THE MOST FASCINATING WOMAN OF HER AGE

  

Amy Isabel Crocker was the most interesting woman no one has ever heard of. Born in Sacramento, California in 1864 to wealthy philanthropist parents, Amy was a millionaire at age 10 due to her father's death. Her mother sent Amy to finishing school in Dresden to tame her early teen wild ways. Amy was presented at court - and ended up engaged to Prince Alexander of Saxe Weimer. The engagement ended, and Amy returned home.

In 1883 she married a man named Porter Ashe. As she and Ashe traveled to Los Angeles for their honeymoon, the train broke loose of the tracks. Ashe helped pull passengers to safety. The couple parted after the birth of their daughter Alma. Amy traveled a great deal post divorce. Ashe decided to kidnap their daughter, because he believed Amy's traveling made her a negligent mother. After a custody battle Ashe won custody of Alma, despite his being a known gambler. Soon after Amy's mother adopted Alma and renamed her Gladys.

During her travels Amy journeyed to hawaii. She befriended King Kalākaua. She danced hula and was given the nickname Pallai Kalani - "Bliss of Heaven." She later returned to Hawaii and helped an imprisoned Queen Liliʻuokalani by donating food and money to poor, starving Hawaiians under white rule. Her generosity was appreciated by Hawaiians not used to having white people be sympathetic to their cause.

She married a second husband, Henry Gillig, in 1889. She toured "The Orient" for 6 years. Crocker visited Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, in India. In her memoir she claimed to have escaped headhunters in Borneo, a poisoning attempt in Hong Kong, and a week in a harem in Bhulana. Amy often appeared at society functions with jewel bangles featuring snakes. She sported tattoos and dressed in exotic native costumes of the lands she'd visited. She had an affair with Edgar Saltus, a leading member of the Decadent Movement.

The third phase of her life began with her third husband, Jackson Gouraud. The couple adopted three children Amy changed the spelling of her name to Aimée. She Gouraud lived in New York City and led an artistic and theater rich life ; as "first nighters" they attended premieres of all the latest operas and plays. They counted the Barrymores and Enrico Caruso amongst their friends. Many of their writer friends created characters based around Aimée for their shows. They hosted lavish parties ; Aimée arrived at one such party on the back of an elephant. Her behavior shocked other socialites, but the newspapers dubbed her "The Queen of Bohemia" and "The Most Fascinating Woman of Her Age."

After Gouraud died in 1910 A relocated to Paris. She published her memoir - and I'd Do It Again in 1936, as well as collections of short stories about her travels. She married a fourth, then a fifth husband - the last 26 years old to her 61. Aimée Crocker died in 1941 at age 78. Aimée Crocker left a legacy of adventure on her own terms, and taught women how to be fascinating. Even if she had to escape headhunters, her Bohemian life was one well-lived.

SOURCES :

Aimée Crocker. Wikipedia.

Aimée Crocker. womeninexploration.org

VIDEOS :

Today in California : Aimee Crocker

GREER MACALLISTER ~ THE THIRTEENTH HUSBAND ~ REVIEW

(Book for review courtesy of NetGalley ~ Source Books ~ August 6)

Aimee Crocker was a woman far ahead of her time. Greer Macallister's novel The Thirteenth Husband tells Aimee's story directly from Aimee herself. Made a millionaire very young by her father's death, Aimee lived life on her terms - from having runaway romances with a matador and a German Prince as a teen, to traveling the world - and marrying many men along the way. Macallister spotlights a woman history has forgotten but should remember. The Thirteenth Husband - and its subject - captivates and titlates and readers will be charmed and shocked by Crocker, a modern woman by her, and today's standards.

HOW TO SIN ON A TIGER SKIN

Would you like to sin

With Eleanor Glyn 

On a tiger skin? 

Or would you prefer 

To err 

With her 

On some other fur?

