American Eve

by Paula Uruburu

  —Harry Thaw, The Traitor

  It had been more than a month since The Wild Rose had ended and Evie’s brief romance with Jack had been cut off at the root. Evelyn was also soon to be pulled from the production she had just started rehearsing for, Tommy Rot, in which she had another small role. Publicity photos taken of her by Otto Sarony were already in circulation by the producers, who had hoped to take advantage of Evelyn’s exceptional and recognizable appeal, even though her part was still a minor one.

  Once they confirmed for themselves the announcement of their ingenue’s impending departure, Mrs. Osborne and her partners were as unhappy as the crestfallen Evie—until they got something else they hadn’t planned for—free publicity. As the word spread that the fledgling starlet was going to be “packed off to Pamlico”—the less formal name of Mrs. deMille’s school—the press had yet another provocative subject to explore regarding the “reigning model soubrette of Manhattan.” The constantly shifting tide of chorines and minor cast members rarely merited so much as a mention in the papers, but Evelyn’s impending transformation from showgirl to schoolgirl was news, even if her acting ability “had yet to generate any steam along the Hudson.”

  On certain days she tried to muster enthusiasm, reminding herself of the vision of Vassar in what seemed a lifetime ago. At other times she was visibly despondent and brooding, feeling rejected and betrayed by Stanny, incredulous that he had joined forces with her mamma in spite of the loyalty she had proven to him by not detonating any number of his explosive secrets. If she had hoped to get a different kind of rise out of Stanny by flaunting the dashing Jack under his nose, she had failed; and while the fallout of her all-night “frolic” was the kiss of death for her relationship with Barrymore, it also meant leaving behind both the studios and the Gay White Way, with its myriad distractions, not the least of which were her scads of male admirers.

  While appearing in Florodora and The Wild Rose, Evelyn had grown accustomed to receiving “letters in shoals” from devotees young and old and mostly male. She had received more fan mail than anyone in the company of The Wild Rose, which did not endear her to either her fellow chorus girls or the so-called stars, a fact that would come back with a vengeance during the trials. The majority of the billets-doux and mash notes she received were signed. But others arrived daily at the theater by certain admirers who preferred to remain anonymous.

  “Those are the married ones or the queer ones, you can bet,” she was told by a stagehand.

  For several days in a row, one anonymous would-be swain sent costly Japanese lotus flowers from the Waldorf to the theater where Evelyn was rehearsing until her “sentence to the nunnery” was to go into effect. When the unidentified admirer turned out to be a Wall Street magnate who eventually managed to meet with Evelyn (through a showgirl acquaintance) and offered her “diamonds and emeralds,” Evelyn, who had learned not to inform her mother of such expensive attempts to win her affection, turned down his advances and his gifts without a second thought. The incredulous man, unwilling at first to take “no, thank you” for an answer, spent two weeks in a front-row seat, trying to comprehend how the lovely girl could be so unreceptive.

  One series of anonymous letters that arrived daily for an entire week actually did make an impression upon Evelyn as having been evidently written by a “man of some refinement” who talked at length about books and animals, two of Evelyn’s favorite subjects. In one early letter the unidentified admirer mentioned to Evelyn that he had seen her in Florodora (but on the advice of an acquaintance, did not elaborate on another little fact—that for an entire month he had watched her perform from the shaded security of a darkened theater box every night). This persistent correspondent began asking her out to lunch, which Evelyn politely declined each time, saying that she did not make it a practice of meeting with strange men. How strange she could not have imagined.

  Soon after that, the mysterious would-be suitor sent another missive, and finally identified himself as Mr. Munroe. He praised Evelyn for being cautious with regard to meeting strangers and continued to write to her. Twice the letters contained a twenty-dollar bill. Each time Evelyn sent the money back, even though as her mother pointed out, it was offered “with all good charity and kindness.” When he sent a dozen roses with a fifty-dollar bill wrapped around them, a miffed Evelyn ordered that the gift be sent back immediately, offended that Mr. Munroe seemed to have assumed that his previous bids for her attention simply had been too low. Unbeknownst to her, however, even though the flowers were sent back, her mother kept the fifty.

