May 12 (Bloomberg) -- Brooke Astor took a shine to Matthew Broderick after seeing him in a revival of “How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying” on Broadway in 1995.

She went on to see the comedy four more times and invited the actor to her mansion in Westchester, said John Hart, the play’s producer, testifying at the trial of Astor’s son Anthony Marshall in New York State Supreme Court yesterday.

In 2001, Astor didn’t recognize Broderick after seeing him in “The Producers,” said Hart, a silver-haired 57-year-old with a white pocket square in his gray suit.

“She looked up at him and said, ‘Who are you?’” said Hart, recalling a dinner at Orso restaurant, following the play.

“Brooke, I am Matthew. You love me,” Broderick had replied, according to Hart. Hart said she once had a crush on Broderick.

Hart was a prosecutor’s witness at a trial that began last month to determine if Marshall and lawyer Francis Morrissey had defrauded her.

Marshall, 84, is accused of taking advantage of his mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and died in 2007 at 105. Prosecutors claim Marshall tried to obtain millions of dollars she had intended for charities such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library. Morrissey, 66, is charged with forging Astor’s name on an amendment to her will.

Marshall and Morrissey have pleaded not guilty.

Birthday Party

Hart, who also produced the award-winning movies “Revolutionary Road” and “Boys Don’t Cry,” met Astor on her 90th birthday party and had regularly escorted her to dinners hosted by the likes of Barbara Walters and galas “at the Met, the Library and the Zoo” in the ensuing decade, he said.

“She gave me an entry to the world I wouldn’t have been exposed to,” Hart said. “I was lucky to be included.”

Astor remained a flirt well into her 90s, he said. “She always had an ongoing crush.”

When she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Bill Clinton in 1998, “she thought he flirted with her,” Hart said. “ She was pleased with the attention.”

In the early 2000s, the socialite grew increasingly frail and confused, Hart testified.

“You felt a need to protect her,” he said.

On a 2003 visit to her Holly Hill mansion in the Hudson River valley, Astor had said, “I am gaga,” according to Hart.

At another occasion the same year, she didn’t recognize him, he said.

“What kind of a look did she have on her face?” asked Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Loewy.

“Startled,” said Hart.

Coo, Laugh

To make conversation, he talked about furniture in a large room. “I’d say, ‘Look at how fat that chair is,” Hart said. She would coo and laugh in response, he said.

The prosecution claims Marshall had told his mother she was running out of money to make her sell a painting “Up the Avenue From Thirty-Fourth Street, May 1917,” by American Impressionist Childe Hassam. The painting sold for $10 million and Marshall took a $2 million commission, Loewy told the jury at the outset of the trial two weeks ago.

Astor “adored” the painting and used it as a frequent subject of conversation, Hart said. Metropolitan Museum’s former director Phillipe de Montebello testified last week that Astor had pledged the painting to the museum.

Needed Money

Hart said Astor told him she had sold the artwork because she needed the money. Her fortune was estimated at $190 million.

Marshall and Morrissey are charged with conspiring to defraud Astor from 2001 to 2007, according to the indictment. If convicted of grand larceny, the most serious charge, Marshall faces a maximum prison term of 25 years.

Prosecutors claim that Morrissey conspired with Marshall to execute the amendment to Astor’s 2002 will that gave him tens of millions of dollars intended for charity. Morrissey was also charged with forging her signature on the 2004 amendment that would increase his and Marshall’s executor fees.

Marshall, surrounded by defense attorneys, sat grim-faced as he listened to the testimony; his wife Charlene, wearing a cross around her neck, sat a couple of rows behind him, in a half-empty room.

Hart’s appearance on the witness stand followed last week’s testimonies from de Montebello, Nancy Kissinger and Annette de la Renta.

Today Patsy Preston, the widow of former World Bank president Lewis Preston, and James Watt, who was named Brooke Russell Astor chairman of the Metropolitan Museum Asian art department in 2000, are expected to testify.

The case is People v. Marshall, 06044-2007, New York Supreme Court, New York County (Manhattan).

To contact the reporter on the story: Katya Kazakina in New York at kkazakina@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 12, 2009 02:50 EDT