The Right People

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  Fort Lauderdale for years was considered Florida’s nicest, quietest, most comfortably family-centered upper-class resort—“really better than Palm Beach,” as one old Lauderdale resident explains. “We all knew each other, and our children all knew each other—from the same schools, and from Edgartown in the summers. Oh, it was heaven in Fort Lauderdale.” Fort Lauderdale was a yachtsman’s place, and the Bahia-Mar Marina is said to be able to accommodate enough yachts to jam New York harbor, shore to shore. Fishing, cruising, boat-buying, and boat talk remain Fort Lauderdale’s most popular pastimes. Though a number of large, tall, pastel-hued luxury hotels have arisen along Lauderdale’s ocean front—hotels of a style that becomes increasingly familiar the nearer one gets to Miami—their presence was tolerated by property owners, since the hotels did not obtrude on the expensive residential districts along the canals, inlets, and island shores.

  In fact, though the city was growing, Fort Lauderdale might have gone on its leisurely, boat-loving way had it not been for a curious and sudden annual event: Easter Week. How it happened to spring up there no one knows. In the thirties and forties, Easter Week—or College Week, or Rugby Week—took place in Bermuda, which was the favorite spring retreat for well-off college boys and girls. Then, shortly after World War II, it moved to Fort Lauderdale. As used to be the case in Bermuda, college students from all over the East suddenly descended on Fort Lauderdale—camping six-to-a-room in hotels, sleeping in parked cars or on the beaches. In the beginning the city was amused. As the lemming-like migrations grew larger, it became dismayed. Bermuda (the British have long been better at dealing with colonials than we Americans) used to manage to keep College Week under some semblance of control. But when Fort Lauderdale tried to crack down on, or at least, organize, the event, it sometimes disintegrated into riots and bloodshed and trips to the lockup. Police toughness did not discourage the youthful invaders; if anything, it added an element of excitement to the whole thing. But the teens are a fickle age, and other Florida resorts—Daytona, Pompano Beach, Hollywood-by-the-Sea—have begun to attract College Week crowds, and recently an impressive number have been making their way to Puerto Rico. Fort Lauderdale is relieved and, during its season—traditionally the months of February and March—is trying to regain its old composure.

  As one approaches the vicinity of Palm Beach, one nears the storm center of more controversy. Palm Beach is at war with Hobe Sound, a fashionable upstart to the north. There is also a Palm Beach versus Delray Beach argument and, of course, one between Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale. (The Palm Beach versus Pompano Beach feud is considered a side issue.) The Palm Beach versus Miami Beach battle has been going on for years, and a cease-fire no longer seems possible.

  The chief (if perhaps not the most able-bodied) contender in all this strife, Palm Beach, has the advantage of age; she is now the grande dame of all Florida’s still-fashionable resorts. Despite the aspersions cast at her through the years, she has kept her jeweled head high. And, it must be admitted, she wears her age surprisingly well. Whether one drives past the miles of trimmed lawns and pruned shrubbery in front of the mansions on Ocean Boulevard, or strolls in and out of the dainty, expensive, and “fun” shops and restaurants along Worth Avenue, the same sense of unity and control is apparent. It is as though Palm Beach were the creation of a single set designer.

  Actually, there have been several. Following Henry Flagler, the extraordinary Addison Mizner—artist, miner, prizefighter and self-schooled architect—did as much as anyone else to crystallize the personality of Palm Beach. Along with Paris Singer, son of I. M. Singer, the sewing machine manufacturer, and famous as the traveling companion of Isadora Duncan, Mizner took Flagler’s creation, face-lifted what was there and added a great deal more. Mizner’s taste is responsible for Palm Beach’s Mediterranean style of architecture which has been called “Walt Disney Castilian.”

