Scandalous Women in London Part Deux - The Lion in Winter & Enchanted Princesses

A family Christmas becomes a family at war. Henry II, not so young as he was, invites his estranged wife Eleanor of Aquitane, and his three sons, Richard, Geoffrey and John, to spend the festive season with him, his mistress Princess Alais, and her brother, the young King Philip of France. Will Henry name who is to be his successor as King of England? Their yuletide celebration turns into a combat zone of deceit, betrayal, bitter power games and scabrous wit.


"I am excited to be directing the London premiere of a famous play about a power struggle full of sexual politics and political sex, with two such brilliant actors as Robert Lindsay and Joanna Lumley." - Trevor Nunn

I had no idea when I decided to attend the matinee of The Lion in Winter that it was the London premiere! I had just assumed that there was a London production soon after the Broadway one.  Although given that the Broadway production was a bit of a flop, perhaps I was a bit optimistic.  Still, the movie was very successful, so I was very surprised to find out that this was the first production in London.  And what a theatre to be in! the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, one of the most beautiful in London.  I was lucky enough to score a really good seat in the Royal Circle for 20 pounds just before the Thursday matinee.  It was an impulse purchase, I had planned to buy a ticket for the evening's performance but changed my mind when I got to the box office.

Although I have seen the film starring Peter O'Toole and Katherine Hepburn more times than I can count, I have never seen a stage production of The Lion in Winter, not even the Broadway production which starred Laurence Fishbourne and Stockard Channing at the Roundabout here in New York. The movie is one of my favorite films, and I was afraid that the play and the actors would not measure up to the movie.  Well, I should have worried about the play given that James Goldman, the playwright, adapted his script for the film. However, it was in the performances, that the show fell short.  Joanna Lumley, who I had previously only known from Ab Fab and The New Avengers, was actually quite good as Eleanor of Acquitaine.  A little low energy at first, but her performance grew as the play went on.  Robert Lindsay, on the other hand, seemed to be channeling Peter O'Toole.  He not only looked a bit like him, but also sounded like him, it was a bit odd. If I had closed my eyes, I would have sworn that it was Peter O'Toole on stage.

The biggest disappointment for me were the sons. Anthony Hopkins, John Castle, and Nigel Terry's performances are seered into my memories. I couldn't help remembering their line readings while watching the play, which does a great disservice to the actors who were doing their gallant best on stage, but it was just impossible for me not to compare them and find them a bit lacking. I did adore the actress who played Alys, and the scene between her and her brother Philip, a shame that they cut that scene out of the movie. It gives Alys more shades to play than just the mistress, and we get to see a bit of their relationship. In the film, it's hard to remember that Alys and Philip are brother and sister. Although it fell short of my expectations, I am glad that I went to see the production.  Trevor Nunn did a very good job of staging the play, and the set was gorgeous, and given that I saw it only two weeks before Xmas, it felt appropriate!

The day before I had gone to see the Enchanted Princess installation at Kensington Palace.  The Palace right now is going through a great deal of renovation, so only a few of the rooms were open.  I haven't been to Kensington Palace since my semester abroad in college, so just walking up to the Palace was fascinating. Right now, it's covered in a lot of barbed wire but I did get a little giddy when I saw the statue of William III outside. The Enchanted Princesses exhibition features the 7 Princesses who made Kensington Palace their home, Princesses Mary and Anne (later Mary II and Queen Anne), Queen Caroline, Princess Charlotte, Princess Victoria, Princess Margaret and Princess Diana.  While the installations were interesting, particularly Princess Mary, I found the experience a bit lacking particularly in relation to Princess Diana and Princess Margaret.  It's more of a sight and sound experience, with clues left so that you can guess which room relates to which Princess.

Perhaps I was expecting too much, or perhaps my experience was colored by the fact that I just gotten off the plane that morning, and the weather was cold and rainy.  Plus there were no bathrooms available inside the palace, just the porta-potty outside! 

I wish there had been a guidebook specifically done for the exhibition the way that Hampton Court Palace did a special HELLO! magazine issue for Henry VIII's wedding to Katherine Parr (how I wish I had bought that issue!).  However, I did find the gift shop exciting, particularly the Queen Victoria china which I'm dying to own every piece of.

Scandalous Spotlight: Almina, Countess of Carnarvon

Thanks to the success of Downton Abbey, which is filmed at Highclere Castle, attention is now being focused on Almina, Countess of Carnarvon, wife of the 5th Earl of Carnarvon (he who famously bankrolled Howard Carter's expedition to Egypt which ended with the discovery of King Tut's tomb).  Now two new biographies have been published about Almina, the first by the current Countess of Carnarvon entitled: LADY ALMINA AND THE REAL DOWNTON ABBEY, published just this week by Crown Publishing in the States (just in time for the new series of Downton Abbey which premieres soon on PBS).  The 2nd is by William Cross and entitled THE LIFE AND SECRETS OF ALMINA CARNARVON. 

Almina was born Almina Wombwell in 1876.  Her mother Marie Boyer was French, her father a respectable banker.  While her sisters all married well, Marie married a ne'er do well, younger son of a baron named Captain Frederick Wombwell. The couple seperated after Freddie apparently was caught stealing from Marie's parents. Marie soon made the acquaintance of Alfred de Rothschild, the man widely believed to be Almina's father.  Even her unusual name Almina was a combination of her parents names. However, although he doted on Almina and left her a fortune, Alfred never openly acknowledged Almina as his.  Almina grew up to be beautiful, vivacious and a little bit spoilt.  Petite, she was blessed with the curvaceous figure that was then fashionable, Fiona Carnarvon describes her as a "Pocket Venus," throughout the book. Her 'god-father' Alfred doted on her, lavishing her with expensive presents, no doubt to make up for not claiming her as his own.  Although a bachelor, he never married Almina's mother, even after her husband died.  Apparently he liked his freedom too much, plus Marie was Catholic.

In 1893, Almina made the acquaintance of George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon.  The Earl was deeply in debt and needed a wealthy bride, Almina was looking for respectability.  Although she had been presented at court, the knowledge of paternity was like a dark cloud, even with her large dowery.  The Earl landed a huge £500,000 dowry (equivalent to £25million in today's money), which was used to finance his later discovery in Egypt.They each got what they wanted when they married on June 26th (the Earl's 28th birthday) of 1895 at St. Margaret's, Westminster.  At the age of 19, Almina was now the chateleine of Highclere Castle, as well as the Earl's other properties.

I bought Fiona Carnarvon's book on the day it was published and I find it riveting. While her book deals with a great deal of social history, detailing how an Edwardian household was run, the different roles of the servants, aspects of Edwardian society, Cross's book seems to take a more salacious tone. Just from reading the web-site , he seems to have a less rosy colored view of Almina. According to a recent article in The Daily Mail, Cross claims that Almina had an affair with her husband's best man, Prince Victor Duleep Singh, the son of the deposed Maharajah of Lahore, and that her son, the 6th Earl of Carnarvon was a product of this affair.  What this means of course, if it could be proven and I don't see anyone taking a DNA test anytime soon, is that the current Earl is not the real Earl.  Given that Prince Victor and his wife were childless, I think the changes that he is the father of 6th Earl are also slim. Although Prince Victor was of mixed race, there was a very good chance that if Almina had been pregnant by him, the child would have dark or tan skin.  How was she going to pass the baby off as the Earl's if that had happened? It boggles the mind. Was she going to claim the baby died? Or given it away secretly? I can't imagine that Almina would have taken such a risk, given her own background.

