by Lisa Cohen
“confounded her friends…‘wanted!’”: Dawn Powell to Gerald Murphy, December 13, 1962, GSMP.
“the kindness that…understood”: Hodgson, “Sublime Governess.”
“I don’t know…appointment”: EM to Sybille Bedford, April 26, 1953, SBP.
In 1950 she sent: Dr. A. Whitney Griswold, “Our Tongue-Tied Democracy,” New York Herald Tribune, 1954, GSMP. Conversation, he wrote, “is forsaken by a technology that is so busy tending its time-saving devices that it has no time for anything else…. It is shouted down by devil’s advocates, thrown into disorder by points of order. It is subdued by soft-voiced censors who, in the name of public relations, counsel discretion and the avoidance of controversy…. It languishes in a society that spends so much time passively listening and being talked to that it has all but lost the will and the skill to speak for itself.”
“Winter is come…misfortunes”: EM to Sybille Bedford, June 14, n.d. [circa 1953], SBP.
“As Muriel Draper’s…‘Draper’”: EM to Sybille Bedford, Friday, n.d., July [1956], SBP.
“As a workman…‘lasse’”: EM to Edmund Wilson, September 25, 1958, EWP.
“relieved to have…‘goût’”: Gerald Murphy to Richard Myers, July 22, 1958, Myers Family Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
“As Jane Bowles…us”: EM to Sybille Bedford, May 3, n.d., SBP.
“Joe Appiah wouldn’t…apple!”: Simon Hodgson, “Sublime Governess,” New Statesman, February 22, 1963, 268.
“what made it…‘cherub’”: Powell, Diaries, 249.
“We leave this…‘interesting’”: EM to Sybille Bedford, October 13 [1956], SBP.
“She has a…thoughts”: Virginia Woolf, “Madame de Sévigné,” The Death of the Moth and Other Essays (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1974 [1940]), 52.
“Every book is…ancestors”: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Representative Men (New York: Modern Library Classics, 2004 [1850]), 25.
“‘furnishes a key…superscription’”: Susan Howe, The Midnight (New York: New Directions, 2003), 116.
“Here is the…Esther”: EM to Sybille Bedford, October 22 [1955], SBP.
FANTASIA ON A THEME BY MERCEDES DE ACOSTA
“One never thinks…scene”: New York Times, October 23, 1900, 6.
lead in Chantecler: In Edmond Rostand’s Chantecler, the title character, a rooster, is hailed by another avian character as “My, thy, his, her, our, your, and their Cock!”
“a structure unique…lighting”: New York Times, January 16, 1908, X2.
“seemed almost like…nature”: “The Jesters,” New York Times, January 5, 1908, 9.
“had been technically…own”: “Maude Adams Is Dead at 80,” New York Times, July 18, 1953.
“a real personal…audience”: Issac F. Marcosson and Daniel Frohman, with an Appreciation by James M. Barrie, Charles Frohman: Manager and Man (New York and London: Harper and Bros., 1916), pp. 171, 170.
“theatre car…existence”: New York Times, April 15, 1906, 1. This front-page article is directly under the report of a lynching (hanging and burning) of two men in Springfield, Missouri, while a mob of three thousand watched “their agony.”
“You are not…you”: “A Time of Years,” Time, July 27, 1953. Accessed at www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,936102,00.html.
“lived quietly with…McKenna”: Ibid.
“As long as…theatre”: “Maude Adams Is Dead at 80.”
“the almost hysterical…charms”: “Maude Adams, Beloved ‘Peter Pan,’ Dead at 80,” New York Herald Tribune, July 18, 1953.
“mon grand amour”: Marlene Dietrich to MdA, September 23, 1932, MdAP.
“I fear Janet…there”: EM to Sybille Bedford, July 10 [1950], SBP.
“Mercedes never lies”: Sybille Bedford to author, conversation, London, June 28, 1999.
“undeniable gifts…egotism”: EM to Chester Arthur, September 12, 1936, AFP.
either uncritical homage: One notable exception is Patricia White, “Black and White: Mercedes de Acosta’s Glorious Enthusiasms,” Camera Obscura 15, no. 3 (2000): 226–65.
“the first celebrity stalker”: Daniel Jeffreys, New York Post, April 18, 2000, 7.
“I often stood…heroic”: Mercedes de Acosta, “Here Lies the Heart,” typescript [1938], first draft, 29, MdAP.
“the Spanish code…cloister”: Daniel Schwarz, “Builder of the Eye Bridge,” New York Times, November 2, 1947.