  Although her curiosity was undeniably piqued by Mr. Munroe’s doggedly sincere if slightly insulting campaign de coeur, and his language seemed to indicate that he was a man of some refinement, Evelyn continued alternately to pine for Stanny’s undivided attention and to lament the loss of the devoted and demonstrative Jack, who decided that retreat was the better part of valor until he could find a solution to this extraordinary state of extracurricular affairs. Nonetheless, like a modern-day pubescent Penelope waiting for her distant and preoccupied Ulysses, Evelyn declined any and all would-be suitors, whether their invitations came through the mail or the men themselves confronted her at the stage door each night. Apparently it never occurred to her mother to question why.

  As far as Evelyn could tell, like so many others who saw her on the stage, this Mr. Munroe was hopelessly smitten with her. She was blithely unaware that the gentleman author of the amusing letters had a much more sinister agenda, fed by irrational obsession, which was all part of his amateurish subterfuge. For Mr. Munroe was in actuality Harry K. Thaw—of Pittsburgh. Thaw was desperate to meet the alluring Evelyn and win her attention—and in doing so win her away from the clutches of her well-known benefactor, the man Thaw envied and despised. The rumor whispered among certain habitués of the theater district that Thaw secretly frequented was that in spite of his shining façade, White was a “wholesale ravisher of young girls,” and Thaw suspected that “the poor little waif from Tarentum” might be in moral peril.

  While it is not clear exactly when his loathing of the architect began, Thaw’s moral outrage and desire to thwart White’s presumed advances on unsuspecting young girls and “spoil his blasted eternal party” started at least a year or more before Evelyn even arrived in New York. There are several incidents that precipitated what began as essentially a one-sided feud, since White, until it was too late, never considered Thaw much of a threat to his lifestyle or his life.

  Harry Thaw, in keeping with his mater’s insistent desire for elevated social status, had naturally applied to a number of the elite men’s clubs in New York City, and assumed he would be as welcome in Gotham as he had been in the various capitals of Europe. To his utter shock and outrage, the profligate Pittsburgher had been turned down by virtually every club or expelled almost immediately for “behavior unbecoming a gentleman. ” He had been turned down by the prestigious Metropolitan, the Century, the Knickerbocker, and the Players, and was expelled from the Union League Club, where in a well-publicized incident, “for a lark,” Thaw had ridden a horse up the steps into the vestibule. Yet he continued to tell anyone who would listen that he had been blackballed from each of these establishments out of mere spite by certain of the more influential “old money” members. Exhibiting his tendency to become fixated on an object or person to the exclusion of all else, Harry came to blame one person for his public humiliation at being barred from the enviable New York social scene—the man who had been instrumental in designing and building most of the clubs—Stanford White. For his part, White didn’t hide his dislike for the “Pennsylvania pug” when talking to acquaintances, and, as is the case, the talk got around. In his book The Traitor, Harry wrote his own account of his contact with White before Evelyn entered the scene.

  The first time Thaw encountered White was when a mutual acquaintance, Craig Wadsworth, insisted after a bottle of champagne and some bluepoints at Rector’s that they go to a party at White�
�s Tower. Harry believed this to be his long-overdue entrée into the elusive social scene he craved. Not having been formally invited by the host, however, Harry chose to salute White from across the room when he arrived with Wadsworth, and then, according to him, “what happened was harsh.” A Mrs. Fish, cousin to the Stuyvesant Fishes, had hooked up with Thaw and his companion, and soon after complained several times and very loudly that the food and the wine were “rotten.” Another acquaintance of Harry’s, George Keppel, who happened to have been at the party, suggested they leave, not because the food or wine was rotten but because of the scene the inebriated Mrs. Fish was making. They tried to slip away unnoticed but the stridently soused Mrs. Fish bullied her way into the elevator with them, and “the whole show was over” as she ranted on about White’s awful food and even worse taste in decor. Although Harry offered no other comment after mentioning this incident, it is the link to a second one not long after, a social embarrassment that would make it into the New York gossip sheets.

