The Loveliest Woman in America

by Bibi Gaston

  I wandered the grounds of the Schloss that afternoon, deciding that the journey to know my grandmother ended where it began, in the place Max Reinhardt first envisioned his American Nun, in the days before she met Big Bill, before the tug of longing and before Cinderella’s ennui set in. In June 1938, several months after Rosamond died, the Nazis turned the Schloss into their base of Austrian operations. Max Reinhardt never returned to his beloved castle again. Max had lost the most blessed things in life that year, his landscape and Rosamond Pinchot. It wasn’t the divine intervention he had come to expect.

  In the days before the Nazis rolled in to the Schloss, Max had experimented with the design of garden theaters in the woods adjacent to the lake. Aerial photographs from the 1930s showed vast garden openings punctuated by columns, stairs, and classical garden accoutrements. I wondered about Max’s designs, so that afternoon I traipsed past the boring politicians on the terrace and headed into the forest to look for evidence of a proscenium or a stage. But all I could find were curtains and curtains of trees where the muscular Austrian vocabulary of chestnut, beech, and oak had grown back into a beautiful young forest. Frankly, I wanted to retrieve Max’s massive theatrical vision and bring back his garden stage. I thought old Max’s spread could use a bit of work. But that would have to wait for another day. A day not dedicated to Rosamond.

  The ground was soggy, so I took off my shoes and felt the muddy clay between my toes. The afternoon was coming on fast so I continued along the narrowing trail and came to a gap in the trees by the lake where I found a wooden board. I thought of Gifford, who, I was told, used a block of wood for a pillow. Deciding it was time for a nap, I looked across the lake and all around, and as soon as the coast was clear, I tore off my clothes to take the last of the sun. By the mirror at the foot of the Alps, where Max Reinhardt experimented with garden theaters, and Rosamond brought his experiments to life, I thought about what I’d come to believe, that there is no death, only the reappearance of the vast and mysterious pattern that is life. I was staging a beauty session where Rosamond had, and it was the finest tribute I could think of to honor her and the life she gave my father and me.

  January 24, 2007

  Rosamond in Town & Country magazine

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks go to Ros Casey, John Casey, and Nancy Pinchot, who first told me that Rosamond had left diaries and who have lent their support every step of the way. Thanks also to Silvia Erskine who first introduced me to my cousin Ros. It is doubtful that I would have discovered Rosamond or her diaries any other way. I am very grateful to my agent, Linda Loewenthal at the David Black Literary Agency, who understood Rosamond, my father, and me from the beginning, and to Carrie Feron at Morrow/HarperCollins, who believed in this project and took a chance, and to Tessa Woodward who helped move the book to publication.

  Thanks to Morris and Ruth Beschloss for sharing their stories of my father, and to Professor Matthew Bruccoli, who implored me, “If you don’t write about Rosamond, the gods will weep.” Many thanks to Sarah Cedar Miller, Central Park historian. My thanks to Nick Rigos in New York, H. M. Jami ( Jimmy) at the Hotel Continental in Tangier, and Greg Koester in Atlanta. In Boulder, thanks to Heidi Hillman, Bay Roberts, Engrid Winslow, Diane Starnick, Sher Saltucker, Sandy Gibson, Val Donham, Shelley Heller, Barbara Steiner, Wendy Clough, Tanja Pagevic, Nan Kenney, and Colleeen Corbo. In Hood River, Linda Maddox. And in Washington, special thanks to Tony Bradlee: I only wish we had more time.

  Thanks to Elin Elisofon and the Estate of Eliot Elisofon and to Bert Dyer, Maine fisherman and friend to three generations of Gastons. Thanks to the Gastons: my brother, Bill Gaston, for reading the manuscript; Amanda Gaston; Nancy Gaston; Gail Gaston; Janet, Hopie, and Rickie Cooper; Tom Gaston; Noni Gaston; and Teddy Getty Gaston.

