Cleo de Merode arrived in New York City in 1896 at the height of her fame in Europe where the Germans and Austrians loved her as much as the French and the first locally taken photos of her appeared in September of that year in the New York Journal.
She had hopes of attaining even greater fame and fortune but she failed. My notion is that perhaps during this era when so many were leaving Europe to immigrate to America and leave behind allegiance to Kings the supposed consort of a King seemed to be just too Old School, from the Europe they left behind.
According to Michael D.Garval, the author other book on Cleo that was a primary reference for this month's posts, there's the possibility that Americans were merely curious about what Paris thought of as beautiful when they went to see her. They might also have been disappointed in her skills at dance. In New York she presented herself as the star of a ballet called Phryne on Broadway. Perhaps they were expecting "a spectacle of sexuality" and got classical dance instead and felt disappointed.
Cleo danced at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris when she was twenty-five. (Colorized videos are being posted this month thanks to YouTube contributors.) Watching them it seems to me her presentations were graceful and modest rather than exotic. Was it that her modest performances didn't live up to her racy or sensationalized reputation? Cleo would end her dancing career around the age of thirty-nine, having begun at seven. It was a long run and is still typical of dancers who are often suffering from injuries and arthritis by forty.
Her apparent failure in New York City didn't stop the dancer from continuing on in her tour of America. She appeared in Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, and smaller cities in the Midwest.
But then, what did she do until she died at ninety-one?
Had she made a fortune to sustain her? Or had she been given gifts enough to sell?
Perhaps we will never know the details but the world would hear of Cleo De Merode again long after she had been a star.
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My notes from the book on Cleo by Michael D. Garval included
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