This summer I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway a the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
Renowned stage and film actress Sarah Bernhardt, 78, had not been well.
Last year she collapsed while rehearsing for a movie and had to take a few months off from work to recuperate.
Sarah Bernhardt as Hamlet
This month she had been rehearsing for another film—and being paid 10,000Fr per day—in her home where the producers have set up a whole film studio because she can no longer travel.
A bit over a week ago, Bernhardt collapsed again and died five days later from uremia.
Yesterday a funeral mass was held for her at the Church of Saint-Francois -de-Sales.
And today, 30,000 people attended her funeral, most of them filling the streets of Paris, accompanying her funeral coach from the church to Pere Lachaise Cemetery.
Sarah Bernhardt’s funeral procession
Bernhardt is being buried in a 19th century rosewood coffin with a mauve satin lining. Which she has occasionally slept in, over the past 30 years, in preparation for this day.
This summer I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
Lying in her sickbed, poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, 31, knows she is luckier than she has ever been.
Millay spent the last two years in Paris and rural England, supporting herself with free-lance writing assignments. She thought that, when she came back to New York City at the beginning of the year, her stomach problems would go away once she stopped eating all that rich French food.
But her internal ailments are sometimes worse, and her friends all agree that she looks like hell.
Since her return, Millay has been living at 156 Waverly Place in Greenwich Village in an apartment owned by a wealthy woman she met in England, Esther Sayles Root, 28, who lives upstairs and has been taking care of Millay. Root has also been taking care of Millay’s friend, top Manhattan columnist Franklin Pierce Adams (FPA), 41, who taunts his wife by mentioning his affairs—including Esther—in his column frequently.
156 Waverly Place
Recently, Esther convinced Edna to come up here for a country weekend, with some of their artsy friends from the Village.
Esther Sayles Root
Playing charades during a party one night, Millay was teamed up with one of the neighbors, rich Dutch businessman—and attractive widower—Eugen Boissevain, 43. The two were supposed to act out a young couple falling in love. Everyone in the room could tell that neither of them was acting.
Eugen Boissevain
At the end of the weekend, Esther went back to the Village and Edna moved in here with Eugen, his chauffeured car and house servants.
Boissevain is taking such good care of Millay. He personally drives her into the city when she has a doctor’s appointment, and has his servants wait on her here at home.
Overall, despite her persistent stomach pain, Millay feels that she is on the verge of something bigger and better.
This summer I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.ukin both print and e-book versions.
Visiting novelist John Dos Passos, 27, is enjoying tagging along with his fellow American writer Donald Ogden Stewart, 28, walking around Paris, visiting some of the ex-pats Stewart knows.
Quai des Grands-Augustins
At this address Dos Passos is introduced to the Murphys—Gerald, about to turn 35, and Sara, 39. Stewart was a few years behind Gerald at Yale, and he has given the couple a big build-up, describing them as a prince and a princess. Dos Passos, a cynic from Harvard, figures he won’t succumb to their allure.
Dos Passos is impressed with Sara, one of the most charming women he’s ever met. Gerald seems a bit distracted. He’s getting ready for a big dinner party they’re throwing.
John Dos Passos
The Murphys are in the process of renovating this apartment, with its white walls, lacquered black floors, Mexican rugs, and floor to ceiling windows surrounded by red antique brocade drapes, a perfect frame for the fabulous view down the River Seine.
Gerald and Sara have become huge fans of the Kamerny Theatre from Moscow, and this party is to celebrate their successful run at the Theatre de Champs-Elysees. The Murphys have been to all 10 of the Kamerney’s performances..
Kamerny Theatre poster
The Murphys’ new Algerian chef is making couscous; dessert will be slightly obscene-shaped chocolate mousse with crème Chantilly; and there will, of course, be plenty of wine.
Because they are in the midst of the renovation, there are few pieces of furniture for guests to sit on. Gerald and Sara have improvised, placing mattresses and pillows all over and covering them with brocade fabric. Planks mounted on blocks will serve as tables. Plumbers’ lamps will do for lighting. And, supporters of the arts that they are, the Murphys have attached to the walls “found sculptures” made from bicycle wheels and other discarded junk by their new friend, Fernand Leger, 42.
