.....She was Oscar Wilde's friend ands agent when he first visited new York in 1882.....she brought him to life for me with the fascinating incidents and personal details she told me about him......[she]was extremely kind to me all through our friendship......she had the brain of a man, well balanced and keen, lodged in a massive and masculine shaped head.......I made her laugh by saying that she seemed such a man to me that she was ..... like my grandfather. She was so delighted with this that afterwards she often signed her letters to me "Granny Pop." Photo from a portrait by William Rankin
Bessie Marbury and Elsie de Wolfe 1930 "
.....at the particular time Granny Pop was not happy herself. Her close friend Elsie de Wolfe had cabled that she had married Sir Charles Mendl and Granny Pop took this very much to heart and seemed hurt that Elsie had not consulted her about the marriage. Sir Charles soon came over to New York for the sole purpose of meeting Bessie. He charmed her at this meeting and she told me that in less than an hour she had become completely reconciled to the marriage....."
....Bessie gave me a ticket for a matinee performance of Alla
Nazimova in War Brides at the princess Theatre.....I had seen photographs of Nazimova and though she was beautiful and exotic- looking.....having heard all this.....I built her up to a pitch in my imagination....I could dream of nothing but meeting her and was convinced she was a great soul as well as a great artist. After seeing Nazimova... I rushed back to Bessie and announced what she and everyone else knew, that Nazimova was a great actress. Then I told Bessie that I must meet her. [Mercedes is asked to help out in a benefit performance at which Nazimova is performing. She goes backstage into Madame Nazimova's dressing room "in a trance."] .....She had taken off her fur hat but still in costume. She had thick black hair which stood out from her head, and her eyes were the only truly purple coloured eyes I have ever seen.....she held out both her hands to me and said that she had heard of me from Bessie and Jane......we took to each other instantly. I felt completely at ease and as if we had always known each other......She asked me to walk home with her.
"Aren't you tired after running and leaping all around Madison square Garden ?" I asked
"Heavens no," she answered, "I'm as strong as a lion and I need as much exercise as a tiger." Which was true, I found, in the years to come. So we walked home together feeling the sympathy between us of old friends, but with that underlying excitement of having found a new one." Picture : Nazimova advertises Lucky Strike cigarettes late 1920s!
Mercedes becomes friends with Isadora Duncan
.....This was a memorable summer for me [1916] because it brought that self termed "priestess of the dance" - Isadora Duncan - into my life. To me she seemed more then the reincarnation of a Greek priestess. I looked upon her then as a great genius........when we drove up the drive in front of the house I caught my first sight of Isadora standing in the sun, and at once I felt that the dunes, the reeds, the beach, the sea - all of these - mingled with her and she was part of them.....Isadora stretched out her arms wide with a quick spontaneous gesture as if we had known each other all our lives..... Picture left: Isadora with pupils
In the book there is a photograph of Isadora, in a Greek robe, arm outstretched, overlooking Paris. A small poem is quoted.
"Mercedes, lead me with your little strong
hands and I will follow you -
to the top of a mountain
To the end of the world
Wherever you wish.
Isadora June 28th 1926
From a Poem written to Mercedes by Isadora in 1927,(quoted by Hugo Vickers in "Loving Garbo" ".
....A slender body, hands soft and white
For the service of my delight.
Two sprouting breasts
Round and sweet
Invite my hungry mouth to eat.
From whence two nipples firm and pink Persuade my thirsty soul to drink
And lower still a secret place
Where I'd fain hide my loving face....."
Mercedes meets Eva le Gallienne (for the second time; 1921)
.....Eva le Gallienne had opened during the summer in "Liliom" * with great success. When I returned from Europe, she had already been playing for some weeks, but I had not had time to get in touch with her. One day Betty Parsons called. She said Eva was overtired ** and that the doctor had ordered her out of the theatre for a few days. "Why don't you call her ?" she said. "I know it would cheer her up." I did, and when Eva said she would be back playing again the following Monday I promised to go and see her that night. I had never seen her act and was not prepared for such a remarkably fine performance. The entire play touched me profoundly. When all the visitors had gone and she had taken off her makeup, I went home with her to her flat and we talked long into the morning about our hopes in the theatre..... Picture left: Eva le Gallienne as Hedda Gabler
*Liliom - a popular play of the time by Ferenc Molnar.