“the most romantic…society”: Cholly Knickerbocker, “Cholly Knickerbocker Says,” New York American, March 1, 1935, MdAP.
“Parents in the…convenient”: Mercedes de Acosta, Here Lies the Heart (New York: Reynal, 1960), 109.
“the country”: Ibid., 18.
“long religious essays…letters”: Mercedes de Acosta, “Here Lies the Heart,” typescript, [1938], first draft, 8, MdAP.
“a suicidal mania”: de Acosta, “Here Lies the Heart,” typescript [1938], first draft, 229, MdAP.
“put [her] face…moaned”: De Acosta, Here Lies, 38.
“craving for death…state”: De Acosta, “Here Lies the Heart,” typescript [1938], first draft, 231–32, MdAP.
“the frustration and…men”: De Acosta, Here Lies, 117.
“without a shred…women”: Ibid., 76.
“my hair was…collapse”: De Acosta, “Here Lies the Heart,” typescript, [1938] first draft, 28, 30, 31, MdAP.
“I am not…life”: Ibid., 32, MdAP.
“childhood tragedy”: Ibid., 33, MdAP.
“Every child was…ecstasy”: De Acosta, Here Lies, 17.
“like hunters out…Ethel”: Ibid., 42.
“too shy and…migraine”: Ibid., 42–43.
“would actually die”…room: Ibid., 70.
“Meeting these artists…life”: Ibid., 42.
“many celebrities other…Castellane”: Ibid., 47.
“persistently paragraphed and…photographed”: Knickerbocker, “Cholly Knickerbocker Says.”
“magnetic personality”: De Acosta, Here Lies, 5.
“I have known…woman”: Ibid., 5.
“her presence raised…her”: Ibid., 46.
“a veritable museum”: Frank Crowninshield, “The Fabulous Mrs. Lydig,” Vanity Fair, April, 1940, 106, MdAP.
In 1913 she…house: The art dealer Joseph Duveen bought one of her Flemish tapestries for $41,000.
“The curators of…taste”: M.L.K., “Lady of an Antique World,” The New Yorker, November 19, 1927, 28.
“really works of art”: Crowninshield, “The Fabulous Mrs. Lydig,” 62.
In 1940, Mercedes…Museum: Parts of both these donations were on display in the 2010 exhibitions of the Metropolitan and Brooklyn museums’ newly combined costume collections, American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity, and American High Style: Fashioning a National Collection.
“mad extravagance…opinion”: De Acosta, “Here Lies the Heart,” typescript [1938], first draft, 197, MdAP.
“rebellion against the…prudish”: De Acosta, Here Lies, 67.
“as if it…behind”: Ibid., 85.
a “minor” talent: Ibid., 102.
“feverishly compared notes…Duse”: Ibid., 114.
“I was in…development”: Ibid., 109.
Mercedes’s sartorial predilections: If Mercedes was attracted to icons of the stage and screen, “she also made herself iconic,” notes Patricia White, in “Black and White.”
“She wears peculiarly…cap”: “Daily Sketch” April 27, 1928, MdAP.
“long-toed, silver-buckled…cape”: Hugo Vickers, Loving Garbo: The Story of Greta Garbo, Cecil Beaton, and Mercedes de Acosta (New York: Random House, 1994), 253.
“These were the…lives”: De Acosta, “Here Lies the Heart,” typescript [circa 1960] second draft, 221, MdAP.
“despised distance and…flesh”: Janet Flanner to MdA, n.d. [1927], MdAP.
“The most talked-about…fears”: Quoted in Karen Swe
nson, Greta Garbo: A Life Apart (New York: Scribner, 1997), 260.
“Both idolized their…melancholia”: Ibid., 250.
“a cameraman who…Costa [sic]”: “Daily Sketch,” November 7, 1934, MdAP.
“a sort of…tristesse”: De Acosta, “Here Lies the Heart,” typescript [circa 1960], second draft.
“in depicting people…lives”: MdA to Cecil Beaton, October 24, n.d., Cecil Beaton Papers, St. John’s College, Cambridge University.
“a self-effacement…saint”: De Acosta, Here Lies, 71.
“spiritual as well…footlights”: Ibid., 138.
“a deeply spiritual…public”: “Here Lies the Heart,” typescript [circa 1960], second draft, 515.
“astrology, costmic-astrology…phenomena”: De Acosta, Here Lies, 146.
“a worshipper…through”: Vincent Sheean, blurb on back of first edition of Here Lies the Heart; also used in display advertising in New York Times, March 8 and 20, 1960, MdAP.