Sara graciously invites their guests, Stewart and Dos Passos, to stay for the party. But Dos Passos declines. He never feels comfortable in situations like this and is embarrassed by his stammer.
Later this month I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
Last year, English art critic Clive Bell, 41, published an influential essay, “Since Cezanne,” which discussed Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, also 41:
…Picasso is a born chef d’ecole. His is one of the most inventive minds in Europe…His career has been a series of discoveries, each of which he has rapidly developed.
A highly original and extremely happy conception enters his head, suggested probably by some odd thing he has seen. Forthwith he sets himself to analyze it and disentangle those principles that account for its peculiar happiness. He proceeds by experiment, applying his hypothesis in the most unlikely place.”
Today, Picasso’s first solo show in the United States, “Original Drawings by Pablo Picasso,” opens here, put on by the Arts Club of Chicago in the galleries they lease from the Art Institute.
Catalog for “Original Drawings by Pablo Picasso”
Picasso’s paintings have been exhibited in the States before, as part of the 1913 Armory Show, which opened in New York City but then toured here at the Art Institute, and moved on to Boston. Two years ago the Arts Club included two of his paintings in a group show.
This time, from his home in Paris, Picasso has given specific instructions to the organizers about how to display the 53 original drawings, ranging from 1907 to just last year.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
Tells of the Difficulties Involved in Reaching the Top—
Hope of Winning in 1924 by
Establishment of Base Camps on a Higher Level”
…’Why did you want to climb Mount Everest?’ This question was asked of George Leigh Mallory [37], who was with both expeditions toward the summit of the world’s highest mountain, in 1921 and 1923, and who is now in New York. He plans to go again [next year], and he gave as the reason for persisting in these repeated attempts to reach the top, ‘Because it’s there.'”
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
The host, corporate lawyer and art collector John Quinn, 52, has planned this as a double celebration.
His niece Mary is turning 16 today, so he has invited her; her mother, his sister Julia Anderson, 37; Julia’s good-for-nothing husband; and a few friends to his apartment for the festivities.
Central Park West
In addition, today he is un-crating his most recent art acquisition, Le Cirque by the late French post-impressionist Georges Seurat.
The Circus has been sitting in the building’s basement since arriving from France about a week ago. Today, when the workmen try to bring it upstairs to Quinn’s penthouse, they discover it is too big to fit in the elevator! They figure out a way to safely place it on the roof of the cage and carefully get it up to the apartment.
And it is worth the effort. The painting is exquisite; Quinn has instructed his French buyer that he will leave it to the Louvre in his will. Champagne toasts all around, both to Mary and Le Cirque!
Le Cirque by Georges Seurat
The Circus didn’t come cheap. Quinn paid a couple thousand pounds for it, in installments. But he is now focusing his collection on French artists and selling off a lot of his other works.
Quinn feels it is important for him to host family parties like this one. At the beginning of this year he had quite a health scare, waking up to find himself lying on the floor next to his bed, unable to move for an hour until his valet found him.
Quinn needed rest so he went to Hot Springs spa in Virginia—but stopping off on the way to attend to one of his corporate tax cases in Washington, D. C.
In the past six months he has litigated over 50 cases for millions of dollars, but he had to turn down an offer to buy a van Gogh from his London art dealer. Too pricey.
The health scare has made Quinn realize that he needs to slow down, exercise more, get a good night’s sleep. Spend time with his family.
Recently he received a letter from one of the many writers he supports, American ex-pat poet living in London, T. S. Eliot, 34, who wrote:
I have not even time to go to a dentist or to have my hair cut…I am worn out. I cannot go on.”
Quinn wants to tell him, make the time. It’s important. Don’t allow yourself to be so driven.
This summer I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
Finally. Hollywood heartthrob Rudolph Valentino (actually Rudolpho Guglielmi of Apulia, Italy, 27) and his beloved, Natacha Rambova (actually Winifred ShaughnessyHudnut de Wolfe of Salt Lake City, Utah, 26), are legally married.
Natacha Rambova and Rudolph Valentino
They did this once before, last year in Mexico. Only to come home to Los Angeles and find that, in California, Valentino had to be divorced for a full year before he could remarry. He was arrested for bigamy.
The year wait ended yesterday. But Rudolph and Natasha are on an extensive tour of the United States and Canada, and if they get married in Illinois, where they are currently performing, they still wouldn’t be legal.