** Eva had been seriously sexually assaulted, raped, in her dressing room after a performance. She made no complaint to the police, it is thought she knew her assailant. She did not ever refer to the incident again. Her biographer Helen Sheehy believes that Mercedes may have known about this; familiar as we are with the speed of news flying amongst "friends" it is more than likely !
Eva finally breaks with Mercedes after 3 years.
They travel back to New York from Europe on the liner "Majestic" and
meet up with a a young British playwright called Noel Coward who was travelling to New York to stage his play "The Vortex" with a full company. His designer was Gladys Calthrop.
".....About this time Eva and I were, for a variety of reasons, growing apart. We had often discussed founding a theatre together, one with a permanent company.....along experiment lines with only new plays being produced......But this was not to be. Eva started her own Civic Repertory Theatre.....producing plays that had already been produced, mostly classic. I did not see her again until she was acting out in Hollywood in the Thirties.....".
There is a more explicit version of what happened #:
"....".Dickie" Fellowes-Gordon went to see Coward and asked where Gladys was. "It's all very embarrassing" came the reply. "She's gone off with Eva le Gallienne !"
#From a letter by Miss Fellowes- Gordon (Elsa Maxwell the Columnist's life long companion.) to Hugo Vickers 5.3 91.
The Dinner Party New York, date unknown but before 1931 when Mercedes went to Hollywood.
"....I gave a strange dinner party that winter.....what made me...I do not know. Fearlessly I invited the guests I wanted and the place cards read like the all start cast of a benefit performance: Mrs, Elsie Ferguson (actress), Constance Collier (film and screen actress) , Laurette Taylor (film and screen actress), Helen Hayes (film star), Helen Menken (actress) and Katharine Cornell (actress.) Needless to say each one of these marvellous women could glitter and shine in her own right but together they eyed each other dumbly........" Photograph: Katherine Cornell
Mercedes meets the poet Amy Lowell and smokes a cigar
".....From my friendship with Duse , I met Amy Lowell. I did not know
her but one day after Duse's death she called me on the telephone and asked if she could come to see me. She had an idea for starting a memorial foundation in Duse's name. In the end it came to nothing but I gained a valuable friend. She lived just outside Boston and when she went home the next day I wrote her a letter. I am a very bad speller and no sooner had I mailed it than I realised I had misspelled a word. I thought she would think me an ignoramus and was extremely upset. Like a first class idiot I sent her a telegram saying" PLEASE EXCUSE ME FOR MISSPELLING A WORD IN MY LETTER." A few hours later [my paragraph ,val] I got one back saying "WHICH ONE ?" ] She then asked me to visit her so that she could show me her collection of Keats' letters.....after our walk we moved into a room with many-coloured books on its shelves and a great crackling fire on the hearth. Miss Lowell produced two large black cigars and handed one of them to me. She did not ask me if I wanted it, but I accepted it. I had smoked cigars before but never such a large one. I hoped I would not be violently sick........Miss Lowell stood surprisingly far from the fireplace, bit off the end of her cigar and spat it directly into the fireplace - a bull's eye. I bit off the end of mine and hesitated......Photograph: Amy Lowell
Mercedes meets Ona Munson in Hollywood
She is walking with Greta Garbo on the beach at Santa Monica, and pass the house of Ernst Lubitsch (the film Director)and his wife the actress Ona Munson.
