The Loveliest Woman in America

by Bibi Gaston

  The children were well stashed in a new apartment on East Seventy-ninth, and Little Billy was in school downtown. She had her friends and her riding in the park, but once in a while, in the great in-betweenness of things, the Cinderella loneliness would creep back in and the longing would find something to cling to. It was then that seeing Big Bill was the worst possible thing she could do. After all, there are some things, like longing, that all the distraction and mentors in the world can’t cure.

  There was the slim chance that her husband in his raccoon coat would come around, straighten up, see who she was, and stop it once and for all with the broads. In the torrid whirl of A-list parties, not everyone noticed who showed up with whom, but heads swiveled like twists of lemon when Rosamond and Big Bill awkwardly showed up in the same hors d’oeuvre line introducing each other to each other’s dates. “Please meet my husband, Bill Gaston,” Rosamond would say to a new swain, while Bill would say to one of his women, “Please meet Rosamond, my wife.”

  Rosamond never knew the extent of Bill’s philandering, but others did. Tallulah Bankhead told Rosamond, “I told him to keep off. That I was a Southerner but didn’t have any colored blood.” But there was Loraine McAdoo who hadn’t told Bill to keep off; she encouraged him. Rosamond discovered he’d even slept with the actress he’d introduced her to backstage on their first date, Lynn Fontanne. Then there was old-what’s-her-name, the dame who woke her up the night before James was born. She didn’t know about Clare Boothe Brokaw for certain, but she suspected there was more to that story than met the eye. Clare kept calling her for lunch, though they weren’t exactly friends. Clare was more Bill’s friend, not Rosamond’s. Their relationship fit the pattern of Big Bill’s “friendships” that defied definition.

  Despite his infidelities, Rosamond was in a position to help Big Bill get the aviation job in the Roosevelt administration. If Bill had a job, she thought, it would help everyone. At least it wouldn’t hurt. It was she who had been given the breaks in life, the little miracles and the big ones. Big Bill hadn’t, what with his family who made fun of his writing and his plays and who derided him for the Crotch Island Crab. She felt sorry for Big Bill and knew that if she helped him, perhaps she wouldn’t have to say good-bye to him, not now, not ever.

  Saturday November 5, 1932

  In the afternoon to Headquarters. Got tickets and waited to see Mrs. Roosevelt. Felt shy about talking to her. Still I remember my promise to Bill and that old promise made when we were married about five years ago in West Chester. All those promises have been broken but still I want to help him when I can. Am so sorry for him. Mrs. Roosevelt was sweet. I told her quickly that I wanted to be sure that if Bill’s name should come up she’d say nothing against him. She said she wouldn’t. I left and realized that by talking to Mrs. Roosevelt I had probably done me more good than Bill. Funny. Afternoon shopping for children’s room. The apartment about done now and very nice. At 7:30 Bill came. He looked a little worn almost puffy. Same coldness same constraint and yet that old pleasure in seeing him. We went to the Garden. Garden not as big as I expected. We sat in Mr. Bornicky’s box. Genial little Senator Burns, Mr. and Mrs. Bick. Anna Dall came and Bill went to sit in another box. Very thrilling evening. All the democratic tickets appeared. Finally Wagner came. Big cheering. Then at last Roosevelt leaning on Eleanor’s arm smiling nodding. The crowd stood up and yelled and waving flags. There was a rippling sea of flags. Roosevelt’s face is soft in the jowls, handsome above. Perhaps the softness is due to his enforced physical inactivity. While the crowd still clapped Smith came in. Good staging. Renewed cheers. The two leading democrats stood together making huge dramatic gestures of welcome for the crowd and photographers. Funny. Two good speeches. Roosevelt’s first. Then Smith, spicier, more dramatic, less scholarly. The audience laughed at the great actor and great politician. Bill and I made our way out of the Garden. It was like old times after a prize fight. I felt lonely when I got home. If only—but what’s the use now? He phoned me after an hour. We talked and I’m still so fond of him.

  Between the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his inauguration, Eleanor Roosevelt sent Rosamond a mysterious note. Because the Pinchots knew the Roosevelts and the Roosevelts knew the Gastons, Eleanor Roosevelt probably knew that the Pinchots had gone so far as to have Big Bill shadowed and, without telling Rosamond, reported him to a committee of the New York Bar. Eleanor wrote Rosamond:

  Rosamond had been useful to her friends, and for better or worse, she had put Big Bill in that category. Eleanor knew about infidelity, so she probably approved of what Rosamond had done to help Big Bill, despite everything he had done to her. After all, there are hard things in life, and it is harder still to come out without bitterness. If Eleanor had a synonym for love, it might have been transcendence or much serving. Longing was no synonym for love.

