who brought a gift in the form of the Tattler Twins. Soon after taking them into her home, Gloria presented Dandy with a tray of prophylactics to ensure that he wouldn't reproduce with Bette and Dot. However, she was shocked to find that Dandy had no such intentions, claiming he would never violate the two people who finally made him feel love and also confessing his intentions to marry them. (However, while he may have genuinely loved them at one point, he eventually stopped loving anyone but himself.)

A few days later Gloria went to Dandy's room to bring him a tray of "snackies." After a brief few days of her son being happy and satisfied with life, she was shocked to find him sobbing in bed with an open book in his hand. The book bringing him to tears was Dot's diary which Gloria read aloud at the request of her son. In it, Dot confessed her distaste for Dandy and her new living arrangements, saying she only tolerated him so she could continue collecting money for the surgical removal of her sister. Gloria tried to encourage her son but he was completely inconsolable. Just as Dandy was marching off with the newfound acceptance that he could never find love, the doorbell rang. Running ahead to answer it, Gloria was greeted with the face of Jimmy Darling who was coming to look for the twins, showing that unlike Dandy (who wasn’t treating the Tattler Twins well), Jimmy truly did love them.

When the twins returned from their walk, Dandy and Gloria led Jimmy into Dandy's room where they were enjoying a nice banana split. Immediately Jimmy jumped into trying to get them to return with him to the Freak Show so they would be safe. Gloria insisted that they had never been safer or happier but, ultimately, they still chose to leave with Jimmy.

Soon after, Gloria began to vent about Dandy in detail for the first time at her regular therapy session with Dr. Feinbloom. She talked about Dandy when he was a child and how he was often disobedient and even violent. When she mentioned the disappearance of his childhood friend, Emile, Gloria's psychiatrist demanded her to bring him in for psychoanalysis, as he was worried what would happen if Dandy were left to his open devices. Reluctantly, Gloria agreed. She told Dandy that he was going to be given an IQ test, which wasn’t a lie but wasn’t the whole truth.

Not long after her session with Dr. Feinbloom, Gloria went to Dandy's room to surprise him with a present. When she opened the door there sat her son playing Chutes and Ladders with his childhood friend, Regina Ross. Regina had finally ventured down to Florida to look for her mother, who Dandy had secretly murdered. When she inquired about her mother's whereabouts, Gloria was quick on her feet with an excuse involving squash and candelabras that she believed could buy her an indefinite amount of time. However, Regina wasn't so easily convinced and declared that she would simply wait for her mother's return. And despite what Gloria likely had told herself, she couldn’t lie to Regina forever.

When Dandy returned from his session with Dr. Feinbloom a few days after, he stormed into his room where Gloria was decorating a Christmas tree. Dandy accused Gloria of lying to him regarding the appointment was to test his genius IQ, even though she wasn’t truly lying to him. He believed that Feinbloom simply wished to listen to him talk. Afterward, Regina made another appearance demanding to know when her mother would be home. Gloria assured (and lied to) her she would be home the following evening for dinner and Regina retorted with a threat to call the police if she wasn't. Once she left the room, Dandy made a bargain with his mother to attend regular therapy sessions for an entire month if Gloria would murder Regina for him, and implied he would kill her if the police figured out that he was a serial killer.

Later, an exhausted Gloria made a phone call to Dr. Feinbloom informing him that she and Dandy would soon be leaving the country (presumably, they were doing this to get away with murder). Dr. Feinbloom, realizing that Dandy Mott was strongly considering murdering people in grisly ways, attempted to convince her to put Dandy in a temporary facility for fear of her safety (and presumably for the safety of others) but Gloria ignored his warning and promptly relieved him of his services, which would prove to be a fatal mistake. Dandy then entered the room, reciting the way she had just described him as "defected, unbalanced, and fragile." Gloria explained that she was only trying to placate the doctor, but Dandy went on to blame her for his unbalanced psychosis. Dandy tells Gloria he knows she married her second cousin to keep her money despite her knowledge of his crimes. Then Dandy went on to refuse her plan to escape to Europe, saying he could never go anywhere with a woman who hates him so much. Gloria immediately confessed her undying love for her son, but she also confessed that she felt completely used up. As she rifled through her purse for her gun, Dandy stood up behind her with it in his hands. He raised the revolver to his head and seemingly apologized for all the pain he'd caused her. Just as he was about to pull the trigger, Gloria stopped him, saying she would never be able to go on without him. He then promptly turned the gun on her and shot her in the head, and found that he enjoyed it despite everything her mother had done for him.[5]

After bathing in Gloria's blood on one occasion, Dandy lured an Avon lady into his home so he could murder her. He then decapitated the corpse and sewed the head onto the shoulder of his mother's so he could make his own personal two-headed Tattler Twin Puppet.[6]

Quotes[]

  • To Dandy and Elsa Mars: "Come Dandy, I need a long hot bath. Though nothing will wash away the ghastly memory of that infernal caterwauling. By far the most freakish thing of all tonight was your pathetic attempt at singing."
  • To Dora Brown: "Dandy had nothing to do with that. He's just bored!"
  • To Dandy: "Just like everything else in your life, I'm the one who has to clean it up!"
  • To Twisty: "Excuse me! Excuse me, clown! Do you do private parties? For children? I'll pay you handsomely for it."
  • To Dandy: "I love all of you Dandy; even the madness."
  • To Regina Ross: "I raised my child as I was raised. He called for me once when he had a raging fever. I didn't go in his room, I was afraid I didn't know how to comfort him, so I sent his governess in... he never called for me again."

Notes[]

  • She is the fourth character to be portrayed by Frances Conroy. For a complete list of her characters, see Cast.
  • In the sixth season, subtitled Roanoke, we learn from historian Doris Kearns Goodwin that Gloria was the second last surviving member of the Mott family and that the line ended when Dandy was killed in 1952.
  • In the promo for Blood Bath, a 'fake' scene was filmed where Gloria is pointing a gun at the back of Regina's head in the dining room.
  • Ironically, Dandy’s decision to kill Gloria would end up causing the Mott family tree to be cut down, as aside from her, he was the only Mott left. And he was not able to have children with Bette and Dot, because they realized he did not truly love them.

Gallery[]

References[]

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