".....Greta said "That's Ernst Lubitsch's house. He is the only great director out here. I should like you to meet him. Let's go and see him. We opened the gate and went into his grounds. Greta leapt onto the porch and knocking on the window instead of ringing the bell said, "Is anyone at home ?" The front door opened and a very attractive young woman looked out. "Ernst is on the kitchen making drinks. I'll call him for you. Won't you come in ?" she asked. This was my first meeting with Ona Munson and led to many years of friendship between us until her tragic death some years later. When Lubitsch entered the living room and saw Greta he let out a great yell of joy.....pushed her onto the sofa and sat beside her holding her hand. Ona said to me "I have wanted to meet you for a long time. I have heard a lot about you from Alla Nazimova....." Picture left: Ona Munson as Belle Watling and Clark Gable in Gone with The Wind
Mercedes looks for a flat in Paris for herself and Poppy Kirk 1949
Mercedes is in France staying with a friend Isabel Pell. Isabel was a
New York socialite and a friend of Eva le Gallienne (!) Through Isabel Mercedes had met Claire, the Marquise de Forbin, a sportswoman and bareback rider who had been active in the French Resistance during the war. Claire knows that Mercedes is looking for a place where she and Poppy can live, finds one , and takes Mercedes to view it.
".....I just said Madame [the concierge]" I will take the apartment." How I got it ready in such a short time I will never know. Let it never be said that the French cannot work quickly. True the flat was small. There was only a bedroom, living room and kitchen.....Picture: Poppy Kirk working during WW2
Mercedes' friendship/affair with Marlene Dietrich differs greatly from Maria Riva's version in MARLENE DIETRICH BY HER DAUGHTER; and there is evidence in letters to back up the Dietrich camp's rather disdainful estimate of Mercedes' passion. It seems that, rather foolishly Mercedes letters to Marlene detail very frequently her still ongoing love for Garbo..... not a good idea. A suggestion that Marlene's estrangement from her director and lover Josef von Sternberg could be as a result of Mercedes' presence in Marlene's life..... terminates it permanently. Maria calls her - as did Talullah Bankhead - "Dracula" A sad term, if you think of the undertones. Picture left below: as Queen Christina
Her longer friendship/affair with Greta Garbo remains of critical interest, but is still by no means documented. The omertà imposed by Greta in her lifetime is continued by her estate . Mercedes broke it - as would Cecil Beaton. "Here lies the Heart" tells of long walks and a holiday together; walks are often used by Mercedes as code for sex and holidays usually demonstrate an affair. Their lonely holiday on an island in a lake by the Sierra Nevada Mountain certainly happened; photographs survive, and it is unlikely that Mercedes as an experienced lover would take No for an answer - even if No were offered. Neither Mercedes and Beaton were forgiven by breaking the omertà. Yet Mercedes had the last laugh. When the sealed letters from Garbo were opened in 2000 - to World-wide interest - they were found to contain only day to day mundane gossip; no scandal, nothing new ! Pictures below: Queen Christina - and the cabaret days.
Up.....
Bessie Marbury Elsie de Wolfe Nazimova Isadora Duncan Eva le Gallienne Eva leaves Mercedes The Dinner Party Amy Lowell Poppy Kirk Garbo & Dietrich
With thanks to:
"Here lies the Heart" by Mercedes de Acosta 1960. A rare book now, but can be found on Rare Book Websites, usually expensive. Recently republished in a modern binding and much more affordable by Ayer Company Publishers NH, USA.
"Eva le Gallienne" by Helen Sheey. Pub. Alfred Knopf 1996
"Loving Garbo" by Hugo Vickers. Pub: Jonathan Cape 1994
"Greta and Cecil" by Diane Souhami. Pub; Jonathan Cape 1994
"Vampires and Violets; Lesbians in the Cinema Andrea Weiss. Pub:Jonathan Cape 1992
"The Sewing Circle, Female stars who Loved other women" by Axel Massey. Pub. Robson Books 1998
"Marlene Dietrich by her daughter" by Maria Riva. Pub: 1992 Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd
From Old Dyke 12 May 2001
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