According to Cross' biography (which I have not read, my information comes from the reviews that I have read of it), the marriage between the 5th Earl and Almina was a marriage of convenience.  Even Fiona Carnarvon believes that the marriage was one of cash for a title, although she writes that Almina was deeply in love with her husband when they first got married. However, even if that were true, Almina would still have been required to provide the heir and the spare if possible, before discreetly seeking comfort elsewhere. Even if the Earl was, as Cross claimed, undersexed, that doesn't mean that he wasn't capable of fathering children with his wife. Heck, Oscar Wilde was gay, and still managed to father 2 children with his wife! Cross also writes that the Earl had a passion for photography, nude photography that is, commissioning 3,000 nude photos from a photographic studio, which makes him no different that a lot of aristocrats at that time. They may not have married for love, but they certainly spent a great deal of time together, traveling to Egypt many times form 1906 until his death. They were united in their passion for the Earl's discoveries as he went from a relatively small dig to the final discovery with Howard Carter. When she wasn't in Egypt, Almina used her prodigious energy as a political hostess, helping to get her brother-in-law Aubrey Herbert elected to Parliament, and giving speeches up and down the country to various women's groups. In January 1918 Sir Alfred de Rothschild died, leaving Almina almost everything - his house in Mayfair, a handsome tax-free legacy and fabulous pictures, objects and furniture.  A portion of her new fortune went to fund her husband's last expedition to Egypt with Howard Carter.

Almina remarried her 2nd husband, not long after the Earl of Carnarvon died in 1923 (his death was considered to part of the Curse of King Tut's tomb). Her 2nd husband was Lieutenant-Colonel Ian Onslow Dennistoun.  According to Christopher Wilson's article in The Daily Telegraph, Dennistoun owed his promotion to his wife Dorothy's liaison with the Army's Quartermaster General! Dennistoun and Almina met in Paris in 1920, 3 years before her husband's death.  Almost immediately, Almina set him  up in a smart cottage. Apparently Almina also used him for money-laundering purposes. She often sold jewelry and works of art that she had inherited from her god-father, and she used Dennistoun's bank accounts to hide the money from the tax man! Almina also apparently was having an affair with a man by the name of Tommy Frost who was also sleeping with Dennistoun's ex-wife Dorothy!

In 1925, Almina was part of a scandalous court case.  Her husband's ex-wife, Dorothy Dennistoun sued her husband for the alimony that he claimed that he couldn't pay at the time of their divorce.  Apparently, Dennistoun had promised to provide for his ex-wife in the future when he had the money.  When Dorothy heard that he had married the Dowager Countess of Carnarvon, who had been left a fortune by her 'godfather' Alfred de Rothschild, she thought she had hit pay dirt.  Almina was not about to give up any of her money to her husband's ex-wife. She convinced her husband to take the matter to the courts.  During the trial, Dorothy claimed that her husband forced her to sleep with the Quartermaster General to further his career.  Dennistoun basically claimed that his wife was a slut and couldn't be trusted.  Under oath, Almina admitted to adultery, and her money-laundering scheme.  Nobody, least of all Almina, came out smellling like a rose when the case was decided.  Although the jury decided in favor of Dennistoun, the case cost Almina more than 400,000 pounds, more than what it would have cost her to make Dennistoun's wife go away.

Cash-strapped, Almina decided to open a high-society nursing home.  During the war, like Downton Abbey, Highclere had been turned into a hospital.  Almina had spared no expense hiring the best doctors and equipment, decreeing that each wounded officer should have his own room, with down pillows and linen sheets. She believed in the importance of comfort, warmth and cosseting. But even before that, Almina had discovered a talent for nursing when her husband suffered a horrific car accident in 1901 in Germany.

Unfortunately, it turned out that she had no head for running a business, finding it difficult to present her patients with a bill.  Eventually the nursing home, according to Evelyn Waugh, became a place where high-class women could discreetly obtain an illegal abortion. Then at the age of 70, she became involved with a much younger man, who worked as heating engineer.  It was the last straw for her son, the 6th Earl, who gave her up to the IRS, calling her a "scheming swindler" (they were never close).  In her lifetime, Almina had gone through the equivalent of 50 million pounds, much of it no doubt going to pay for the Earl's expeditions to Egypt (they made yearly trips to the country, and the Earl started his own excavations in 1906), the upkeep on Highclere, taxes etc.  One has to wonder if her son's sour grapes came more from the fact that his mother managed her own money, rather than turn it over to him to manage.

Almina's last years were spent in obscurity and poverty.  She died at the age of 93 after choking on a piece of chicken, an ignominious end to a once glamorous life.

Highclere Castle today

Mary Phelps Jacobs and the Modern Brassiere

“I can’t say the brassiere will ever take as great a place in history as the steamboat*, but I did invent it.” – Mary Phelps Jacobs (1891 – 1970).


Imagine you are a 19 year old debutante in 1910 about to attend a ball. You put on a fabulous couture dress from Paris, only to discover that your corset cover is sticking out over the top of your sheer evening gown. What is a girl to do? Well, if you are Mary Phelps “Polly” Jacobs, you throw off your restrictive corset cover and have your maid fashion help you fashion an undergarment out of two handkerchiefs sewn together with pink ribbon and cord. Voila! You have created your own bra! The new undergarment was soft and light and conformed to the wearer better than a corset which had a tendency to create a uniboob. Polly’s new undergarment complimented the fashions of the time which were less restrictive than the previous Victorian fashions which required women to be trussed up like a chicken to get into them. When she showed her friends her new design, they, of course, all wanted one. Before she knew it, Polly was in the bra-making business. It wasn’t until a stranger offered her a dollar for one of her contraptions, that she started thinking that she could really make some money from it.

Nothing in Polly’s background suggested such a ground-breaking achievement. She was born into a world of power and privilege if not wealth, amongst her ancestors was William Bradford, the 1st Governor of the Plymouth colony, another was a General Walter Phelps, who commanded troops in the Civil War at the Battle of Antietam. Her family was well-off, but certainly not in the same league with the Astor’s or the Vanderbilt’s. Polly once wrote that her father had been raised, as she put it, "to ride to hounds, sail boats, and lead cotillions," and they divided their time between a house in New York, an estate in Connecticut and one in New Rochelle, NY. She went to the best schools (Chapin, Rosemary Hall), danced at cotillions, and even met King George V in 1915 at a garden party in London. When it came time to marry, it was to another blueblood, Richard Peabody, whose family had settled in New Hampshire in 1635.

Polly Jacob didn’t actually invent the brassiere. There had been attempts as far back as the 1860’s to create an alternative to the tyranny of the corset. Parisian corset maker Herminie Cadolle in 1889 invented a two-part garment much like a bikini but her design seems to have been known mainly to her customers. Later in 1893, Marie Tucek patented the first bra, her device included separate pockets for the breasts and was fastened by hook and eye closures, but she apparently failed to successfully market her invention.