  In the early 1900’s, prior to Mizner’s arrival, Palm Beach exhibited a strong tendency to gingerbread; Mizner got rid of all that and replaced it with the grandeur of fountains, pebbled walks, and topiary. He would certainly have approved of the presence of so many French poodles today, which look as though they had been clipped to match the place. Later architects have followed the Mizner pattern, though they have added a bit of the white-roofed Bermuda Colonial style, with which Mizner-Mediterranean blends more or less comfortably. “We are not fond of so-called ‘modern’ architecture in Palm Beach,” one woman explains. Some of that has got in, apparently by mistake, but most of it is on the side streets and out of sight.

  The things that are most impressive about Palm Beach—its manicured perfection and air of well-being—are the things which, after a while, become most oppressive about it to many people. Palm Beach has been accused of being full of nouveaux riches—those who, traditionally, are said to find a stiff and formal attitude more reassuring—and it is true that some of the older wealth has forsaken Palm Beach and gone to the much smaller community of Hobe Sound, where the atmosphere has become more relaxed and old-clothesy, and where tourists are given a chilly, if not openly hostile, reception. Palm Beach, meanwhile, counters by pointing out that it is not fond of tourists, either; it is proud of its police force which is credited with knowing, at any given time, just who belongs in Palm Beach and who does not. “We,” says one loyal winter resident, Mrs. Edmund Lynch, “say that it’s Hobe Sound that’s become nouveau.” So there you are.

  The composition of Palm Beach’s winter population has changed considerably in the last thirty years. Palm Beach used to feel that it more or less belonged to New York, or at least to Eastern United States, Society. But lately there have been invasions from Middle Western cities, and from the oil lands of Oklahoma and Texas. Delray Beach used to be a Detroit community, like many other Florida communities which were originally settled by people from a particular city in the North. Now, Detroit money is represented in Palm Beach also, and millionaires like Charles B. Wrightsman, the Oklahoma oil man, have come to Palm Beach. There is no longer just one Palm Beach “set” but several—including the Old Guard, the Jet Set, and what is known as The Kennedys and Their Friends.

  There are at least two other Palm Beach phenomena that are worth comment, and in certain ways the two are connected. One is the resort’s recent sudden and avid interest in art, artists, and art galleries. Galleries have sprung up all along Worth Avenue, and young painters have discovered that they can often sell their paintings faster, and for higher prices, in Palm Beach than in New York. The market here is for paintings that are strictly contemporary—the more advanced and daring, the better they sell. At the same time, according to one artist, Palm Beach people don’t really seem to care about art; they just want to buy it, which makes a Palm Beach gallery opening somewhat less satisfying to the artist than one in Manhattan. “These Society dames buy pictures the way they buy diamonds,” he says. “For status.”

  The other phenomenon—not unique to Palm Beach, certainly, but explicitly apparent there—is the emergence of what might be called the Kept Man as a fixture of Society. The Kept Woman has certainly undergone a great decline—how many men have one of her kind today?—and the Kept Man has risen to fill her place. He performs, of course, a somewhat different function. One sees him all over Palm Beach at parties—never alone, always in a group, always impeccably tailored, yet always in some elusive way looking rather “extra.” Usually homosexual (one assumes), he is usually handsome. He is usually young, or at least not specifically old, or even middle-aged. A middle-aged dowager may have several—a little retinue who follow her and flatter her and amuse her, wherever she goes. Each has a room in her Palm Beach house and, as a rule, in all her houses elsewhere. But the Kept Man is not exclusively an adjunct of women without husbands. Many married couples have one, even several, of their own. The Kept Man’s function is to be decorative, attentive, and—most important—amusing. If he belongs to a couple, he is the wife’s particular pet and toy—and is merely tolerated by the husb
and who recognizes that this man, while not a sexual threat, supplies his wife with something that he cannot. “He makes her laugh,” one man says. “And they do things together—go shopping for antiques or clothes—that I’ve never really enjoyed doing with her.”

