FLOBELLE "BELLE" FAIRBANKS BURDEN : EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT HER DIVORCE MEMOIR TITLED "STRANGERS"

 

Everyone is talking about this memoir and it's controversial. Some commentators have the idea that it's outrageous that Belle, a woman who came from "old money" - American aristocracy out of New York City - dare reveal her pain. One commentator - a woman - said in so many words, how dare she feel bad about herself because she went through a divorce, Belle isn't wondering if she's going to have to sell the house and move into a small apartment or what sort of job she's going to have to work to support her children... She was also accused of writing for the purpose of revenge, rather than a need to express herself or process grief.

I remember the day I met a woman who was much richer than me. As we spoke she said, "Everyone has pain, including rich people." I agreed. I think how rare it is for a woman with her privileged background to reveal her truth. So very many people from her social-cultural group - men and women - friends and not so - went against her. Well educated, a lawyer who presently works pro bono on juvenile immigration cases (citizenship), a loving and responsible mother and wife, and an heiress with two substantial trust funds that allowed her to purchase two residents for her family - one in New York City - one on Martha's Vineyard island, Belle had a deep desire to remain married and have an intact marriage. She had witnessed her mother and grandmother's relationships with men. Both had infidelity in their relationships and protected the men. She wanted more and better.

Belle is eloquent and there are passages in the book that are beautiful as well as heart-rendering. She reveals the shock she felt and the many emotional and psychological - and eventually financial  and social - adjustments she had to make in order to get through a difficult time. She was deeply in love with her husband when he seemed to change overnight. 

A telephone message revealed that her husband was having an affair. He said it was brief, he said it was nothing, he said Belle - his wife and the mother of their three children - was his priority. But then he was out the door and didn't even want shared custody. On this, I would say that a man wanting freedom from fatherhood seems to be the worst of it.

Belle did not know if the woman she called her husband's "mistress" was or is still in his life. I simply do not think that a woman is a mistress because she had a brief affair with a man who is legally married at the time. She also does not understand what happened that her husband changed seemingly so drastically.

Although the husband of the woman Belle's husband had an extramarital relationship with might have well intended, I don't think he should have done that. Rather, I think

As for wives staying with husbands who have extramarital relationships - and actual mistresses - every individual has to decide that for themselves. I can say that many do. There are all sorts of agreements that people come to or negotiate in their relationships.

And as for her husband's only explanation being that something switched off in him, believe it or not, that does happen.  Perhaps it was actually happening slowly but the reckoning of it may be sudden. 

As my reader's know, I love to excerpt, but in this case, I will do only one.

Excerpt page 105:  (Belle wants to know more about The Other Woman. One of her daughters was given a name that doesn't match the name she was told, though he explains that it is the same woman.)

... "It was nit the alliterative one I knew, the name that had tormented me since he left, the one I googled multiple times a day, staring at her face on the screen, trying to understand why he had chosen her over me. In addition to having a profile on LinkedIn, she had posted three photos on Facebook - a vacation photo on a boat (her dark hair pushed back with sunglasses), a photograph of a tropical drink (served in a coconut and decorated with an orchid) and her profile photo (another vacation shot, this one at a zoon.) She was fifteen years younger than me, but not a younger version of me. We looked like the opposite of each other, in height, coloring, style.  I thought, he wants something different.

...

I had not reached out to the woman or her husband since the night of the voicemail and the ambulance. Her husband didn't text me or call me again either. An older friend, a lawyer, advised me against any contact.  He said, "It will become messy very quickly, and it will only lead to more misery. It could also, possible, make you look bad in front of a judge when you divorce."  His advice felt like a clear, defined path, one that felt dignified... "

Very many podcasts discuss this book. Here is one that focuses on the financial aspects" called

Thee Wall Street Skinny Ex-Morgan Stanley Bankers: "Strangers" by Belle Burden our HOT TAKE on the Real Finances

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WINIFRED MAY BIRKIN = FREDA DUDLEY WARD : SIXTEEN YEARS AS THE ACKNOWLEDGED MISTRESS OF PRINCE EDWARD ALBERT : HER STORYTELLING AND SENSE OF HUMOR LEAD TO A VIBRANT SOCIAL LIFE

My coverage of  "Mrs. Freda Dudley Ward" - I have rarely heard her name without the Mrs. when it comes to the Prince - comes primarily from this book, which also includes other loves, pre-Wallis Simpson, whom Edward VIII married, and then. The story of the King who gave up his throne rather than not marry an American divorcee is forever fascinating. (Shades of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Harry and Meghan?) First there was Rosemary, then Freda, then Thelma, and then Wallis. For the Prince there were probably others before his marriage.

Freda and the then Prince Edward Albert, Prince of Wales, were involved for about sixteen years, beginning in 1918. That is one long relationship but she/they were so discreet the public didn't know. Their relationship was an open secret to society though and, as has been the case with other Royal Mistresses I've profiled here, her husband could not have not known. She was already married to William Dudley Ward and had two daughters when she and the Prince met. William was a much older man and was used to a lifestyle that included having affairs.  Marriage didn't tame him.  And so it would seem that, like other husbands whose wives become Royal Mistresses, he didn't mind and if he did, well -

The Prince, as described here, was obsessively in love with Freda, however, their relationship was one in which both knew that they could never marry. They also both knew that he must marry. Were they both faithful to each other? No!  A surprise for me was learning that actually their relationship became a Triad. It wasn't just the adultery; Freda and her husband and the Prince. It was also that Freda had a relationship with a man named Michael and so it became Freda and Michael and the Prince.