  On New Year’s Eve, the night when longing receives a kind of amnesty and nostalgia hits hardest, Rosamond wrote, “Have a longing for him tonight. Don’t exactly long for Bill but the thought of him brings a weepy feeling to my throat. The pity of this! I love him in an angry way. Bill, you have been very false, and still, I know that in your own way you love me. Human love what a farce it can be!”

  Every New Year’s Eve, Amos Pinchot’s family celebrations in the Forester’s Cottage included an odd ritual, the Resolution Game. Each family member chose something that another family member needed to resolve to change. Ruth was to pay more attention to things domestic and Amos was directed to be more sunny-minded, while brother Giff was to stick to one line and go to bed earlier. Rosamond was advised to act more on thought and less on emotion and to be more cheerful. The Resolution Game was a curious way to kick off the New Year, but the Amos Pinchots were a family of fearless observers, and the fearless part of being a fearless observer was taking the liberty of pointing things out. Even Little Billy adopted the strategy when at three years old he admonished an overweight visitor at Grey Towers, screeching across the entrance hall, “What makes you so fat?” Horrified, Aunt Cornelia told Rosamond that it was important that the Pinchots teach young Billy how to behave since he wasn’t about to learn it from Beelzebub.

  While Rosamond was learning to accept that the husband she had was not the one she hoped for, she enjoyed a group of loyal female friends. Her oldest friend, Francesca Braggiotti, was running off to Hollywood to become Greta Garbo’s voice-over in Italian. Francesca’s younger sister, Gloria, made a good confidante as well, so they walked the reservoir together talking about Gloria’s role as a Spartan woman in Lysistrata and comparing notes on men. There was Toni Frissell, a fashion photographer for Vogue and Harper’s, whom Rosamond thought of as a sister. But one needed an elder more than a sister during a rebound. While Eleanor Roosevelt and Bessie Marbury gave Rosamond good advice, Rosamond subscribed to the Pinchot worldview, which meant that neither the message nor the messenger should escape scrutiny. Flaws were human, but they were still flaws. Rosamond couldn’t help but notice Eleanor’s “awful yellow teeth.” Bessie was brilliant but, according to Rosamond, monstrously fat and at times insufferable.

  There was a third woman with whom Rosamond shared an unusual rapport, the coy, bitchy, and unflappable beauty maven Elizabeth Arden. A legendary battle-ax in business, Arden was always on the lookout for a deal, so she arranged for Rosamond to give her riding lessons in exchange for hiring the youthful ingenue as a celebrity greeter at beauty headquarters. Rosamond’s highest and best use, Arden thought, was to represent the shining face of glamour for the growing masses of the insecure. Rosamond would wheel and deal in unguents and potions, charm the customers into makeovers, and rope them into pointless additional services. Looking to exploit Rosamond’s celebrity cachet, Arden organized a trip to Philadelphia:

  Of all the places to be writing. I’m sitting in the dressing room in back of Wannamaker’s auditorium in Philadelphia. And I can hear Liz Arden’s agitated voice trying to explain to the callow Pennsylvania models how to walk deva
statingly—a wheezy little orchestra plays. It’s hot and somewhere a machine that sounds like an icebox pounds steadily. It will be a long session I can see. It’s 8:30 in the evening. On my person is about $40,000 worth of jewelry. Yes, I’m a precious creature tonight. Henry Sell, who does the advertising for Maubuisson, got them to lend me a diamond bracelet an inch and a half wide and a diamond clip three inches long—there’s a huge yellow diamond in the middle of the clip. It’s all very amazing to Rosamond who has never owned a real jewel until this winter. Mother’s emeralds and diamonds made me feel pretty dressed up. But all this, well, I have just a glimpse of what a tart feels about jewels.