  Tremendous thanks to Kathryn Black in Boulder for her help in structuring the story, to Susan Leon for fine-tuning, and Kenny Moratta in Charlottesville for timely encouragement. I am very indebted to Char Miller for sharing his encyclopedic knowledge of Gifford Pinchot, the Pinchot tribe, and what Gifford called “The Outfit,” the USDA Forest Service. Thanks to Herbert Poetzl at the Special Collection of Max Reinhardt at the Library at SUNY, Binghamton. Thanks to the New York Society Library. Many thanks to Olga Bermosser at the Schloss Leopoldskron for her tour of the Schloss and for translating the work of Johnannes Hoffinger on Max Reinhardt. My thanks to Candace Lewis at the UCLA Film and Television Archive. I am most grateful to the staff at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division under the leadership of Bruce Kirby, including librarians Jeffrey Flannery, Jennifer Brathavde, Frederick J. Augustyn Jr., Ph.D., Lia Apodaca, Patrick Kerwin, and Joseph Jackson. Thanks to the Huntington Library, the Kay Francis Collection at the Wesleyan Film Archive in Middletown, Connecticut, and the staff of the Hollywood Bowl Museum. Very many thanks go to Robin and Tappan Wilder for sharing their knowledge of Thornton Wilder, Jed Harris, and the events surrounding the opening night of Our Town. And to Horton Foote for remembering Rosamond in a way that brought her to life. Special thanks also to John Guare, who insisted, “You are the denouement!”

  Many thanks to Robert A. M. Stern. Thanks to the staff at Grey Towers. Special thanks to Lori McKean, Rebecca Philpot, Museum Specialist. Thank you to Konrad Kaltenback and the Hunterdon County Hospice, Gayle Feldman, Roberta and Mike Hilbruner, the FDR Library, Scott O’Brien, and the Lincoln Center Library of the Performing Arts. Last, thanks to Jane Carter, who was my Bessie Marbury and died before the manuscript was born. She hoped telling Rosamond’s story would change my life. Thanks to her, it has.

  Clipping, the Daily Mirror

  Clipping, the Daily Mirror

  Clipping, the Daily Mirror

  Notes

  Because this is a memoir, much of the material assembled in this story comes from personal experience. I am grateful to have had my brother, Bill Gaston, who reviewed the manuscript for accuracy, as well as my cousins Nancy Pinchot, Rosamond Pinchot, and her husband, John Casey, who agreed to wade through earlier drafts.

  Assembling the story of Rosamond and my father has been made possible thanks to three primary sources and many secondary sources. First among them are Rosamond’s scrapbooks, which contain photographs, playbills, news articles, theatrical reviews, letters and notes, and of course her diaries, which begin with just a few pages in 1926 and “end” in the last extant book from 1934, comprising in total, more than one thousand single-spaced pages.

  Other primary resources include a series of twenty-one taped interviews conducted by my cousin Nancy Pinchot in 1986. The list of those interviewed included: Geraldine Morris, Alice Leone Moates, Alfred de Liagre, Horton Foote, Iva Patcevich, Kitty Tacquey, Helen Stokes, Helen Brewer, Gloria Braggiotti, Mario Braggiotti, Isabel Wilder, Gifford Bryce Pinchot, Gifford Pinchot II, Jennifer Cabot, Katherine Walker MacKealy, Marguerite Courtney, Bill Roerick, George Abbott, Jim Beadley, William Gaston, my father, and myself.

  My third primary resource in piecing together the story, particularly the social and political backdrop of Grey Towers, came from materials in the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress that houses the Pinchot Collection, their second-largest collection of personal papers, divided into the records of Governor Gifford Pinchot, Amos Richards Eno Pinchot, and Cornelia Bryce Pinchot. I also used the New York Times Archive to confirm the whereabouts of many of the characters, as historical supplement, where Rosamond’s diary entries and family letters were thin.