  France, Italy, Spain, and Greece seem to supply the greatest share of Kept Men to American women—who prefer men with a “Mediterranean look”—though England, too, has sent a number to these shores. Many Kept Men have titles—some bona fide, others not. Often the Kept Man will have some occupation or other, vague or specific, such as interior decorator, or he may be a hairdresser, a clothes designer, or a painter or sculptor or photographer needing sponsorship. But often as not his profession is uncertain, his antecedents dim, his source of income hard to find. He must be available for parties and be able to travel; few men can do all this and work, too. Sometimes, the Kept Man will actually be on his protectress’s payroll, in which case he may be called a private secretary, though his duties extend far beyond the secretarial and his working day does not end at five o’clock. In several cases, the Kept Man has become an actual, permanent, “live-in” member of the household.* As far as can be discovered, the wages paid to such an individual are astonishingly small. One young man reveals that his employer—he calls her by her first name, of course—pays him only two hundred dollars a month. “Isn’t that a bitch?” he asks with a wry gin. But of course, there are other compensations—fringe benefits such as meeting and being entertained by the rich, famous, and beautiful wherever he goes; having, when in Paris one autumn, his lady surprise him with a brown velvet suit—a fabric he had helped her choose for a sofa—run up by Christian Dior. When in Madrid one spring, he was presented with a matador’s full “suit of lights.”

  In many ways, the phenomenon of the Kept Man makes a certain amount of sense and, as an institution, he should have far less trouble surviving than the Kept Woman. The Kept Woman, to begin with, was often shrouded in a certain veil of sin and secrecy whereas, with the Kept Man, no threat or possibility of scandal exists. To the woman whose husband is often at the office, or whose business takes him on trips to boring places, the Kept Man is a pleasant, nonsexual male companion. He is nearly always lunchable and otherwise available to hurry over and cheer her up with witty talk and a bit of flattery. He is someone to have a cocktail with. If the woman’s husband cannot—or will not—fly off to Paris for the Spring Collections, there is the Kept Man, waiting and ready with his passport up-to-date. In nearly every capital of Europe, it is considered inappropriate for a woman to appear on a street unescorted, and so the Kept Man fulfills this function too. And what woman—anywhere—enjoys going into a restaurant, or to the theatre, or to a party, except on a man’s arm?

  There are other kinds of husbands, too, than busy ones whose wives Kept Men serve. In New York, one Society husband is an arrested alcoholic and is uncomfortable in the liquid atmosphere of New York social life. He is delighted that his wife has found an elegant and attentive man to take her everywhere he cannot go; without such a man, she would have had to withdraw from social life completely. There is also the husband whose wealth is so substantial and whose ambitions are so modest that he does no work at all. The cruel fact that those in Society seldom admit is that between the parties and the lunches and the committee meetings and the travels stretch long, dull hours. With servants to care for them, how is a couple like this to occupy themselves in the still and stony fastness of their house? For the husband, television may provide sufficient entertainment. For the wife, the Kept Man helps fill the yawning hours with gin rummy and conversation.

  If a woman is rich enough, she will have her own Kept Man; if not, she will share him with a friend or two. In most cases, the relationship between each woman and her man is kept carefully superficial but, from time to time, strange things have happened and deep attachments have developed. There have even been cases of widows or divorcees marrying their young men. A more common problem, if a woman shares her man with others, is jealousy. In Paris not long ago, an American Society woman had begun accusing her young man of devoting an unfair share of his time to other women, of refusing to answer the telephone when she called, of making shallow excuses, and of other such hostile acts. The two began to quarrel bitterly. Walking along the banks of the Seine, the woman and her young man accused each other of the most terrible treacheries and, following a particularly pointed insult from the young man, the woman reached into her purse, took out a gold Cartier cigarette case he had given her, and hurled it into the river. “That case cost me two thousand dollars!” the young man cried. The woman hurried off. When the young man returned to his room, he found his floor littered with one-dollar bills. When he had picked them up, and counted them, there were two thousand exactly.