That doggerel was written about Elinor Glyn, who wrote trashy books long before there was more than one shade of gray. Elinor Glyn created the concept of "IT," an undefinable magnetism that draws people to an "IT" person. Elinor Glyn wrote novels, short stories, and screenplays. She directed adaptations of her own films. Elinor Glynn was a woman far ahead of her time.

Elinor Glynn was British but raised in Canada. Her father died when Elinor and her sister Lucille were young. Their mother remarried and the family returned to England. Her grandmother raised Elinor and Lucille to be of the upper class. Lucille married and took on the title of Lady. Elinor married wealthy barrister and landowner Clayton Glyn. They had two daughters, Margot and Juliet. Elinor's marriage was troubled and Elinor had affairs, including an affair with politician George (husband of penny princess and past TYDKYNTK subject Mary Leiter.)

Lucille had always been interested in fashion. She eventually married Cosmo Duff-Gordon and started a fashion empire. The two survived the Titanic. Elinor had always loved books and writing. She wrote Visits of Elizabeth in 1900. She toured America in 1907 to promote the book, sailing on the Lusitania. She took a three week train trip across America, journeying as far as California. After visiting Hollywood Elinor decided to dramatize her novel. Upon returning to the UK she wrote a sequel - Elizabeth Visits America.

Glyn continued to pioneer romantic erotic fiction, a new literary concept for the era. In her novel The Man and the Moment she created "IT," an undefinable concept of mystique and interest, a magnetism that draws people to a particular person, but is not specifically sex appeal. When World War I broke out she became a war correspondent in France. She was one of only two women present at the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. She returned to Hollywood for the filming of her novel The Great Moment. She signed with Hurst International Magazine Company, writing about health, beauty, fashion and relationships and sex for Cosmopolitan magazine.

Glyn was offered a screenwriting contract with Famous Players Laskey for 10,000 pounds. She began calling herself Madam Glyn. (She had no claim to an aristocratic title like her sister Lady Lucy.) Glyn cultivated a persona of elegant sexuality, decorating her suite at the Hollywood Hotel with silk, satin, and animal skins. When her contract expired in 1922 she signed with MGM to write screen plays and direct films. She directed the film version of "IT" to box office success ; the film starred Clara Bow, who came to personify the "IT" girl.

With an aling mother and owing a great deal of taxes in the states, Elinor Glyn returned to England and opened her own film company in 1929. Her British films did not fare as well as her American ones. England had stricter censorship codes than America at the time. She closed her studio soon after. Elinor Glyn had always sold herself as a product as much as her novels and films, but England had no concept of celebrity as did America. 

She continued to write for film magazines, but her novels did not seem as titillating as they had before World War I, given the freedoms women took on in the 1920s. Elinor Glyn died in 1943 at the age of 79. Since then she's been mostly forgotten (but was name checked by Tom Branson in an episode of Downton Abbey.) Elinor Glyn created the idea of the media star, using whatever talent and appeal you have to impress yourself on the public through all available media platforms. Anytime an influencer is mentioned in the mainstream press, they should thank Elinor Glyn; whatever "IT" is that a celebrity has they have "IT"  thanks to Elinor Glyn.

SOURCES :

Elinor Glyn. Wikipedia.

Cummings, Denise K. / Kuhn, Annette. Her British Career / Her American Career. Women Film Pioneers Project.

FURTHER MEDIA : 

BOOKS : 

The It Girls ~ Karen Harper

VIDEO :

Elinor Glyn Explains "IT"

MARIA ~ MICHELLE MORAN ~ REVIEW

(Book for review courtesy of NetGalley)

Ballantine ~ July 30

How do you solve a problem like Maria? Well, if you're Oscar Hammerstein, you assign a secretary to keep her occupied so she can't complain about how the musical version of The Sound of Music differs from her actual life.  Michelle Moran's novel Maria examines the life of the real Maria Von Trapp - from her difficult upbringing, to her marrying a real life sea captain, their blended family becoming a musical sensation, and finally their life becoming a musical that sugar-coated the harsh realities of escaping from the nazis.  The novel centers around the real life Maria Von Trapp being made aware that her family's story was being turned into a musical by Rogers and Hammerstein. Maria wants the musical to reflect more of her family's real life details, which gets in the way of Rogers and Hammerstein's creative process. 