  1. THE MIRACLE

  Descriptions of Rosamond’s discovery aboard the Aquitania are to be found in major newspapers of the day. I found her own description in a piece she wrote that was pasted into her scrapbook. I put together the plot of The Miracle and the events surrounding opening night using news accounts, dramatic reviews, and Oliver Sayler’s handsome Regie Book, Max Reinhardt and His Theatre: The Miracle Edition, translated from the German by Mariele S. Gudernatsch. I ordered the impressive volume from an antiquarian book dealer and the book arriv
ed in a velvet sack as if sent by Gest himself, complete with his original signature. Rudolf Kommer’s letter inducing Rosamond to come to Salzburg was pasted into Rosamond’s scrapbook. For those readers who would like more information about the life of Kay Francis or to see her desk diaries and scrapbooks, they can be found at the Kay Francis Collection at the Wesleyan Cinema Archives in Middletown, Connecticut. For those interested in the life and work of Max Reinhardt, the Max Reinhardt Archives and Library are to be found in Special Collections at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York. The entire letter from Mary Pinchot to Amos Pinchot describing young Rosamond as a “bewitching little coquette,” as well as Amos Pinchot’s letter to his sister Nettie in England regarding Gest, can be found in the Amos Pinchot Collection at the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress as can many letters between Amos and Rosamond while she was at boarding school, on ships crossing the Atlantic, and from her days on the road with The Miracle. An excellent source of opinion and information on theaters, theater personalities, actors, actresses, and performances, including Franz Werfel’s Goat Song, can be found in the various editions of Alexander Woollcott. I used The Portable Woollcott and Long, Long Ago. Reviews of Big Bill’s play, Damn the Tears, the description of the 1926 Beaux Arts Ball at the Astor, and Bill and Rosamond’s secret wedding in West Chester, Pennsylvania, are from press accounts found in Rosamond’s scrapbook and the New York Times Archive. I found Cukor’s telegram to Rosamond in her scrapbook.

  2. THE LANDSCAPE OF MEMORY

  Invaluable to me in placing Rosamond and her diary entries in the context of the Pinchot family and Grey Towers was Char Miller’s Gifford Pinchot: The Making of a Modern Environmentalist and Char Miller himself, who kindly reviewed and made suggestions to early drafts of Chapter 2. Material related to the construction of Grey Towers was gathered from many sources, including Grey Towers and the USDA Forest Service, the Historic Structures Report, and a master’s thesis for Cornell University by Amy L. Snyder entitled “Grey Towers National Historic Landmark: Recreating a Historic Landscape.” I discovered more than abundant detail on Cornelia’s gardens, gardeners, designers, and horticultural practices in her voluminous garden files in the Cornelia Bryce Pinchot Collection at the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. Part of my understanding of the development of the Finger Bowl came from an article by Barry W. Walsh in the Journal of American Forestry, “Grey Towers Celebrates a Centennial.” Descriptions of both Grey Towers and Crotch Island are stitched together from interpreting early photographs and historical descriptions, as well as my own personal experience of the landscape. Sadly, Crotch Island no longer has the benefit of Big Bill’s interior design. Burglars broke into the cabin in the late 1980s and stole almost every stick of furniture and artwork.

  3. A CHRONOLOGY OF CHAOS

  Readers interested in Bernard Berenson will find the record of a fascinating life in his autobiograohy, Sketch for a Self-Portrait.

  4. A SYNONYM FOR LOVE

  I found much of the information on the life, times, and essence of Clare Boothe Brokaw (née Luce) in Rage for Fame: The Ascent of Clare Boothe Luce by Sylvia Jukes Morris. The account of Clare’s visit to Crotch Island is to be found in that volume, which dovetailed with Rosamond’s diary entries. While Big Bill’s reputation for womanizing was legendary in its day, the stories were substantiated by many sources including those of Clare and of Margaret Wise Brown, and of course the diary entries of Kay Francis. In addition, the legend lives on in an interview I conducted with Burt Dyer, the son of Les Dyer, a local fisherman who was one of Big Bill’s best friends in Vinalhaven, Maine. The description of the Pageant of Romance at the Astor can be found in the New York Times Archive. Articles about Rosamond’s work training women stump speakers can be found in many newspaper accounts of the day. The mysterious note from Eleanor Roosevelt was pasted into her diary. Rosamond’s diary entries are the source of the White House scenes with Eleanor Roosevelt, as are the scenes with Bessie Marbury, and Liz Arden. I discovered only one article with Rosamond’s byline published by the Universal Press during her coverage of FDR’s inauguration, but more may exist. Scenes with Cukor and Selznick are directly from the diaries.

  5. THE KING OF JEEPS

  Most of Chapter 5 was assembled from the contents of my father’s green garbage bags. Thanks to the Internet, I was able to contact several friends of my father’s who substantiated his whereabouts and told me that they always suspected he was an intelligence operative. I do not believe that was the case, at least not in his latter years.

