That may happen, but in the meantime she’s produced several intriguing exhibitions. This September 13, just a month from today she’s opening her “Notorious & Notable; 20th Century Women of Style” at the Museum of the City of New York. The exhibit is featuring jewelry and gowns of 80 of the most prominent – usually socially – women of the 20th century.
It’s an intriguing list from Mrs. J. P. Morgan to Gypsy Rose Lee, from Isadora Duncan to Mercedes de Acosta to Sophie Tucker to Babe Paley to Hilary Geary Ross to Anne (Mrs. Meyer) Lansky. Jewels speak many languages both international and obscure. They tell many stories also, tales of woe and tales of triumph. Mrs. Price has a natural sense of the dramatic and showman’s view of history. This should be a very popular exhibition.
Two of the 80 subjects are Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Mercedes de Acosta – opposites as women but both lives worthy of biography, and both fiercely independent. Mercedes de Acosta, who was born seven years before the 20th century, was a writer/poet/ playwright/costume designer/socialite who is remembered for her passionate Sapphic relationships including her claimed relationship with Greta Garbo.
When she died Cecil Beaton wrote in his diary: “I cannot be sorry at Mercedes de Acosta’s death. I am only sorry that she should have been so unfulfilled a character. In her youth she showed zest and originality. She was one of the most rebellious & brazen of Lesbians ... I am relieved that her long drawn out unhappiness has come to an end.”
One of eight children, she grew up at the end of the Gilded Age in the neighborhood of the Roosevelts and the Vanderbilts on West 47th Street. Her much older sister (by eighteen years) Rita Lydig, was a famous beauty whose collection of shoes would beat out any woman living today. Lydig’s personal wardrobe was the basis of the initial collection of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum.
Mercedes da Acosta wrote a memoir, published when she was in her late 60s called Here Lies the Heart. In it she more or less outed (without coming right out and saying it) a number of famous women who were presumably her lovers. She was just a little ahead of her time with this kind of revelation, and it more than annoyed quite a few of those on her list. Garbo never spoke to her again, even when she saw her on the street. The actress Eva La Gallienne would leave a room if she heard her name mentioned, referring to de Acosta’s memoir as “Here the Heart Lies and Lies and Lies.” Not very long after, the memoirist died at 75, broke and living in a tiny two-room walk up. She is buried at Trinity Cemetery.
So that was lunch.
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| Princess Anne at 21 ... |
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| ... and at 60. |
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Royals. There is an article in today’s London Daily Mail about Princess Anne, the Princess Royal who is celebrating her 60th birthday this coming Sunday. I was struck by the picture of the princess at 21. You will be too.
Forty years later, the horsey princess prefers looking dowdy and even severe. Years ago in Los Angeles, a friend of mine had a butler who’d come from the Royal Household where he was employed as a footman (no butlers, only footman for the monarchs). Naturally when I had a chance, I asked him what the Royals “were like.”
I already knew that the Royal Household’s former (and even present) staff talk about the family all the time. Which is understandable – it’s at the center of their lives. My friend’s butler was very respectful of all of them although he had favorites, as did his co-workers. The Queen was right on the top of the list although the Queen Mum was at the very top “because she cared about her staff” almost more than anything else.
Charles was okay and so were Andrew and Edward. The two whom he didn’t like so much were Prince Philip and Princess Anne. Arrogant in their treatment of their underlings, was the impression I got.
The piece in the Mail, however, is far more favorable. The Princess is a hard worker and never shirks her family duties. Many believe she would have made a very good king and not surprisingly she is her father’s favorite. He too is supposed to have lamented that Anne wasn’t born a boy as she would have made an excellent king.
Alas poor Charles, once again. Princess Anne is evidently no nonsense but not necessarily no fun. She has had a couple of marriages and is currently married to Timothy Laurence, a commander in the Royal Navy. Evidently there have been rumors that all is not perfect for the couple, although there’s nothing unusual about that for many if not most married couples. However, the princess brought up her son and daughter breaking royal precedent by insisting that they not have titles. She wanted them to be free of the vagaries of royalty but instead to have real lives. Her version, of course.
She is an excellent horsewoman and a hardworking head of the International Save the Children even though she once remarked in an interview that she didn’t like children. Her daughter Zara Phillips, however, has said she would like to grow up to be as good a mother as her mother. |