“Greta complained during…subject”: De Acosta, “Here Lies the Heart,” typescript [circa 1960], second draft, 415.
“done as a…Francis”: Elsa Maxwell, “Elsa Maxwell’s Party Line: Mercedes de Acosta,” New York Post, April 20, 1943, 12, MdAP.
“Until I was…starlight?”: Quoted in Maria Riva, Marlene Dietrich (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), 168.
“Greta will come…it”: Meher Baba to MdA, July 10, 1935, MdAP.
“These past years…again”: MdA to George Cukor, July 10, 1938, George Cukor Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
“Though there may…part”: De Acosta, “Here Lies the Heart,” typescript [circa 1960], second draft, 514.
“Don’t let a…life”: Cecil Beaton to MdA, April 25, 1958, MdAP.
“gallantry…lovers”: Cecil Beaton, unpublished diaries, May 1968, quoted in Vickers, Loving Garbo, 281.
“The German people…always”: This was Garbo’s response to her reception in Berlin for “Gösta Berlings Saga,” in Photoplay, May 28, 1924, quoted in Swenson, Greta Garbo, 69.
“always was fond…trashy”: EM to Chester Arthur, September 12, 1936, AFP.
“sexual reaction[s]”: De Acosta, “Here Lies the Heart,” typescript [1938], first draft, 129, MdAP.
“out on the astral plane”: De Acosta, Here Lies, 39.
“affected and excited…me”: De Acosta, “Here Lies the Heart,” typescript [1938], first draft, 129, MdAP.
“slow breathing exercises…house’”: De Acosta, Here Lies, 305.
“a very different…sex”: Ibid., 117.
“disappeared one by…ports”: Ibid., 95.
“was crowded with…day”: Ibid.
“While this is…Acosta”: Des Moines (Iowa) Register, April 3, 1960, MdAP.
“met many of…knew”: De Acosta, Here Lies, 140.
“Friends were kind…others”: Ibid., 206.
collector Gabrielle Enthoven: Mercedes notes that Enthoven acquired “thousands of engravings and photographs of actors and actresses, scenes from plays, interiors and exteriors of theatres, and a great many printed texts including 150 prompt copies of eighteenth-century plays used by the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane,” de Acosta, Here Lies, 124. Enthoven donated this material to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1924, but continued to collect until her death in 1950. Her collection formed the basis of the Theatre Museum in London.
“part of the…twenties”: De Acosta, Here Lies, 126.
“in her personal…way”: Ibid., 71–72.
“so fat that…Hall”: Ibid., 71.
drew “from memory”: Ibid., 357.
“Let me tell…it”: MdA to William McCarthy, June 27, 1960, MdAP.
“Am sending you…them”: MdA to William McCarthy, October 17 [1961], MdAP.
“Utterly broke,” she…“worries”: MdA to William McCarthy, n.d. [postmarked September 20, 1961], MdAP.
“I never get…people”: MdA to William McCarthy, October 31, 1964; emphasis hers, MdAP.
“My kisses like…hips”: Isadora Duncan to MdA, n.d. [1927], MdAP.
“with the eyelash…fly”: De Acosta, Here Lies, 343.
“A single stocking…note”: Catalogue, Mercedes de Acosta Papers, Rosenbach Museum & Library.
“wore during rehearsals…slippers”: MdA to William McCarthy, Wednesday [postmarked September 20, 1961], MdAP.
Sitting in the reading room: The reading room has since been relocated.
“Anyone determined to…1960”: Press conference, April 17, 2000, Rosenbach Museum & Library, Philadelphia, Pa.
“Garbo Letters: Reveal…Lesbianism”: Metro, Philadelphia, April 18, 2000.
“No Hint of…Trove”: Philadelphia Daily News, April 18, 2000, 6.
“When we climbed…clasp”: De Acosta, Poem no. 7, “Hollywood 1935,” MdAP.
“There is holiness…dreams”: De Acosta, Poem no. 5, “Tistad 1935 Sweden,” MdAP.
“a lover of…years”: Edwin Wolf, Rosenbach. A Biography (Cleveland: World Publishing, 1960), 7, 8.
“The brothers loved…‘collection!’”: “The Rosenbach Brothers: Collecting Their Collections,” in The Rosenbach Collectors’s Kit, educational material, Rosenbach Museum & Library.
“11-year-old…DiCaprio”: Carrie Rickey, “Garbo, Ever Guarded,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 18, 2000, F1, F3.
“Acosta’s fanatical devotion…point!”: Press conference, April 17, 2000.