  The information on the day at Grey Towers is detailed in a wonderful small volume, When President Kennedy Visited Pike County by Norman B. Lehde. No fully accurate biographical account exists of the life of Rosamond’s half-sister Mary Pinchot Meyer. Her life and death are still clouded by speculation and misinformation.

  6. PARADISE

  Those who would like to know more about Anne Marie Wendell and Robert Bowne Minturn’s central role in the plan to develop a “central park” for New York may wish to consult The Park and the People: A History of Central Park by Roy Rozensweig and Elizabeth Blackmar.

  7. OUR TOWN

  The details surrounding Rosamond’s death on the opening night of Our Town are from taped interviews of Isabel Wilder, Horton Foote, Gloria Braggiotti, Alfred de Liagre, and Bill Roerick (who played a baseball player in Our Town) by my cousin Nancy Pittman Pinchot. While their memories of the events of January 22–26 appear to coincide with news articles and one another, the interviews were conducted nearly fifty years after the fact, so the precise details are open to a reasonable degree of question. The most unusual account of the night Rosamond died appeared about twenty years after the fact and out of the blue, in an article in Locust Valley’s North Shore Journal, vol. 14, no. 1, by Edith Hay Wyckoff, “The Fabled Past—Rosamond Pinchot.” My father may have said that the account wasn’t worthy of the fireplace had he seen it. Nevertheless, I include it in the narrative because elements of the story are credible and the best account we have of Rosamond’s struggle on the night she died.

  I assembled many details surrounding Our Town’s opening nights in Princeton and Boston from the the superb “Afterword” in the 2003 edition of Our Town, written by Tappan Wilder, Thornton Wilder’s nephew. Tappan was a great help and support in my understanding of the personalities and events on that night, and the theater world in general. Those interested in the intersecting paths of Rosamond and Horton Foote may wish to read Farewell: A Memoir of a Texas Childhood, and Beginnings: A Memoir by Horton Foote.

  I discovered the love notes from Sinclair Lewis in Rosamond’s scrapbook. Rosamond’s death certificate is in the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Amos Pinchot collection.

  8. THE TOPOGRAPHY OF THE BRAIN

  Information on the argument between Amos and Big Bill came from a taped interview with Gifford Bryce Pinchot by Nancy Pinchot. In the Amos Pinchot Collection, I also discovered a note on the back of an envelope in Amos’s handwriting outlining the highlights of that phone conversation. I discovered the letters from Cornelia to Big Bill regarding the boys housed in the Cornelia Pinchot Collection. Eleanor Roosevelt’s comments about Our Town can be found in the letters of Thornton Wilder and Gertrude Stein, part of the Henry McBride Series on Modernism. The letters from Teddy Roosevelt to Gifford and the letter from Max Reinhardt to Amos are in the Gifford Pinchot Collection and the Amos Pinchot Collection, respectively, at the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress as was the letter from Ruth to Gifford regarding the hospitalization and treatment of Amos.

  I found the correspondence between my father and Lady Diana Manners in the Old Mill in his green garbage bags. My father was also interviewed by Nancy Pinchot regarding his mother, which added to my understanding of his childhood with Big Bill and confirmed what I already knew of his relationship with the rest of the family. His letters to the Harvard Class of 1951 are from that class’s Anniversary Report. The letters he wrote to
Tony Pinchot were also discovered among my father’s personal effects. Readers interested in the history of Hurricane Island, its owners, and adjacent island lore with further photos of Big Bill may wish to consult The Town That Disappeared by Eleanor Richardson.

  9. BEAUTY SESSIONS

  The excerpt from the diary of Mary Pinchot Meyer came from Nancy Pittman Pinchot by way of her mother, Tony Bradlee. There are many film versions of The Three Musketeers. Rosamond played Queen Anne in the 1935 version, directed by Roland V. Lee. It is available for viewing at the UCLA Film Archive, by appointment only.

  I spent many hours in Salzburg learning about Max Reinhardt and Rosamond’s work at the Schloss Leopoldskron, which is closed to the general public. It is visible from across the lake on the Sound of Music Tour and available for special tours by appointment through the Salzburg Global Seminar.

  Bibliography

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  Behrens-Abouseif. Beauty in Arabic Culture. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1999.

  Berenson, Bernard. Sketch for a Self-Portrait. New York: Pantheon, 1949.

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