Evelyn
Nesbit (December 25, 1884 - January 17, 1967) was a
model noted for her entanglement in the murder of her
ex-lover, architect Stanford White, by her husband,
Harry K. Thaw.
Born in Tarentum, Pennsylvania, her
family was left destitute when her father, a lawyer,
died. Fortunately, Evelyn was an exceptional beauty.
As a teenager, she posed for an artist, John Storm,
in Pittsburgh, and achieved some measure of success.
In 1901, at age 16, now the family breadwinner, she
decided they would move to New York to further her
career. She continued modelling, posing for Frederick
C. Church and Charles Dana Gibson and photographer
Rudolf Eickemeyer, Jr..
Now a Florodora Girl on Broadway,
she caught the attention of Stanford White. The fact
that he was married and made a hobby of "befriending"
young ladies was overlooked by Evelyn's mother, who
encouraged White's patronage. In his lavish tower
apartment at Madison Square Garden, which he built,
he had installed a red velvet swing from which he
derived sexual pleasure watching his young friends
-- including Evelyn -- use (Nesbit would be sensationalized
as "The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing").
White allegedly took her virtue there after giving
her a drink that knocked her out -- a claim she repeated
often to her eventual husband, though at the end of
her life she claimed "Stanny" was the only
man she ever loved. White arranged to have her educated
at a New Jersey boarding school run by the mother
of Cecil B. DeMille.
Her involvement with White continued
off and on. During this period, Evelyn was courted
by a young actor named John Barrymore after her affair
to White ended. She became pregnant by Barrymore twice,
and he arranged for abortions both times. (Nesbit
refused Barrymore's marriage proposal during her second
pregnancy). Both abortions were explained as appendectomies,
though a second appendectomy strains credulity.
Stanford was eventually supplanted
in her affections by Harry Kendall Thaw (1871-1947),
also of Pittsburgh, son of a coal and railroad baron.
Thaw became increasingly jealous of Nesbit (he carried
a pistol), and was especially sensitive about her
relationship with White. Thaw was also a sexual sadist,
and subjected Evelyn to beatings. After a trip to
Europe, Evelyn accepted Thaw's proposal and they married
on April 4, 1905.
On June 25, 1906 Evelyn and Harry
saw White at a restaurant (the Cafè Martin)
and ran into him again in the audience of the Madison
Square Garden's roof theatre at a performance of Mamzelle
Champagne. During the song, "I Could Love A Million
Girls", Thaw fired three shots at close range
into White's face, killing him.
There were two trials. At the first,
the jury was deadlocked: at the second, Thaw pled
insanity, and Evelyn testified. (Thaw's mother told
Evelyn that if she would testify that Stanford White
abused her and that Harry only tried to protect her,
she'd receive a divorce from Harry Thaw and one million
dollars in compensation. She did just that, and performed
in court wonderfully: he was found not guilty. Evelyn
got the divorce, in 1915, but not the money). Thaw
was incarcerated at the Asylum for the Criminally
Insane at Matteawan, New Jersey, enjoying nearly complete
freedom. In 1913 he walked out of the asylum and was
driven over the border to Sherbrooke, Quebec. He was
extradicted back to the United States, and in 1915
another jury found him sane.
Thaw moved back to Pittsburgh, and
his subsequent life was also filled with scandalous
brawls, affairs, and lawsuits. He died of a heart
attack in February 22, 1947 at his home in Miami Beach,
Florida; he had another home, Villa Marie Antoinette,
in Bolton, New York. His will stipulated that his
former wife was to receive $10,000 of his more than
$1 million estate. If she did not survive him, the
money was to go to her son, Russell William Thaw (see
below).
After the trial, Evelyn Nesbit Thaw's
career was largely unsuccessful (vaudeville performer,
actor, dancer, café manager) and her life marred
by suicide attempts. She married again in 1916, in
Ellicott City, Maryland, taking Virgil James Montani
(1880-1956, professional name Jack Clifford, her dancing
partner) as her second husband; he abandoned her in
1918 and she eventually divorced him in 1933. In 1926,
however, several months after she attempted suicide
over losing her job as a dancer at the Moulin Rouge
Café in Chicago, she reappeared in Atlantic
City, New Jersey, where she gave an interview to the
New York Times, stating that she and Harry K. Thaw
had become reconciled and planned to resume their
former relationship; however, nothing came of the
couple's reported plans.
Evelyn Nesbit eventually died in a
nursing home in Santa Monica, California, at age 82.
In her later years, she taught ceramics and served
as a technical consultant to a 1955 movie about the
White shooting, "The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing,"
in which she was portrayed by Joan Collins. She was
also portrayed by Elizabeth McGovern in the movie
"Ragtime."
Evelyn had one child, Russell William
Thaw (October 25, 1910 - 2002), a noted aviator who
sometimes appeared in Hollywood films; the identity
of his father remains in doubt. Harry Thaw swore he
was not the child's father, although Evelyn always
insisted he was.
Evelyn Nesbit
Books
The Architect of Desire - Suzannah Lessard (White's
great-granddaughter)
Glamorous Sinners - Frederick L. Collins
Evelyn Nesbit and Stanford White: Love and Death in
the Gilded Age - Michael Mooney
The Murder of Stanford White - Gerald Langford
The Traitor - Harry K. Thaw
"The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing" - Charles
Samuels
"The Story of my Life" - Evelyn Nesbit Thaw
- 1914
"Prodigal Days" - Evelyn Nesbit Thaw - 1934
Fictional works based at least in
part on the Thaw/White murder
The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing -1955
Ragtime (novel) by E. L. Doctorow; in turn was adapted
to create the two below works:
Ragtime (movie) - the film
Ragtime (musical) - the musical play
"Dementia Americana" - A long narrative
poem by Keith Maillard - 1994
source from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
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