Polly was the first to patent an undergarment named 'Brassiere,' which derived from the old French word for 'upper arm'. Like the bras that most of us wear today, her design had shoulder straps that attached to the bra’s upper and lower corners, but it also had wrap-around laces which tied in the front, allowing the wearer to wear gowns that were cut low in the back. It was wireless so it didn’t offer much in the way of support. In her application, she noted that her invention was “well-adapted to women of different size” and was “so efficient that it may be worn by persons engaged in violent exercise like tennis.” She received her patent in 1914, the same year that she married Peabody.

It was an invention whose time had come, not only was the fashions less restrictive but during WWI, the U.S. Government requested that women stop buying corsets to conserve metal. Polly named her new company the Fashion Form Brassiere Company which was located on Washington Street in Boston. There with a staff of two, Polly began manufacturing her wireless bra. While Polly managed to snag a few orders from department stores, her business never really took off. Her marriage to Peabody was also failing. They had two children, but Peabody came back from the war with two unfortunate hobbies: drinking and watching buildings burn. Polly fell hard for another blue-blooded, hard-drinking WWI vet named Harry Crosby. Their affair scandalized New York and Boston society but Polly didn’t care. Her office space provided cover for her trysts with Harry. In 1922, Polly divorced Peabody and quickly married Harry, who had no taste or interest in conventional business. Since he had a generous trust fund, he discouraged her from working and convinced her to close the business. Later, she sold the patent to the Warner Brothers Corset Company for $1,500 (about $20,000 today). Warner’s then went on to make over $15 million dollars with the design over the next 30 years before they eventually phased out the design.

After their marriage in 1922, Polly (now renamed Caresse thanks to Harry) and Harry moved to Europe were they led a “mad and extravagant life,” filled with drugs, drinking and numerous affairs on both sides. Their decadent lifestyle lasted until Harry’s murder/suicide with his young lover, Josephine Noyes Rotch in 1928 (and that’s a whole other scandalous story!). Caresse continued her writing and publishing work with Black Sun, the publishing company she had founded with Harry. During its years of operation, it published everyone from D.H. Lawrence, Archibald MacLeish, and Henry Miller to Ezra Pound.

In 1937, she married Selbert Young, a retired football player and sometime actor who was 18 years younger, and moved to Washington, D.C. where she opened an art gallery and started a magazine called Portfolio. After her third marriage collapsed, she spent her final years in Rome, where she planned to create an artist colony. She died in Rome in 1970, at the age of 78, but she lived long enough to see the bra go through a number of transformations (although unfortunately not Victoria’s Secret million dollar bras!). How ironic that something that was meant to liberate women, was later seen as a symbol of oppression!

*invented by another ancestor Robert Fulton

Scandalous Women Gift Guide: GemFatale

Recently I was contacted by Samantha Blakeney (love that last name!) who has a new jewelry line based on Scandalous Women throughout history.  Would I be interested in mentioning her line on the blog? Heck yeah! What a fantastic idea, and why didn't I think of it? Oh right, I have no artistic talent beyond writing and acting.  However, lucky for us all, Samantha does! So far the women featured are Lucrezia Borgia, Anne Boleyn and her sister Mary.  She is also working on a few modern versions of Marie Antoinette's necklaces (one a pearl necklace that she gave as a gift and a replica of the infamous "Diamond Affair" necklace), Mata Hari, Elizabeth Bathory, and a couple of others.

You can take a peek at http://etsy.com/shop/GemFatale.  And readers of Scandalous Women can receive a 10% discount.  Just mention the coupon code "scandalouswomen" when you order.

The Borgia Poison Necklace

Birds of a Feather necklace



Scandalous Women in London: The First Actresses

Since I still had a few vacation days left this year, I decided to hop a plane to London for a few days, to see some friends but also to see 2 exhibits that I didn't want to miss.  The first one was the Enchanted Princesses exhibit at Kensington Palace, the 2nd was The First Actresses exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery on Charing Cross Road.  The National Portrait Gallery is hands down my favorite museum in London, and The First Actresses exhibit didn't disappoint.  It was a tad expensive, 11 pounds, and the exhibition wasn't huge, but as a former actress, I found it fascinating to see the portraits of women I had only read about in theatre history.  There were many women whose portraits I had never seen before including Moll Davis, the other actress who had the privilege of sharing Charles II's bed for a brief time.

From the web-site:  The First Actresses presents a vivid spectacle of femininity, fashion and theatricality in seventeenth and eighteenth-century Britain. Taking centre stage are the intriguing and notorious female performers of the period whose lives outside of the theatre ranged from royal mistresses to admired writers and businesswomen. The exhibition reveals the many ways in which these early celebrities used portraiture to enhance their reputations, deflect scandal and create their professional identities.

Intriguing no?  The exhibition mentions the fact that, in the beginning, actress and prostitute were seen as synonymous.  Indeed, many of the early actresses had aristocratic protectors, Elizabeth Barry & The Earl of Rochester, Nell Gwyn & Charles II, Dorothy Jordan & The Duke of Clarence.  Also many actresses including Elizabeth Farren, ending up marrying their lovers, albeit after their wives had died and the heirs had already been secured.  Elizabeth Farren married the Earl of Derby, and Lavinia Fenton, the Duke of Bolton. 

Looking at the portraits, one can see the rise of celebrity culture.  Just as today, photographers like Annie Leibovitz are known for their celebrity portraits, artists like Reynolds, Gainsborough and Romney painted all the leading actresses of the day.  And then there was the celebrity memoir, many of the leading actresses of the day wrote books about their lives which were eaten up by the public.

This lovely actress is Dorothy Jordon (1761-1816), one of the foremost comic actresses in London in the 18th century.  Born in Ireland, Dorothy was also the mistress of the Duke of Clarence (the future King William IV), and the mother of his 10 illegitmate children, the Fitz-Clarences.  For 20 years, she was not only his mistress but she also supported him and their children, since his civil list allowance did not cover his extravagant lifestyle.  After the death of Princess Charlotte, the daughter of the Prince Regent, died in childbirth, the Duke dumped Dorothy and married a German princess in order to secure the line of succession.  He and Queen Adelaide had no children who survived, paving the way for Queen Victoria.  When Dorothy went back on the stage to support herself, after he left, he took her children away.  What a prince!

This is Lavinia Fenton (1708-1760) who played Polly Peachum in the first ever performance of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera.  Lavinia became the mistress of the Duke of Bolton, and then married him after his wife's death.  Not bad eh?

This beauty is Mary Robinson (1757-1800), also known as Perdita after the role that she played when she met the Prince of Wales (future George IV).  She was briefly his mistress, but the relationship was fleeting.  Mary eventually gave up acting to write poetry and plays.  Mary had a long affair with Banastre Tarleton who didn't really treat her well. Unfortunately she is not as well known as she should be.  ALL FOR LOVE by Amanda Elyot is a historical fiction novel about Mary Robinson.