  Harry had arranged for a party with a number of shapely showgirls and as usual had spent a ridiculous amount of money for the cuisine, cocktails, and entertainment. But the day of the party, while sitting in Sherry’s with one of his higher-society friends from Pittsburgh (who, unlike Harry’s New York acquaintances, had no knowledge of Harry’s lower-class interests), one of his “favorite girls,” Frances Belmont (whose real name was Fannie Donnelly), stopped by his table to say hello. The socially hypersensitive Harry, who needed to maintain his status with the club boys back home, turned away from the embarrassed girl, fearful of acknowledging any acquaintance with what was too obviously a painted chippie of the theatrical sort. A fuming and mortified Frances decided to get even with the “hoity-toity” Thaw and retaliated by asking all of her friends to a party at White’s Tower. The evening, in Thaw’s mind, turned into a mammoth and very public disaster as the complete absence of “doe-eyed girlies”(reported in Town Topics a few days later) turned Harry’s sexy soirée into a stag party. He angrily dismissed the “colored ragtime band” he had hired to perform, and his disappointed tuxedoed guests stood by as the shrimp en coquille and lobster salad spoiled. Staring at the uneaten teal on toast while the heavy cream dissolved into sweet puddles around the baked Alaska, a livid Harry blamed White for yet another public indignity.

  After skulking in the shadows for the better part of a year, ultimately attending more than forty performances of The Wild Rose to outdo the number of times he heard White had seen Florodora, Harry Thaw finally decided to reveal himself to the girl he considered his “Angel-Child.”

  He arranged an afternoon meeting with her—except that he was going to meet her as Mr. Munroe. Employing the same tactics as his perceived adversary White (which others had tried as well), Thaw made a luncheon date with Evelyn through a showgirl acquaintance of his, Elba Kenny. Evelyn was mildly curious about meeting the mysterious Mr. Munroe, but knew from other girls that these kinds of things invariably went badly or didn’t go at all. Figuring it might be a welcome distraction for her, with the unhappy reality of New Jersey hanging over her head, Evelyn agreed to the rendezvous. Elba asked her if she was excited, but Evelyn just shrugged; one lunch date was just as good or bad as the meal served, especially since she would soon be in Mrs. deMille’s “nunnery” in the hinterlands of Pompton Lakes.

  At three o’clock on the appointed day, the dainty Evelyn, followed by the rounder, taller Elba (whose bosom always announced her entrance first), spun effortlessly through the front entrance of Rector’s. The Angel-Child was dressed in the latest fashion, thanks, of course, to Stanny. That afternoon she wore a clinging mocha confection with swirling silk skirts, a velvet bodice the color of creamery butter with velvet buttons, like chocolate pastilles, running almost a foot up each sleeve. On her head sat a dark brown opera hat with layers of netting that resembled Fairy Floss. It was smaller than the fashionably huge picture hats socialites usually reserved for strolling up and down Fifth Avenue, but on Evelyn, the less ostentatious effect was absolutely perfect. In spite of their difference in size and curvaceousness, next to Evelyn’s spun-sugar sexuality, Elba was practically invisible.

  After waiting patiently for twenty minutes or so, looking to gawking patrons like a tempting truffle in a Whitman “Fussy Assortment,” a bored and annoyed Evelyn got up to leave. But anxious Elba held her there with the assurance that Mr. Munroe would appear momentarily. As if on cue, “Mr. Munroe” made his grandiose entrance. Then, right there during high tea, he fell to his knees and kissed the hem of Evelyn’s dress as some of the bemused restaurant clientele and staff looked on. A startled Evelyn pulled back the folds of her skirts as if from a contagion, and the man stood, rising up to an unusual height of nearly six foot two. Impeccably dressed in an expensive Brooks Brothers suit, he stared intently down into Evelyn’s enchanting face while ignoring Elba, bosoms and all.

  “Do you know you are the prettiest girl in New York?” he blurted out.

  A startled Evelyn said nothing, then characteristically shrugged and smiled politely.