“It was not…own”: Quoted in Swenson, Greta Garbo, 225.
“a great many…appeared”: MdA to William McCarthy, July 25, n.d., MdAP.
“because she insinuated…art”: Carrie Rickey, “55 Greta Garbo Letters to Be Opened Here,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 19, 2000, A1, A18.
“round[ing] out a…century”: Rosenbach Museum & Library press release, March 2000.
“a pre-Enlightenment…unrealities”: Terry Castle, “Seductress Extraordinaire,” London Review of Books 26, no. 12 (June 24, 2004).
“Probability is not…dictionary”: Times Literary Supplement, May 10, 1928, MdAP.
“purple passages that…decade”: Weekly Dispatch (London), June 24, 1928, MdAP.
“amazed that the…window”: De Acosta, Here Lies, 112.
“Suddenly I thought…Infinite!”: Mercedes de Acosta, Moods (New York: Moffat, Yard, 1919).
“I have seen…them”: EM to Chester Arthur, September 12, 1936, AFP.
“so absurdly and…room”: De Acosta, Here Lies, 70.
“I do know…words!”): Riva, Marlene Dietrich, 168.
“Garbo Letters Leave Mystery Intact”: USA Today, April 18, 2000.
“One by one…everything”: MdA to William McCarthy, n.d. [postmarked September 16, 1964], MdAP. She did not sell the Garbo papers, however; the Rosenbach has stated clearly that this material was a gift.
“quite unique and…material”: MdA to William McCarthy, June 29, n.d., MdAP.
VELVET IS VERY IMPORTANT
“graver trouble…paranoia”: All quotations from Madge Garland memoir drafts, MGP. She typed some of these pages herself, and some were typed from tapes she dictated.
“as a pale…mother”: Angela Neustatter, “The Magic Circle,” Guardian, September 9, 1975, MGP.
“rather excessive charm”: Virginia Woolf, The Diary of Virgina Woolf, vol. 3: 1925–30, ed. Anne Olivier Bell, 5 vols. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977–84), 184 (May 31, 1928).
“intellectual devotee of couture”: “Madge Garland,” obituary, Sunday Telegraph, July 17, 1990, MGP.
“meringue”: Anne Scott-James to author, interview, London, December 9, 1997.
“A bunch of froth”: Helen Drummond to author, interview, London, December 8, 1997.
“ideally cast…new”: “Madge” [by Natasha Ledwidge], MGP.
book after book: See Madge Garland, The Changing Face of Beauty: Four Thousand Years of Beautiful Women (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1957); Fashion (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962); The Indecisive Decade: The W
orld of Fashion and Entertainment in the Thirties (London: Macdonald, 1968); The Changing Form of Fashion (London: Dent, 1970); and Madge Garland and J. Anderson Black, A History of Fashion (London: Orbis, 1975).
“I was never…independent”: SaraJane Hoare, “Come into the Garland, Madge,” The Observer, December 14, 1986, MGP.
“She believes in…personality”: “The Changing Face of Beauty, by Madge Garland,” n.d., MGP.
so-called minor arts: See Isabelle Anscombe, A Woman’s Touch: Women in Design from 1860 to the Present Day (London: Virago, 1984).
“Fashion can be…personality”: Madge Garland, “For Thousands of Years Women’s Dress Has Proclaimed Her Status—Does It Now?” n.d., 64, MGP.
“She really was…rebel”: Sarah Stacey to author, interview, London, December 7, 1997.
“kitten…ruffles”: De Acosta, Here Lies, 133.
“an exquisite piece of porcelain”: Rebecca West to MG, February 25, 1980, RWP.
“She was undoubtedly…monument”: Peter Ward-Jackson to author, interview, London, September 17, 1997.
“Fashion is both…worn”: Madge Garland, “Artifices, Confections, and Manufactures,” in The Anatomy of Design: A Series of Inaugural Lectures by Professors of the Royal College of Art, Delivered at the Royal Society of Arts, March 6, 1951 (London: Royal College of Art, 1951), 81.
“Never in all…dress”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.
“a state in…time”: Ibid.
“cherished”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, July 2, 1980, IAP.
“futuristic”: Cecil Beaton, Photobiography (New York: Doubleday, 1951), 42.
“beautifully dressed in…make-up”: “Dress Reformer,” n.d. [circa mid-1940s], MGP.
“wearing a Marimekko…pearls”: Prudence Glynn, “50 Years On,” Times (London), December 12, 1972, 18.
“looking absolutely marvelous”: Julia Burney to author, interview, London, January 22, 2002.