This is one of 2 portraits of Nell Gwyn (1650-1687) that are in the exhibition.  The 2nd portrait was just recently attributed to her.  I admit that I have a fondness in my heart for Nell Gwyn.  Apart from his Queen, Catherine of Braganza, and his sister Minette, I think Nell is the only mistress who truly loved the King for himself and not for what he could do for.  She never demanded a fancy house or jewels for herself, the only thing that she demanded was that their children be cared for, and given the same titles that his other bastards were given.

Ah Sarah Siddons (1755-1831), the Meryl Streep of the late 18th and early 19th century.  There are several portraits of Sarah in the exhibition.  She came from a theatrical family, her parents were actors, and her siblings also went on the stage, the most well known being her brother John Philip Kemble.  Mrs. Siddons was not a success when she made her debut in London as Portia in Merchant of Venice and a few other roles. Whether it was nerves or lack of experience, she was soon sent packing.  In fact, she spent several years in the provinces after her disasterous debut, honing her craft until she finally came back in triumph several years later.  While Dorothy Jordon,Peg Woffington and Frances Abington were known for their comedic roles, Sarah was a tragedienne bar none.  One of her most famous roles was that of Lady Macbeth.

There were several other actresses included in the exhibit including women who were known more for operatic roles than acting, although most actresses of the period were expected to be able to sing a little as well as dance.  They also had to provide their own costumes!  One of the actresses included in the exhibit is Elizabeth Inchbald who gave up the stage to write plays.  She was well acquainted with William Godwin, and was not happy when he hooked up with Mary Wollstonecraft and then married her.  The exhibit explores the "breeches" roles that were so popular in the 17th & 18th century.  These roles allowed women the freedom to go on stage dressed like men, but it also caused a stink because they weren't covered up!

I had no idea how many actresses at that time extended their careers by picking up the pen.  I wish some enterprising theatre producer would devote a season to reviving one of Mary Robinson or Elizabeth Inchbald's plays, even if it was just in the staged reading format.

While I was at the museum, I also made a pilgrimage to see Mary Wollstonecraft and Emma Hamilton's portraits in the museum.  One of the displays concerned Princess Charlotte of Wales and the future Queen Victoria.  While looking at the portraits of Queen Victoria, I was struck by how much Prince Andrew's daughter Princess Beatrice looks like her.

Here's a portrait of a young Queen Victoria

And here's Princess Beatrice.  They look like twins right?

Yes, I know that Princess Beatrice is a direct descendent of Queen Victoria, but none of the Queen's children or grandchildren have quite the same uncanny resemblance. I spent a good deal of time in the Victorian and Edwardian galleries looking at the faces.  My favorite room is the one that has the notorious rivals William Gladstone & Benjamin Disraeli hung right next to each other!

Afterwards, I went to the National Cafe for the Lady Hamilton tea which included a plum Bellini.  Unfortunately they served the tea, not using loose tea, but with a tea bag! Considering the tea cost me a whopping 21 pounds, I thought it a bit much.  On a lighter note, the scone with clotted cream was awesome!

 

Scandalous Romance - Caroline Flack & Harry Styles

All of London has been abuzz over the news that Xtra-Factor presenter Caroline Flack, 32, is dating Harry Styles, 17, member of the boy band One Direction.  Opinion has been divided with some people giving Caroline the high-five, and others who want to stone her the market place.  The big issues, the 15 year age gap, and the fact that Styles is 17 (which is legal in Great Britain).  The couple met a year ago when Styles appeared on the X-Factor but the relationship apparently didn't start until this past October when the couple were caught kissing on camera.

You have to wonder if people would be so icked out if Styles were 18 or even 21.  Since he can't legally drink or vote, the idea that he's dating a woman in her thirties boggles people's minds. Caroline is quoted as saying, "What is hard for me to get my head around is people saying its disgusting. I don't think it is.  I shouldn't have to worry about what I do. But people aren't accepting of big age gaps."  Well Caroline, actually they are, if the roles were reversed.  If Caroline were 17 or 18, and Harry were 32, no body would probably blink an eye.  It doesn't help, that like Justin Bieber, Harry looks like he's just barely hit puberty. (Another older woman, director Sam Taylor Wood has been involved with actor Aaron Johnson since he was 18, and she was 41.  Perhaps the fact that they are now engaged and have 1 child, and another on the way, makes them a little less salacious).

Before you go thinking that Flack is some kind of 21st Century Mrs. Robinson, apparently Styles pursued her, which is pretty cheeky if you think about it. At first, she apparently didn't take him seriously, thinking he was just being flirty, but eventually she just decided that she liked him so, so what? Of course people are wondering what a 17 year old and a 32 year old could possibly have in common. Well, for one thing, both are in the entertainment business.  She's not likely to get upset at the fact that he's constantly off touring and promoting his band's CD, when she's equally as busy with her career. And since she's been in the business for awhile, no doubt she has some sage advice, but it could just be that they have fun together.

One has to wonder what Style's mother feels about all this? Is she outraged or is she perhaps happy that her son is dating someone who isn't using him for fame? Most of the girls his own age that he meets are all fans (who have issued death threats against Flack).  Chances are this relationship will run it's course but Flack has taken a huge risk by being in this relationship.  Her people have already told her that it could cost her a great deal of work. In the end, the bad publicity may be the very thing that kills the romance as both discover that it's not worth all the derision.

In 1920, the French writer Colette published her story of Cheri, a young man who has a relationship with a courtesan who is 25 years older.  Despite both their contention that the relationship is casual, they fall in love,  although they know they can't be together.  Things haven't changed very much since then have they? While George Clooney continues to date even younger and younger women, and nobody blinks an eye that Warren Beatty and Michael Douglas are 25 years older than their wives, for a woman to date a younger man brings up all kinds of issues for people.

So what do you think? Is Caroline Flack brave or foolhardy for dating a guy who is not only 15 years younger but still a teenager? Is there still a stigma against women dating much younger men?

The Dragon Empress – The Life of Cixi, Dowager Empress of China (1835-1908)

The Dragon Empress – The Life of Cixi, Dowager Empress of China (1835-1908)

"I have often then that I am the most clever woman that ever lived, and others cannot compare with me...I have 400 million people dependent on my judgement." - Empress Cixi
Once upon a time in a distant province of China, an ordinary girl named Yehenara was born. She would one day grow up to be one of the most feared women in the Eastern world, known as the Dragon Empress. Only five feet tall, this daughter of a minor Manchu official, believed herself to be the cleverest woman alive. Historians and filmmakers have long portrayed her ‘The Dragon Empress,’ a despot and villain, murdering anyone who got in her way including her daughter-in-law and the Dowager Empress Niuhuru. For almost fifty years, this powerful and charismatic woman ruled China with iron fist inside a velvet glove, but her feudal outlook, her belief that China was the center of the universe, and that all foreigners were barbarians were contributing factors to the end of the Ch’ing dynasty after three hundred years.