  Arden reminded Rosamond that no matter the hardship, a single woman in the Depression needed to keep her beauty quotient from slipping even one demi-iota. Liz, a notorious tightwad in the payroll department, didn’t pay Rosamond what she was worth, but being a fast study, Rosamond learned to think like the master herself. At Liz’s expense, Rosamond took full advantage of benefits at beauty headquarters by signing herself up for soothing and luxurious “Ardena baths,” massages, makeovers, and other perks that brought things back to even-steven with old Liz. When Bessie Marbury, who had something to say about practically everything, got wind of the fact that Rosamond was commanding a paltry $150 a week, she told Rosamond to put the screws to their friend Arden. No more cut-rate deals for the face of feminine beauty. Rosamond, she crowed, you must charge Arden $500 a week, minimum. Period, no negotiation!

  One night Rosamond was invited up to Arden’s roof after serving on a committee at Rockefeller Center that decided on movies for the Roxy. Perennially late, she first got lost in the “chromium and corners” of the spanking new Rockefeller Center and then sped through the bright lights of Midtown to meet up with Liz, who was putting the finishing touches on her vast apartment, which Rosamond found cool and modern.

  The rug in the salon is the palest cream. Elizabeth and the great photographer Stieglitz were choosing a Georgia O’Keeffe painting for the main room. Stieglitz is a querulous, opinionated old man with tufts of grey hair growing out of his ears. He talked much about how he hated commercialism. Yet I bet he struck a hard bargain with Elizabeth. Mrs. Chase of Vogue was there, also that dreadful woman Dorothy Flightman of Town and Country—snobbish, insecure, English of the worst sort. Mrs. Chase writhed with lumbago. We all went into the bar. It was a small room. The walls are glass and on them painted the most delightful and extravagant cavalry of officers mounted on mad horses. The horses have pink or green tails and manes. They rear and prance. The bar is black and chromium. It’s all terribly grand and rich. I had to laugh at one thing Liz said, sitting in one of the exquisite and expensive chairs, dressed in velvet and pearls. She started talking about the Depression and said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen to us. I expect we’ll all have to go down the drain together.”

  Even the wealthiest feared demise during the Great Depression, but if a woman could survive the lean years, if she could shell out for her subscription to the roller at the Colony Club and keep her beauty quotient from slipping, then she hadn’t just survived, she had triumphed. Arden was a testament to survival, having evacuated like a refugee from rural nowhere in Canada and landed in New York with a few dollars in her pocket; opening a salon, she married her business partner, and basically told him to forget it when he suggested he deserved a few paltry shares in her company. Liz was a walking empire of ingenuity, a siren of survival, a roving pink tornado for the newly evolving beauty industry, and the more havoc she could wreak with a woman’s fears, the more it fed her bottom line.

  That summer of 1932, Rosamond was returning from dropping the boys off with Big Bill’s mother in North Haven, Maine, when Liz Arden and Bessie Marbury invited her to go on a picnic at Marbury’s Lakeside Farm in Mt. Vernon, Maine. At Bessie’s urging, Liz had bought the 750-acre spread, Maine Chance, right next door to hers, and there was speculation that the two dynamic women shared more than just common interests in business and the arts. Their relationship was not just close but candid. Bessie Marbury thought it her job to encourage Arden not to hoard and worship money but to spend it, so Liz joined the Friends of the Philharmonic and the Opera Guild, and Marbury gave her advice on interior decoration, suggesting she hang her walls not with miscellaneous pink horses but with masterworks by the doyenne of pinkness, Georgia O’Keeffe.

  The two Elizabeths were accustomed to giving unsolicited advice on every earthly subject, not only to each other but to others. During the lakeside picnic, which resembled a quasi-Grecian orgy, the two older goddesses double-teamed the younger goddess, treating her to a complimentary al fresco body wax and career counseling session. The latter, naturally, met with mixed feelings:

  I can’t help wondering how a woman who has so many bitchy qualities could have reached the peak Liz Arden has. Really in some ways she’s pretty bad. On horses, for instance she knows it all, is bad tempered and kittenish. She has no idea of how to treat servants. Is either terribly intimate or unbearably rude. She rides like what she is, a foolish middle age woman who has taken up the sport because she thinks it’s the right thing to do. I wanted to swim and sunbake but had to plug along the roads with Liz. Finally got back in time to get a little sun. She spent the time being photographed with Great Dane dogs…. Afternoon, escaped and lay in the sun for a while. Liz came and put hot grease on my legs pulled it out and all the hairs, my furry fetlock growth came with it. Watched the old girl work and noticed how expert she is in her own field. One last swim in the beautiful tepid lake. Then a high tea on Arden’s porch. Bessie Marbury held forth. She keeps urging careers on me saying that my personality should be made into something. Then hurried packing a cold supper and said goodbye to dear Old Bessie. She probably won’t live long. Her fat is monstrous but her spirit is clear…. I went off leaving her to her interests, her Guernsey cattle, her manuscripts and her preparation for the annual Democratic Party.