So they have crossed over the state line to Indiana and this town with such liberal marriage laws that it is known as the “Marriage Mill.”
Lake County Courthouse, Crown Point, Indiana
Valentino is spending the year on this so far successful dancing tour rather than making movies because he feels badly treated by his studio, Famous Players-Lasky. They didn’t even put up bail money when he got arrested!
Rudolph has been using promotional stops on the tour to vent his frustration with the studio system. On a radio broadcast in St. Louis he spoke about “What Is Wrong With the Movies?”
Valentino is also exploring other ways to express his creative spirit. His series of articles entitled, ‘”My Life Story” is appearing in Photoplay and this month’s issue is their biggest seller yet. Movie Weekly magazine has asked Valentino to author another series, “My Private Diary.”
Right now, he’s just glad to be married. Although the show is crossing the country in a luxury Pullman coach—in Chicago they are comfortable in the Blackstone Hotel—he and Natacha are performing two and three shows a day in 88 cities. The tour’s sponsor, Mineralava Beauty Company, is holding beauty contests at each performance to promote their products.
When the newlyweds come out of the judge’s chambers, the crowd of fans outside gives them an ovation and shouts their congratulations.
No time for a honeymoon yet. Back to Chicago to keep on dancing…
Poster for the Mineralava tour
You can see Valentino and Rambova dancing on tour here:
This summer I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
Ohioan Sherwood Anderson, 46, had his fourth novel, Many Marriages, published last month. His first appeared seven years ago, around the time he embarked on a second marriage, to sculptor Tennessee Mitchell, now 49.
Many Marriages by Sherwood Anderson
The review in the New York Herald, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 26, currently working on his third novel, was positive. In “Sherwood Anderson on the Marriage Question,” Fitzgerald said he thinks Many Marriages is Anderson’s best work.
Henry Seidel Canby, 44, in the New York Evening Post declares,
if we are to have an American Thomas Hardy, [Sherwood Anderson] is the man.”
Those leading crusades against “dirty books” are not as impressed. Because Anderson’s work deals with sexual freedom, they have linked it with other contemporary novels such as Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence, 37, which they have tried to ban.
However, today’s issue of Time magazine points out that when Many Marriages was serialized in a magazine, there was resounding praise. Now that it is a hardback book, many find it boring—including Edmund Wilson, 27, in The Dial; Burton Rascoe, 30, in the New York Tribune; and the dean of Manhattan columnists, FPA [Franklin Pierce Adams], 41, in the New York World.
Burton Rascoe by Gene Markey
But Sherwood is pleased with a complimentary letter he has received from his mentor and friend in Paris, American ex-pat writer Gertrude Stein, 49, who likes Many Marriages.
Gertrude Stein
Stein has praised him privately and in print before, including her recent piece in The Little Review, “Idem the Same: A Valentine to Sherwood Anderson,” which says, in the section titled, “A Very Valentine,”:
Very fine is my valentine.
Very fine and very mine.
Very mine is my valentine very mine and very fine.
Very fine is my valentine and mine, very fine very mine and mine is my valentine.”
To hear Gertrude Stein read the complete poem, click here.
This summer I will be talking about Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
Our King, George V, 58, and his lovely wife, Queen Mary, 55, dining in a private home?! Even if the home is in St. James’s Square. It’s not the same as entertaining His Majesty at your country pile for tea or a weekend. That’s perfectly fine. But in a London home?!
No. 4 St. James’s Square
But what can you expect from two Americans? Even if they are the Second Viscount and Viscountess Astor, Lord Waldorf, 43, and Lady Nancy, also 43.
Particularly her. An MP! Well, she’s not the first woman to be elected to the British Parliament. That was Constance Markievicz, 55, but she’s Irish and you know how they are. Refusing to take their seats and all that.
Oh, but Lady Astor definitely took her seat—the one previously held by her husband, until he ascended to the House of Lords so had to give it up.
And she hasn’t sat there quietly like a decent lady should. She actually introduced a bill that will be voted on tomorrow. It probably is a good idea to raise the minimum age for children to be allowed to drink alcohol. But still.
Inviting the King and Queen to your own home?! Even if the purpose is to have a business meeting with labor union executives. What on earth will happen next?!
Ridiculous Americans.
Cartoon of Lady Astor in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
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