Yehenara’s father was nobody; just one of a thousand, nameless and faceless officials who populated Peking at that time. The eldest child, Yehenara had an unhappy childhood, feeling neglected and unloved. She once said, 'Ever since I was a young girl, I had a very hard life. I was not happy with my parents, as I was not a favorite. My sisters had everything they wanted, while I was, to a great extent, ignored altogether.' There was no money to educate the children beyond the basics. Somehow Yehenara managed to learn to read and write, making her a rarity since most Chinese women were illiterate. Her father died when she was fourteen, leaving the family in dire straits. So, at the age of 16, Yehenara and her sister were brought to the Forbidden City to join the Emperor’s harem, a step up back then for Chinese women. The Dowager Consort Kangci personally selected the girls. She was one of 60 girls who were eligible for the honor, and only 28 were picked to be Preparative Concubines. Yehenara and her sister were amongst the lucky ones.

Yehenara spent two years in training, hoping that the Emperor would notice her. From the beginning, she used her time wisely, cozying up to another one of the concubines Ci’an, who had been chosen to be Empress. She also kept her eyes open, sizing up who had the real power in the Imperial palace, the Eunuchs. While she waited, Yehenara occupied herself reading her way through the palace libraries. Her luck changed when, as the story goes; the Emperor heard her singing one day and asked to meet her. Impressed with her beauty as well as her talent, Xianfeng picked her name from his nightly list of choices to grace his bed. A tablet carved from jade was turned over to reveal her name. Etiquette demanded that she be deposited, naked, at the foot of his bed.

Soon she bore the Emperor a son which gained her a promotion to Consort of the fourth rank (after his 1st birthday, she was promoted again to Noble Consort Yi, placing her second in rank to the Empress). She was given the title Tzu Hsi (Cixi), meaning “kindly and virtuous.” The Emperor died in 1861. Since there was no tradition of primogeniture in China, Cixi went to the Emperor’s death bed and demanded that he recognize her son as his heir. Since Cixi’s son was only five, she took advantage of the naiveté and the good nature of the Dowager Empress Niuhuru, suggesting that they become co-reigning Empress Dowagers. However, during the three months between the Emperor’s death and his burial, a rival faction attempted to seize power. Soon Cixi, alongside 8other regents, including Empress Niuhuru, came out on top. Prince I and Prince Cheng were found guilty of treason, and allowed to commit suicide. The others weren’t so lucky, they were beheaded and their estates confiscated and divided between Cixi and Niuhuru. Cixi was now a very rich woman in her own right.

Civil war raged through five provinces and twenty million people died during the early years of Cixi’s reign. Cixi initially relied on the advice of Prince Kung, who indulged her, underestimating her intelligence, believing that she would be easy to manipulate. But he soon found out how wrong he was when Cixi decided to clean up the corrupt national bureaucracy. She personally met with all officials above the level of provincial governor, who now had to report to her. Instead of favoring the Manchu elite who had held power for centuries, Cixi began to cultivate the Han Chinese, appointing officials as governors of all the southern provinces. Soon Cixi was ready to rule on her own. Her first step was to get rid of Prince Kung, who had become a little too familiar for Cixi’s liking. One day, during an audience, Cixi claimed that he had tried to attack her. He was seized by eunuchs, and stripped of all honors and duties. She later forgave him, needing his help to rule the country, but she had made her point. She had brought down the most powerful man in the kingdom and bent him to her will.

Cixi now became the poster girl for the saying “Power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely.” She quickly got rid of those who opposed her, not willing to share power with anyone. She raised taxes on an already overburdened populace, selling positions of influence and pocketing the money for herself. There were sumptuous banquets with a hundred courses where Cixi ate with gold chopsticks and drank out of a jade cup. Incredibly vain, she applied white make-up with a trowel, and wore sumptuous gowns decorated with precious gems. At the end of her life, her personal jewelry vault contained 3,000 ebony boxes of jewels. She used naval funds to rebuild the summer palace that had been destroyed during the 2nd Opium War. As she grew older, she became a tyrant, punishing her household with beatings for even minor infractions. She apparently enjoyed having two of her maids repeatedly slap each other. When she turned 60, every courtier was obliged to donate 25% of their salary to her and to buy lavish gifts to celebrate the birthday girl. By the end of her reign, she has amassed a personal fortune of 8.5 million pounds.

Unfortunately Cixi’s son, Tongzhi, had inherited none of her intelligence and ambition. He was spoiled and indulged by everyone, but he led a lonely life, with no playmates of his own age. By his teens, he was alcoholic, preferring to hang out in brothels. At the age of 16, a wife was chosen for him from amongst the daughters of the Manchu officials. Cixi took an instant dislike to Alute, fearing her influence over her son. Despite being officially crowned Emperor, Tongzhi preferred to leave matters in his mother’s capable hands, while he drank and shagged anything that had a pulse. Two years after he was crowned, Tongzhi was dead from a combination of venereal disease and smallpox. He was only 19. His wife, Alute, soon committed suicide by swallowing opium but gossip had it that Cixi had her murdered.

Not leaving anything to chance, Cixi called a meeting of the Grand Council to discuss the succession. The lucky winner was her nephew Guangxu who was only three. Her choice violated the laws of ancestor-worship but Cixi didn’t care. Despite opposition from more conservative members of the council, Cixi got her way. On February 25th, 1875 Guangxu was proclaimed Emperor. Cixi’s second regency was a disaster for China. Immediately, Cixi locked horns with the French, Japanese and English, all of whom wanting to trade more in the East; had struck deals with China’s neighbors. When Cixi wanted to declare war on Vietnam, who had been forced into a treaty with the French, and her council didn’t back her up, she had them sacked. She replaced them with a group of “yes” men, and proceeded to go to war. China lost, and France ruled Vietnam for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile Japan seized the chance to go after Korea. In order to pay for the costly wars, taxes were raised. Ironically what made Cixi so popular was her stance against foreigners, but it also brought China to her knees.

Finally when the Emperor turned 19, Cixi agreed to retire but it was in name only. She spent her time spreading rumors that the Emperor was childlike and incompetent. Guangxu was the exact opposite of his rigid, conservative aunt. He believed that China needed to learn from the West in order to survive. He initiated what came to be known as “Hundred Days of Reform,” issuing decrees ordering railroads to be built, modernizing the military, reforming the legal system, dismissing thousands of Manchu officials who opposed his reforms. Cixi was livid. When she got word that the Emperor’s advisors suggested that she be placed under house arrest, she stormed the Forbidden City, with members of the army that had remained loyal. She forced the Emperor to rescind his reforms, imprisoning him in a palace in the middle of an island. He was totally isolated from the court, his servants either put to death or banished. His only companions were four guards and his wife.

Cixi was back in charge. However, her policies were ruinous to China. She made the mistake of aligning herself with the Boxers, encouraging their efforts to rid China of all foreigners, missionaries, and Christian converts. No one was safe, buildings were burnt. The foreign governments weren’t about to take the murder of their citizens lying down. Over 20,000 foreign troops (including American) marched towards Peking. Cixi, along with the rest of the Imperial family, fled the palace dressed ironically as peasants. When the Emperor’s favorite concubine begged Cixi not to abandon Peking, she was allegedly thrown down a well. For the first time, Cixi came face to face with the reality of the lives of the ordinary citizens of China, the grinding poverty and the famine. The Empress, who was nothing if not practical, decided to stop the war (against the advice of her advisors) with the Allied Powers, once she was assured of her continued reign after the war. China agreed to pay almost $333 million in war reparations. Finally, Cixi saw the light and was willing to build the railroads, and schools that Guangxu has been pushing for. Ironically, she began implementing a reform program that was more radical than one that had been proposed before. She began inviting the wives of foreign diplomats for tea. To rehabilitate her image, Cixi allowed a young photographer to take elaborately staged shots of her and her court.