  While Elizabeth Arden was a force to be reckoned with, Rosamond had great admiration and affection for Bessie Marbury, writing that despite their age difference of fifty years, Bessie was her best friend. Bessie had once represented Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, and, never saying never, she served as the producer of Cole Porter’s first musical. Grossly overweight and frequently ill, Bessie’s various conditions had her frequently take to her Sutton Place bed where she received guests in a purple robe while crocheting and dispensing advice like a wheezing lesbian oracle. “Do this,” she spat, “don’t do that, be that, forgiveness is a virtue, be kind to your husband.” Rosamond loved Marbury more than she loved her own mother, frequently arriving at the red front door of Bessie’s home carrying “weird plants” to make Marbury laugh. In her diary, Rosamond frequently assigned nicknames and she nicknamed her mentor Bessie “The Toad.” “I like toads,” she wrote.

  Bessie Marbury

  Marbury was openly lesbian and a strong advocate of traditional marriage if one could but find a full-fledged man. Marbury wrote, “a caress is better than a career,” but admitted that during her marriageable years, there was virtually no man she found interesting enough to marry:

  To be quite honest, I firmly believe that every woman should marry if this is humanly possible for her. Her one indisputable field of usefulness is in the bearing and raising of children. This is the end for which God intended her. I wish that before any girl decides against matrimony on general principles, she would consult me before it is too late because this is a subject upon which my advice would be of benefit, as I know what I have missed.

  If a woman through her own conceit registers against marriage in favor of some problematical career she will find, provided she lives long enough, that all through life she is at best only a misfit. She may live creditably and even accomplish infinite good, her influence may be of great service to the world, she may help and heal, she may spread sunshine, she may exude happiness; nevertheless she has missed the normal expression of all these things clamoring within h
er for utterance. Her natural territory is her home, even if it is a tiny flat. She should realize that the mothers of great men have contributed much to their making. If on the other hand the bearing of children has legitimately been denied her, then she can prove herself a real help to her husband, and if she is more richly endowed in vision and in capacity than he, she can encourage and mother him and be the silent influence making a good man better or a bad man less evil.

  Over the years, Rosamond went to Bessie’s bedside to listen to her lively incantations on everything from poetry to personal life, but at seventy-six, Bessie’s health was slipping, and finally, on the January 22, 1933, Rosamond called Bessie to learn that her best friend had died quietly at home. On a cold sunny day, January 24, Bessie’s closest friends gathered to say good-bye at Sutton Place. Once again, Rosamond wore what she wore the day she married Big Bill. That day she donned her so-called traveling suit and her old gray hat. At night she sat down to her diary:

  Together they made my wedding dress and veil. Not very romantic costume. Went down to the little house with the red door. There were already a lot of people there. Flowers banked the dining room. There was a heart of white violets with red roses bursting from it, and there was a cross of lilies. The front of the coffin was open. I looked at white dear Bessie, or at least a part of her. I said goodbye. The little rooms upstairs were darkened. Liz Arden came in showing her grief very much, weeping. Mrs. Roosevelt came looking yellow and plain…. A few of Bessie’s family and Miss Morgan and Mrs. Vanderbilt. Mrs. Vanderbilt is quite sweet. She’s old but still slim and quite gay. Her hair is white. Miss Morgan shook hands with me. It hurt. She has a grip like a cowboy. There was a short service in the house. A Catholic priest went through what I suppose must have been a chant. It sounded ugly and foolish. He dragged out “Blessed is thy name and blessed fruit of thy wooooomb Jeesuuus.” A small group of catholics stood in one corner and replied. They and the priest seemed to be in an indecent hurry. We stood and thought our own thoughts. The little black Pomeranian that Bessie gave to Alice came in. He showed a deplorable lack of taste. He sniffed around at the feet of the mourners. Someone tried to pick him up but he snapped at them. The priest with a violent gesture threw holy water at Bessie’s face. Her little fat hands were crossed and held a rosary. That was the last I saw of her.