They assign a secretary named Fran an aspiring writer, to take down Maria's suggestions (and keep Maria otherwise occupied.) As Maria tells her Trapp tale, Fran is enraptured by Maria's story of an abusive upbringing by an uncle, her commitment to teaching and to becoming a nun, and her unlikely marriage to a dashing widowed sea captain and becoming the stepmother to his seven children (SHE REALLY DID MAKE THE KIDS CURTAIN PLAYCLOTHES!!!!!) Moran reveals the girl underneath the wimple and the wife, mother, performer, and entrepreneur she became (upon retirement from music the Trapp Family opened an inn and music camp in Vermont.) Readers won't want to say "so long, farewell, auf wiedersein, goodbye" to this moving novel.

THE MOONFLOWERS ~ ABIGAIL ROSE-MARIE ~ REVIEW

 

(Book for review courtesy of NetGalley)

Lake Union Publishing ~ August 27

Abigail Rose Marie's The Moonflowers is an atmospheric mystery, with an eerie setting full of disquieted characters. These types of mysteries ask What is this place? How did I get here? Who can I trust? There's always a river, trees, a weird old house, a weary woman who knows too much, and The Moonflowers offers all that and more. Antigone - Tig - Costello grew up with an academic artist father. She is an artist as well. His father receives a letter asking him to come to Darren Kentucky, birthplace of the father he never knew. He sends Tig instead. Tig knows little about her family roots, and when she asks about her grandfather, she is told to see Eloise Price, a patient in the town's Mental Asylum. Eloise knows Benjamin Costello best because she's the woman who killed him.

The Moonflowers goes at a slow place and draws readers in, just as Eloise draws Tig in with her stories. The novel deals with women's issues - health concerns that still elicit blushes and anger today. Tig herself is dealing with trauma and finds kindred spirits in the ghosts of her grandfather's past. Tig begins to heal after learning the truth behind the murder of this town's "greatest citizen." The Moonflowers is a quiet revelation that the things that need to change often don't, yet we need to keep fighting the fight.

THE WEDDING PEOPLE ~ ALISON ESPACH ~ REVIEW

(Book for review courtesy of NetGalley)

Henry Holt & Company ~ July 30

What can possibly happen when a suicidal woman and a bride who has been planning her perfect wedding converge? Alison Espach's latest novel The Wedding People answers that very question. Phoebe Stone is an adjunct literature professor whose life isn't exactly fantastic. She can't get a tenure track teaching position, she can't finish the book she's been writing for 10 years, and she can't conceive. After the end of her marriage she makes the plan to rent a room at a luxury resort, swallow pills, and drift into oblivion. Lila, the bride of the wedding taking place at the resort, knows the suicide will ruin the vibe of her wedding weekend, so she implores Phoebe to postpone her plan until the wedding is over.

Alison Espach's humor and love for the more flawed members of humanity are on full display in The Wedding People. Lila may be seen as callous, but she has been bullied a bit in regard to marrying an older man. She needs the wedding to happen so people will see the love between her and her fiance is real. Phoebe needs human connection after the isolation of Covid and the end of her marriage. Lila and Phoebe bond, but the pairing is more like two burrs hooked together rather than say peanut butter and jelly. Both Lila and Phoebe are prickly and determined to get their way. Phoebe begins to bond with the members of the wedding group. As each interaction occurs Phoebe begins to heal. Espach's crisp phrasing and dark humor does not underplay the seriousness of suicidal ideation, but rather backlights the absurdity of life. Through Phoebe readers see that life is worth living, even through the worst of things that can happen.