In 1907, Cixi suffered a stroke. While she recovered, the Emperor fell ill and died of what is now known to be acute arsenic poisoning. Historians now speculate that Cixi knowing she was dying wanted to make sure that the Emperor would not continue his reforms after her death. Cixi died a day later, but not before installing her grandnephew Pu Yi as the new and last Emperor of China. Her tomb, which she had ordered destroyed and reconstructed in 1895, was destroyed again 1928 by the Kuomintang general Sun Dianying and his army.  They stipped the tomb of its jewels, and dumped Cixi's corpse in the mud. The tomb was restored in 1949 by the People's Republic of China.

Recent biographers have taken a different view of Cixi than the more traditional view of a devious despot. They claim that Cixi was just a convenient scapegoat for problems that were beyond her control, a leader no more ruthless than other male rulers, and an effective but reluctant reformer in her last years. Many of the more sensational stories written about her by people who never met the Empress and concocted stories to feed to the Western Press who had their own reasons for wanting to blacken her name. Katherine Carl, who painted Cixi in her later years, wrote a sympathetic memoir describing the Empress as kind and considerate. In her later years, Cixi apparently had many regrets about the past and how she had dealt with the many crises of her reign.

Sources:

Margaret Nicholas - The World’s Wickedest Women, Octopus Books Limited, 1984
Sean Price - Cixi: Evil Empress of China? (Wicked History), Scholastic Books, 2009
Shelley Klein - The Most Evil Women in History, Metro Books, 2003
Sterling Seagrave - Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China, Vintage 1993

Exhibition: The Empress Dowager, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

Wallis & Edward - 75th Anniversary of Edward VIII's Abdication

This sunday marks the 75th anniversary of Edward VIII's famous radio broadcast, where he told the nation that he was abdicating because he couldn't possibly fulfill his duties without the help of "the woman I love." That woman as we all know was Wallis Simpson, who became the Duchess of Windsor. The day before he had signed the instruments of abdication with his three brothers, the Duke of York, the Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent as witnesses. 75 years later we are still fascinated with what was billed as the love story of the century.  King gives up his throne for a twice-divorced American woman. Who would have thunk it? His great-grandmother Queen Victoria must have been rolling in her grave! The more I read about Wallis and Edward, the more sympathy actually I have for her.  I don't think she had any idea that Edward's feelings were going to run so deep for her that he would abdicate.  She truly believed that the affair would run its course and he would move on like he'd had before.  Instead of ending it when she had the chance, her own hubris got in the way, and Edward became more and more reliant on her.  If she'd had the chance, I think that she would have stayed married to Ernest Simpson.

To mark the anniversary, I thought I would share with you all some books and movies about Edward and Mrs. Simpson. First up is the new movie W.E. directed by none other than Madonna.  I saw a preview of this film when I went to see My Week with Marilyn, and I have to say that it looked rather interesting. The poster is rather intriguing as well. The film is in limited release right now, planning to go wide in early 2012.  I certainly plan on seeing it before the end of the year, and of course, I will share my thoughts with you all!

Two new biographies of Wallis Simpson were published this past year in the UK.  The first was by royal biographer Hugo Vickers.

I have not yet read this book although I plan on purchasing it when it comes out in paperback next year.  I did purchase Anne Sebba's book from Amazon.co.uk, even though it's being published in the US in March of 2012. I just love the picture of Wallis on the cover. I'm in the middle of the book right now, and I'm quite enjoying it. I could have done without the speculation about whether or not Wallis was biologically a man or not.  Seriously can we put this theory to bed? There's no way to prove it, unless someone manages to get permission to dig The Duchess' body up to test her DNA.  Sebba doesn't reveal any real new information on Wallis, apart from quoting the letters that she wrote Ernest Simpson after the divorce, clearing indicating her strong feelings for her ex-husband, and her regret at how things turned out.

For something completely different, Laurie Graham has written a novel about the Windsors from the POV of a fictional friend of Wallis' from Baltimore entitled GONE WITH THE WINDSOR'S.  I haven't read this but I love the cover.  I did read Anne Edward's novel WALLIS, that was published I think in 1991 that was pretty decent.

Of course, the best miniseries, in my humble opinion, was Edward & Mrs. Simpson starring Edward Fox as Edward VIII and American actress Cynthia Harris as Wallis.  Of all the actresses that I have seen play the role, Cynthia Harris comes close to capturing the spirit of Wallis, not to mention that she looks uncannily like her. No one can better Edward Fox as the Prince of Wales/Edward VIII either.  If you haven't seen it, I suggest adding it to your Netflix queue.

This film was made several years ago starring Joely Richardson (daughter of Vanessa Redgrave) as Wallis and Stephen Campbell Moore as Edward.  I've only watched 1/2 hour of this, and I wasn't impressed. Richardson's accent is all over the place and Campbell Moore is way too young to be playing Edward (He was 41 when he abdicated), he barely looks like he's old enough to shave.

Tonight on the Royal Report, Marilyn from Marilyn's Royal Report will be discussing the abdication and what it meant for Britain as well as the implications.

The Collection of Elizabeth Taylor at Christie's

Elizabeth Taylor was one of the most fascinating women on the planet.  During her 79 years on the planet, she was a movie star, AIDS activist, perfume magnate, married eight times (including twice to Richard Burton), and punch line (Joan Rivers, John Belushi).  She almost died several times, but like a phoenix, she continually rose from the ashes. It seemed like she was indestructible.  Even though she was forced to use a wheelchair during her last few years, she still sent swimming with the sharks!

Now the jewelry and wardrobe are being auctioned off at Christie's New York next week.  For those of you who don't live in New York & LA and weren't able to see the collection up close and personal, the Christie's website has made it easy for you to see (and bid!) on some of these fabulous items. You can check out a video here. Christie's has announced that a portion of profits from the sale of select publications, exhibition admissions and event sponsorships will be directed to The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (ETAF). The website also includes highlights of the collection, including some of the fabulous jewelry that Richard Burton bought for Elizabeth during their tumultous marriage.

Book of the Month: Dangerous Ambition: Rebecca West and Dorothy Thompson: New Women in Search of Love and Power

Title:  Dangerous Ambition: Rebecca West and Dorothy Thompson: New Women in Search of Love and Power
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Publication date: 11/8/2011
Pages: 512

Overview:

Born in the 1890s on opposite sides of the Atlantic, friends for more than forty years, Dorothy Thompson and Rebecca West lived strikingly parallel lives that placed them at the center of the social and historical upheavals of the twentieth century. In Dangerous Ambition, Susan Hertog chronicles the separate but intertwined journeys of these two remarkable women writers, who achieved unprecedented fame and influence at tremendous personal cost.