  There are two other facts that make the Kept Man’s place in Society seem secure. The first is that except in extreme instances a Kept Man can be counted upon to treat a woman far better than most husbands treat their wives. Among the Kept Man’s greatest appeals is his flattering interest in feminine matters—the style of his lady’s hair, her clothes, her furniture—and his gossipy interest in the doings of her friends. Second is the fact that a Kept Man will usually take a good deal more abuse from a woman than a husband will willingly take from his wife. The Kept Man is also the woman’s whipping-boy—the target of all her fits of temper, her weepy moods, all her angst. The Kept Man will put up, from time to time, with flying crockery, and the husband is therefore spared. And, according to one such husband, “Since G——became a part of our household, she’s been a hell of a better wife.”

  One young man not long ago smiled faintly and said, “It’s probably the only way in the world to get in Society without having money. But of course there are drawbacks. They have their ways of letting you know where you stand. A trip is planned, and they’ll say to you, ‘Of course you’ll need a ticket, darling, won’t you?’ The ticket comes—it’s delivered to you. It’s always First Class, of course. But it’s just a single ticket, charged to their Air Travel card. You travel with them, but you travel alone at the same time like a kind of—well, like a kind of … luggage.”

  “Oh, what a shame you have to go to Miami,” says a Palm Beach lady. “You’ll hate it. It’s the most ghastly place, completely different from here.” Miami has become an international symbol of everything that is vulgar, meretricious, ostentatious and overpriced in the United States; Miami is Florida’s painted lady. What many believers in international symbols don’t realize, however, is that what they think of as “Miami” is actually Miami Beach. A series of long causeways joins the two places, to be sure, but it is still a considerable journey between them, and, traffic conditions being what they are, a formidable one. Guests at the spectacular hotels along Collins Avenue in Miami Beach seldom suspect that there is another Miami on the other side. And those who belong to the “other” Miami often confess that they have never laid eyes on, much less been inside, the Americana, the Fontainebleau, or the Eden Roc. The “other” Miami has remained sedate, unpublicized—exactly as it has seemed to prefer it.

  This was not always so, of course, for the genesis of all Florida resorts is similar, heavily dosed with press-agentry and avarice. Miami, in fact, was the child of the Great Florida Land Boom, born around 1920, and the boom was the child of a man named George E. Merrick. Merrick had been a poor boy, the son of a clergyman, who inherited one hundred and sixty acres of South Florida land and for which his father had paid about a thousand dollars. Young George had a dream which seemed to verge on lunacy, or at least obsession—a dream of a beautiful city of beautiful homes, a city that would dwarf the then insignificant town of Miami, a city more magnificent than the world had ever seen, filled with the world’s most magnificent people. It was a dream on a larger scale than William Van Duzer Lawrence’s dream, which he brought to reality in Bronxville. Somehow Merrick managed to buy up some three thousand more acres, and to have some promotional brochures printed. Armed with these,
he headed for New York, the money capital. Money turned out to be plentiful.

  “He was an absolute spellbinder,” says Alfred Browning Parker, whose father became Merrick’s sales manager. “He had the kind of charisma and magnetism that the mad often have. He could sell anything.” Like Flagler, Merrick wanted a luxury hotel—and soon there was one, the Miami Biltmore, costing $10,000,000. He wanted a championship golf course and a country club, and these materialized. According to Parker, Merrick was fascinated by—without really understanding—the great cities of the Mediterranean and Adriatic. Naples, Venice, and Barcelona, which he had never visited, became his models, with a touch of the South Pacific thrown in for good measure. (When he opened a swimming place called Tahiti Beach, “real Tahitians”—so Merrick said—were imported for decoration.)

  He built streets and he built canals—forty miles of them—patterned after those of Venice, and he imported Venetian gondolas and gondoliers. The gondoliers were supposed to do nothing but pole their craft up and down the canals, singing, but whether anyone heard them above the din of moneymaking is doubtful. The American rich—always eager to be first in any place that is expensive, different, and new—began buying lots and ordering palaces in Coral Gables (as Merrick named it) as fast as they were able.