PARIS SINGER PROVIDED FOR ISADORA DUNCAN - PARTIES, DESIGNER CLOTHING, EXOTIC TRAVEL, HOME, STUDIO, and LOVE

According to Peter Kurth, author of ISADORA, a Sensational Life, Paris Singer provided Isadora Duncan the following gifts of love and support and patronage.

After the birth of their son, Patrick,

(265) He gave her carte blanc to throw a great party at Trianon Palace Hotel at Versailles to celebrate.  There were marquees in the park with caviar, champagne, tea, cakes, a tent with Richard Wagner works via Colonne orchestra, and dinner.  Isadora greeted each guest personally, dressed in a "flaming, pleated silk gown made by artist and stage designer Mario Fortuny.  Then switched to dancing in her tunic and gold sandals to the strains of the Vienna Orchestra."  Guest included famous ballet dancers, Nobel laureates, the director of the Boston Opera company, and more.  (But Paris didn't show  up!)

(274) She left Patrick to be raised by others and returned from traveling to America and other places, touring, after 2 years.  She had left him in a cradle.  Now her students barely recognized her in her Parisian finery.

(280 and 283) Land to build a theatre of her own near Champs-Elysees "Le Theatre due Beau" and a house to use as a school. "The gift she had been waiting for."  He hired an architect to create a "democratic" design.

(280) Financially helped her best friend for life, Mary Desti, to open a skin crème store.

(280) In January 1912, Isadora and Singer went to Egypt on a boat, talking along a party of people with them, and then he bought a villa in Alexandria where they both said they would live permanently.  (They didn't.)

(291-292) After flirting with other men in front of him, Paris Singer had enough and took off.  He left for another trip to Egypt with another woman.  But the break up didn't last.  He was gone for several months but returned in the spring asking her to meet him for lunch. There he proposed that they revive the theatre.

Soon after, her two children, including her son by him, Patrick, were drowned in a terrible auto accident. SINGER was the one to break the news to her.

Though he also slept with other women, Isadora's affairs infuriated him.  But she did love him.  At this time, Stanislavsky, who would become known for being an originator of METHOD ACTING, visited her in Paris.

(259)  He was shocked at the change in her and felt she had sold herself.  He went into the private rooms she lived in and saw that they had been decorated "French Demi Mondaine" meaning Courtesan or Prostitute.

(303) Isadora when to London and then Corfu that summer.  Singer showed up.  She asked him to give her another child.  He didn't agree.

(311) Despite all this, SINGER gave her Bellvue, a mansion, OUTRIGHT in 1912.  It had been Hotel Paillard and was an 18th century mansion, he hoped to "rescue her from grief."

(313) 1914  Singer's funds were again available to continue with building a theatre on the grounds of Bellevue.

(338) When her New York tour proved to be a loss of $12,000  Singer settled the debt, asking some to forgive 80%.

(356) When her tour of Buenos Aires also proved to be a failure financially, and she didn't even know where Singer was anymore, he heard that she's was alone at the docks and without funds or friends.  Once again he bailed her out.  She said, "I had a curious feeling of confidence and safety and I was delighted to see him as he was to see me."  They met up in New York where he had taken a apartment and life became wonderful again "Through the magic power of money."

(356) Then at his own expense he booked the Metropolitan Opera House for her, a benefit for the families of French artists whose families had been impoverished by the war.  It was a triumph but afterwards, Isadora made a scene at "Sherrys" where she wore the chiffon and diamonds he had provided her.  She danced seductively with younger men and threw the necklace at him.

(358) He forgave her and continued to provide until the public scandals associated with their romance moved it "unavoidably to its conclusion."  (Isadora was now about 40 years old.)

(367) 1917 She pawned the necklace and ermine and emerald jewelry Paris Singer gave her to rent an Oceanside cottage for her and her students on Long Island, New York, for the summer.  There are guests constantly.

Isadora drank more and became more promiscuous, seeking out affairs with younger men, and then, she did what she said she would never do.  She married, and to a much younger Russian poet who was verbally and physically abusive to her, stole from her, ruined her reputation further with his destruction of furniture and rooms.  They married on May 2, 1922.  And when their relationship was in a significant crisis...

(472) Isadora borrowed money from Paris Singer to get back to Europe.  She had ask him to get her to Paris "In memory of our love for our child" previously and been turned away, maybe because she was married, so how she got the money this time is a question, but maybe she said she was leaving her husband.

(473) She used the last of Singer's money to get her troubled poet husband back to Berlin for transport back to Russia.

(556) And when Isadora Duncan died, her neck broken in an auto accident, Paris Singer was the one who came to take charge of the funeral arrangements.  The day before he had agreed to buy her a luxury automobile.