American Dorothy Thompson was the first female head of a European news bureau, a columnist and commentator with a tremendous following whom Time magazine once ranked alongside Eleanor Roosevelt as the most influential woman in America. Rebecca West, an Englishwoman at home wherever genius was spoken, blazed a trail for herself as a journalist, literary critic, novelist, and historian. In a prefeminist era when speaking truth to power could get anyone—of either gender—ostracized, blacklisted, or worse, these two smart, self-made women were among the first to warn the world about the dangers posed by fascism, communism, and appeasement.

But there was a price to be paid, Hertog shows, for any woman aspiring to such greatness. As much as they sought voice and power in the public forum of opinion and ideas, and the independence of mind and money that came with them, Thompson and West craved the comforts of marriage and home. Torn between convention and the opportunities of the new postwar global world, they were drawn to men who were as ambitious and hungry for love as themselves: Thompson to the brilliant, volatile, and alcoholic Nobel Prize winner Sinclair Lewis; West to her longtime lover H. G. Wells, the lusty literary eminence whose sexual and emotional demands doomed any chance they may have had at love. Tragically, both arrangements produced troubled sons, whose anger and jealousy at their mothers’ iconic fame eroded their sense of personal success.

Brimming with fresh insights obtained from previously sealed archives, this penetrating dual biography is a story of twinned lives caught up in the crosscurrents of world events and affairs of the heart—and of the unique trans-Atlantic friendship forged by two of the most creative and complex women of their time.

Afternoon at Hillwood House

To celebrate Thanksgiving, and for a change of scenery, I headed down to our nation's capitol.  On my list of things to do was to visit Marjorie Merriweather Post's estate in north DC called Hillwood. Marjorie Merriweather Post (188 -1973) was the daughter of C.W. Post who invented a coffee substitute called Posties as well as Grape Nuts.  At the time of his death, when she was 27, she inherited $20 million dollars which is something like over a $100 million dollars in today's money.  Suffice it to say, girlfriend didn't have to clip coupons.  Although she could have spent the rest of her life counting her money, Marjorie was a shrewd businessman. She served on the board of her father's company The Postum Cereal Company,  which he'd founded in 1895.  With her second husband, E.F. Hutton (anyone remember those commericals, "When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen?), she developed a wider range of products including Birdseye.  The company eventually became the General Foods Corporation in 1929.

In the 1950's Marjorie Merriweather Post bought Hillwood House, which she extensively renovated.  It's now home to her large collection of French and Russian decorative arts.  The web-site has an awesome orientation video.which you can watch here  The house is gorgeous, but it is not easy to find, let me tell you. I got lost along the way, and ended up almost in Maryland! However, I did manage to find the Politics and Prose bookstore which was also on my list of places to visit.  After I managed to turn myself around, I finally got to the museum but with only an hour to look around before it closed for the day.  So I quickly headed over to the Adirondack House on the property to see the Wedding Belles exhibition.

The exhibition features not only all 4 of Marjorie Merriweather Post's wedding dresses, to husbands Edward Bennett Close (who later remarried, Glenn Close is his granddaughter), E.F. Hutton, Joseph Davies, and Herbert A. May, but also her mother Ella Merriweather's dress, and the wedding dresses of her daughters Adelaide, and Eleanor Close and Nedenia Hutton (the actress Dina Merrill). It's amazing to see how not only fashion, but wedding fashions have changed since the 19th century.  Back then, very few women wore white wedding dresses unless they were rich, most women like Ella Merriweather wore an afternoon dress, something that they could wear again. The exhibit also features the flower girl and bridesmaids dresses worn by Dina Merrill as a child.

I had enough time after the Wedding Belles exhibition to visit the main house. During her third marriage, her husband Joseph Davies became the second American ambassador to the Soviet Union.  During that time, Marjorie acquired many valuable works of art from the Soviets.  Not just decorative arts but paintings and photographs of the Russian Tsars.  I don't think I've ever seen so many portraits of Tsar Nicholas II as I did at Hillwood House, not to mention some fabulous portraits of Catherine the Great and Empress Alexandra.  There are also several Faberge eggs, Sevres porcelain, French furniture, tapestries, and many, many Russian icons.

This little beauty is what Princess Alexandra of Hesse wore at her wedding ceremony to Tsar Nicholas II in 1894.  The crown consists of bands of diamonds sewn into velvet-covered supports and surmounted by a cross of six large, old mine-cut diamonds.

This small brooch was most likely made soon after Tsar Nicholas and Tsaritsa Alexandra’s wedding. On it, Alexandra wears a headpiece and jewels similar to the ones in the couple’s wedding portraits. Nicholas is depicted in the uniform of the Life-Guard Hussars Regiment that he wore at the wedding.

These objects are part of a large dressing table set from the dowry of Grand Duchess Ekaterina Mikhailovna, a niece of Tsar Nicholas I. Commissioned for her wedding to the duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in 1851, this set reflects the tradition of grandiose objects produced in the eighteenth century deemed indispensable to the ceremonial acts of grooming and dressing.

The museum houses more than 16,000 objects that Post collected over the years.  I definitely want to go back in the spring when the garden is in full bloom.  The estate covers 25 acres of land, including the main house, the cafe, the dacha, the Adirondack house, the Butler's house, etc.  Hillwood was just one of Marjorie Merriweather Post's estates.  Mar-a-lago, her estate in Palm Beach, was bought by Donald Trump and turned into an exclusive club.  It originally had 115 rooms! She also owned Camp Topridge in the Adirondacks as well as a home in Brookville, NY which she sold to Long Island University for $200,000.  It is now the C.W. Post Campus of LIU.

What I loved about Hillwood was that it still felt like a private home. Interspersed amongst all the art work and expensive furniture are tons of family photographs and portraits.  I could just imagine Marjorie Merriweather Post sweeping down the staircase in an evening gown to greet her guests at some swanky party that she was hosting. However, one of the best parts of the visit, was wandering through the gift shop and seeing my book, Scandalous Women perched between Leslie Carroll's Royal Pains and Kris Waldherr's Doomed Queens!

If you are ever in Washington, DC, I encourage you to visit Hillwood House.  You won't regret it!

Guest Blogger Debra Brenegan on The Remarkable Life of Fanny Fern

Scandalous Women is pleased to welcome author Debra Brenegan to the blog today to talk about Fanny Fern, once one of the highest paid columnists in the United States, making $100 a week way back in 1855.

Talk about a scandalous woman! Fanny Fern helped define the term. And the sad thing is that most people have never heard of her. I had never heard of her either until one day, in graduate school, I took a nineteenth-century American Literature class with a professor who told me, “I know a writer you’re just going to love.” This writer, Fanny Fern, wasn’t on our reading list that semester, so, he added her book, Ruth Hall, to the reading list of a course I took with him the next semester. And, he was right – I adored her!

Fanny Fern was the highest-paid, most-popular writer of her era. She served as a literary mentor to Walt Whitman, earned the respect of Nathaniel Hawthorne and was friends with Harriet Beecher Stowe. Fern’s personal life was a rollercoaster of highs and lows. She was widowed, escaped an abusive second marriage, and then married a third man, eleven years her junior.