  Although Thaw invariably greeted people with a fatuous smile and an overeager handshake, accompanied by the phrase, “I am Harry K. Thaw— of Pittsburgh,” he kept up his charade as Mr. Munroe. Initially, from a short distance, he had looked “sweet,” but Evelyn’s second impression of him upon closer inspection was an unpleasant one. Having been described in the Pittsburgh papers as looking like a “peeled turnip,” Harry frequently had a “curious look in his eyes” and sometimes “a sinister brutality about the mouth,” which Evelyn later said could just as easily curl up into an “idiotic grin.” It reminded her of the well-known Steeplechase face, the grinning icon of Coney Island. One paper reported that Harry’s rounded infantile countenance was dominated by “enlarged empty eyes” and a “somewhat pug nose,” which was sometimes “improved with a trim mustache that barely reached his full thick lips.”

  Up close, his doughy baby face was particularly unsettling in contrast to his exceptional height. Of course, with the right lighting and sartorial embellishments, Harry could be considered handsome enough to charm most women, especially those who knew that he was heir-apparent to a $40 million coke and railroad fortune. But the Angel-Child was not most women.

  Logo of George Tilyou’s Coney Island

  Steeplechase Park, circa 1900.

  As Elba sat self-consciously sipping her Chinese tea, she listened to the one-sided conversation between a very earnest Mr. Munroe and a silent Evelyn. It was immediately clear to Evelyn that this was a man who “took his position in life very seriously and his world value too seriously” as he gesticulated with increasing energy and blinked his eyes for emphasis as he talked. In a flurry of words, one topic snowballed inoffensively into the next. But when Harry’s ramble moved in an unflattering direction about one of Evelyn’s chorus-girl friends (he called her fat and said that women should never let themselves gain too much flesh), Evelyn jumped to the girl’s defense. He seemed taken aback by the assertiveness of her response, as if people had never challenged his views on anything before. They probably hadn’t. Then, much to Evelyn’s surprise, he suddenly introduced the subject of Stanford White.

  Mr. Munroe’s animated face turned solemn as he told Evelyn that she should keep away from White, “that he was very ugly, and not only that, he was married.” Evelyn offered one of her inscrutable modeling looks and said she knew only good things about White. She shot a surreptitious glance at Elba, who simply stared into her teacup, as if trying to read the leaves. Thirty minutes had passed when Mr. Munroe rose up to his imposing full height and asked Evelyn where she was staying. Evelyn replied that she and her mother were happy in an apartment in the city but she declined to tell him where. She said she was not in the habit of giving strangers, even well-dressed ones, her address. But her answer was inconsequential. Mr. Harry “Munroe” Thaw already knew where she lived. He routinely employed a rather extensive and elaborate network of spies. He boasted to friends t
hat his men “bested Pinkerton’s” in ferreting out information, from Manhattan to Monaco. Indeed, he had learned about Evelyn’s love of books and animals from “informants” who stretched back to his sacred smoky city.

  For a brief moment, the flustered man seemed to be in suspended animation as he hovered over his diminutive dream girl, so deliciously and unbelievably close at last. He then bowed like the prep school boy he had been and said he had some pressing business matters to attend to. Evelyn countered by saying she had some urgent errands as well and pulled Elba to her feet. Harry listened intently to what he imagined to be the lisp of silk against skin as his Angel-Child and her girlfriend swept quickly through of the dining room and out the revolving glass door beneath the talons of the griffin. He automatically threw down a fifty-dollar bill and left.

  For whatever reason, probably because his simpering expression and “goo-goo eyes” were so unsettling, Evelyn must have looked at his hands throughout the conversation because Harry’s peculiar recollection over twenty years later was that “she liked my wrists and hands.” Thinking back to that first encounter, Evelyn also recalled his hands, which like his face, were smooth as a baby’s, indicating that “he had never labored at all in his thirty-two years.” Had she known more about him, Evelyn would also have known that Harry never had the slightest interest in the family business. Any pressing matters he had were only in his head.

  Upon immediate analysis of the encounter, Evelyn said she felt an overwhelming sense of relief when he left, and that at best this Mr. Munroe was just one of the throng of cordial-enough young men who admired her from beyond the footlights, which is where she wanted him to stay (young being relative, since he was almost twice her age, at thirty-two) . She also figured that, as with many other potential Broadway swains, Mr. Munroe’s curiosity had been satisfied, and that would be the end of things. She told a perplexed Elba that she had no desire to meet him again. Elba offered no response, nor did she disclose to Evelyn the true identity of her intensely infatuated admirer.