I became so interested in Fern and her amazing life that I started writing papers about her. I applied for and got a graduate school fellowship to visit Fern’s archives at Smith College in Massachusetts. As I learned more about Fanny Fern, I couldn’t stop telling people about her. And people were amazed with her rags-to-riches story. They couldn’t believe that they had never heard of her. When it came time to write my dissertation, I combined my interest in creative writing, literature and Women’s Studies to write a historical novel about this forgotten journalist, novelist and feminist. I wanted everyone who hadn’t heard of Fanny Fern to learn about her; I wanted to bring her back to life.

That dissertation became my first published book, the historical novel Shame the Devil (SUNY Press). My book tells the remarkable and true story of Fanny Fern (the pen name of Sara Payson Willis). Well ahead of her time, Fern (1811-1872) scrabbled in the depths of poverty before her meteoric rise to fame and fortune. She penned one of the country's first prenuptial agreements and served as a nineteenth-century Oprah to her hundreds of thousands of fans. Her weekly editorials in the pages of the New York Ledger over a period of about twenty years chronicled the myriad controversies of her era and demonstrated her firm belief in the motto, "Speak the truth, and shame the devil."

You can learn more about Fanny Fern, her life, and the book Shame the Devil on my website: http://www.debrabrenegan.com/.

Have you ever heard of Fanny Fern? If you haven’t (and many people haven’t), why do you suppose that is?

Scandalous Movie Review: My Week with Marilyn

Cast

Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe
Kenneth Branagh as Sir Laurence Olivier
Eddie Redmayne as Colin Clark
Judi Dench as Dame Sybil Thorndike
Emma Watson as Lucy
Dougray Scott as Arthur Miller
Dominic Cooper as Milton H. Greene
Julia Ormond as Vivien Leigh
Derek Jacobi as Sir Owen Morshead
Zoë Wanamaker as Paula Strasberg
Richard Clifford as Richard Wattis
Philip Jackson as Roger Smith
Simon Russell Beale as Admiral Cotes-Preedy

Directed by: Simon Curtis
Written by Adrian Hodges based on the memoirs of Colin Clark
Produced by David Parfitt, Harvey Weinstein, The Weinstein  Company and BBC Films



Synopsis: In the summer of 1956, and 23 year old Colin Clark is looking for a job as an assistant on a film.  He talks his way into a job working as the 3rd Assistant Director on the British film of The Prince and the Showgirl (based on the The Sleeping Prince by Terrence Rattigan), starring Knight of the British theatre Laurence Olivier and American film star Marilyn Monroe, who is also on honeymoon with her new husband, playwright Arthur Miller. Things on the set start rocky and get worse as Marilyn's insecurities get the best of her.  Olivier is frustrated by her lateness and her dependence on her acting coach Paula Strasberg, wife of Method guru Lee Strasberg. When Arthur Miller leaves the country to do some work, Marilyn begins to rely on Colin to keep her company.  Olivier tells Colin to do anything to make Marilyn happy and get her to the set on time. Colin, who of course falls immediately under Marilyn's spell, introduces her to th wonders of British life as they spend a week together, during which time she escapes from the pressures of work. But the idyll has to end, leaving Colin sad but happy with his memories of the magical time that he spent with Marilyn.

My thoughts:  I read Clark's memoirs when they first came out back in the 1990's on a trip to England. Like many people, I've been fascinated with Marilyn Monroe since childhood. I've read pretty much every book ever written about her, her combination of sexuality and vulnerability has rarely been duplicated by any actress. So when I heard that they were making a movie out of the book, I had my misgivings.  Does anyone remember the HBO movie where Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino shared the role of Marilyn, Ashley played the pre-nose job, pre-blonde Marilyn as a tough cookie, while Sorvino played the later Marilyn.  It didn't really work, and I've avoided biopics about Marilyn ever since.  Still, I couldn't help but wonder, especially given the cast that had been assembled for the film.  The movie premiered at The New York Film Festival but I wasn't not paying $50 to see the film.  However, when the film opened the day before Thanksgiving, I thought I would make it my Thanksgiving film.

I'm happy to see that my fears weren't realized, although at first I was worried, the first few scenes were not promising.  Initially, they just seemed a catalog of Monroe stereotypes, breathy voice, the giggle, as the film progresses, it goes deeper into Monroe's psyche as Colin gets to know the real Marilyn. Michelle Williams doesn't do an impersonation of Marilyn Monroe, she is Marilyn from the tips of her platinum blonde locks to the wiggle in her walk.  Williams has said in interviews that she spent six months not just reading Monroe biographies but also studying her walk and her vocal inflections, and it paid off. However, her work clearly went deeper than that. Williams captures Marilyn's fears, her vulnerability, her neediness, vanity, foolish, and her ability to turn the character that she called 'her' on and off when necessary. Marilyn's emotions are never very far from the surface, and Williams has the ability to portray her ability to turn on a dime from sadness to happiness in the blink of an eye. The scene where she reads her husband's work and realizes that he's created an unflattering portrait of her are devastating.

This film is a coming of age story with Colin Clark, played by the dynamic Eddie Redmayne, going from a boy who is unsure about what he wants to do with his life to a man. It's lovely to see his fumbling attempts to woo Lucy, the wardrobe assistant played by Emma Watson, and to defy the low expectations of the filmmakers who see him as just a gopher initially. Some of the best scenes in the film are when he goes above and beyond the call of duty much to the chagrin of his bosses.

Both Colin and Marilyn have to deal with expectations, for Colin it has to do with having a famous father, art historian Sir Kenneth Clark, and a famous brother, conservative politician and military historian Alan Clark.  For Marilyn, it's the expectations of the public and her fellow actors.  On the Prince and the Showgirl, she worries that she's not good enough to work with the English actors in the cast, most of whom are theatre veterans.  Dame Judi Dench does superb work as usual in the small role of Dame Sybil Thorndike, who goes out of her way to make Marilyn feel welcome on the set, something that Olivier seems incapable of doing.

At first Kenneth Branagh seemed miscast as Laurence Olivier, he's shorter, blonder, doughier with no upper lip, but he manages to capture the impatience, and the narcissism of a man who has been told that he's the greatest actor in England, and feels that his poop doesn't stink. When Olivier has to eat crow later in the film, acknowledging that Marilyn has a gift for film acting that he doesn't possess, it's brilliant. Of course the film is peopled with wonderful actors in supporting roles such as Sir Derek Jacobi, Simon Russell Beale, Toby Jones, and Michael Kitchen.  Zoe Wanamaker almost steals the film as Paula Strasberg.  One longs for someone to make a film out of Susan Strasberg's memoir about what it was like to have her parents virtually adopt Marilyn, neglecting the needs of their own children. Only Dominic Cooper is miscast as Milton Greene, Marilyn's former lover and business partner.  He's too young for the role and lacks the gravitas for the part.  Unfortunately Dougray Scott is given very little too do as Arthur Miller.

While the film is not quite as emotionally satisfying as The King's Speech, it does evoke nostalgia for a time and a world that no longer exists.  The film rests squarely on the more than adequate shoulders of Michelle Williams and Eddie Redmayne.  It was a more than pleasant way to spend my Thanksgiving.

My verdict:  Two thumbs up!