Now, I usually like to excerpt from the books I read cover to cover, focusing on information that I think is most essential to further the story and meet my reader's interest. But I have to tell you that I read this one as an e-book, so when I excerpt the page numbers will be the e-book and not the hardback. It's always my hope that my curation of books on a subject and the choice of a book or books or other media will encourage my readers to also get the book and read it from cover to cover. 

FREDA DUDLEY WARD

Image from Wikimedia - Public Domain 

1894-1983

Name at birth WINIFRED MAY BIRKIN

Name at marriage FREDA DUDLEY WARD 

(Wife of WILLIAM DUDLY WARD from 1913-1931 divorced.)

Name at second marriage WINIFRED MAY MONES, MARQUESA DE CASA MAURY 

(Married the Cuban-born businessman in 1937; they divorced in 1954.)

*******

Freda and the Prince kept an earnest correspondence and circa 1918 he would also telephone her four or five times a night. His father King George didn't want his son, who was not going to enter the Great War in the military out of London, so he was sent to Italy:

*****

Excerpt page e-book 218-222/1074 : 

Once in Italy at the end of March, the prince bombarded Freda with dozens of letters written to "My Angel" and signed with "tons and tons of love from your E.  Many were written late at night, as he sat in his room trying to recreate her essence by putting some drops of her scent, "Royal Briar", on his handkerchief. He would look at her photograph, which was kept in a little leather frame by his bed when it was not in his pocket, and kiss it. He told her that thinking of her made him feel "Fearfully naughty." To conjure up their time together he would smoke a cigarette and play their special tunes "Have a Heart' and 'The Little Cottage' on his gramophone. It was as though he could only go to sleep once he had jotted down his every thought and experience and shared it with her. His letters were often in pencil and full of spelling and grammatical errors. At first the notes were littered with swear words, but it seems that Freda told him off, so he tried to stop using bad language in correspondence with her.  However, he continued to send her puerile jokes and rhymes which he thought might amuse her.

The prince told his mistress that her letters were the only joy of his dull existence, but it seems that Freda was not so single minded. She was working with a Voluntary Aid Detachments, nursing at a hospital in Ascot and then in Windsor.  There was a photo of the Prince of Wales hung u in the ward where she worked scrubbing floors, and she looked at it occasionally. While Edward was away she had a brief fling with Captain Reginald Seymour, great grandson of the Marquess of Hertford. ....

Freda was equally worldly-wise, and she did not show any concern when the prince admitted to flirtations with other women. While in Rome in May 1918 he attended a party where he misbehaved with some attractive VADs. As was to become his habit, he half confessed to Freda about these incidents but played them down, perhaps partly to salve his conscience while making her jealous or 'thulky' (as they called it in their baby talk). He promised to never to lie to her again and told her : 'I just "grovel" at my idol's feet asking forgiveness.'

Shall we begin?

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CLARA KIMBALL YOUNG : PROLIFIC ACTRESS - SECOND TO FOUND HER OWN "NAMESAKE" MOVIE PRODUCTION COMPANY : MISTRESS OF LEWIS J. SELZNICK

 

Clara Kimball Young as painted by Rolf Armstrong.

Cover of May1920 Photoplay Magazine. Also appeared in Motion Picture news same month.

CLARA KIMBALL YOUNG

Clarisa Kimball

Edith Matilda Clara Kimball

1890 - 1960

Axel Madsens book about Gloria Swanson and Joseph P. Kennedy lead me to Clara Kimball Young, who I'd never heard of before. Though I found some information about her in his book, for this month's reportage about this famous Hollywood Silent Screen Era actress, I had to do further research.

Clara Kimball Young began her stage acting career as a three-year-old child who toured with her parents who were also actors and grew up on the road. Clara Kimball came by her name Clara Kimball Young name through a first marriage, in 1910, when she was about 20, to James Young, an actor who'd appeared on Broadway and director who is said to have launched her career. They were both signed by one of those upstart movie making companies, The Vitagraph Company of America, in 1912. So maybe it was that company that launched both of their careers. She appeared in more than 150 films, beginning in 1909,  mostly in the silent film era, before her screen retirement in 1943. She was at the peak of her fame from 1915-1917 according to polls that were taken in those years.

Perhaps we will never know exactly how it began or when, but Clara became involved with Lewis Selznick in business and personally. Film making and distribution early on emerged from a number of upstart companies that competed, but also sometimes bought each other out or made deals. A company called the World Film Corporation was established in 1914 by Selznick and a partner. World Film Corporation distributed independently produced films (the term independently fits the efforts of so many of those upstarts) and had offices in New York City. It became the company that distributed the movies that starred Clara Kimball Young. 

Today she is honored as a pioneering woman in Hollywood not only because she acted in so many mostly silent films and was considered to be the most popular actress of 1914 but because she was the second woman to found her own namesake production company, second only to Mary Pickford. (Pickford, with a group of others who called themselves United Artists.) Her company, the Clara Kimball Film Corporation, was established in 1916, at that peak in her fame. Selznick partnered with her on that project.

Lewis J. Selznick is one of the early shakers-and-movers of the early years of Hollywood, one of several men of Jewish eastern-European heritage who came to America seeking a new way of life and a fortune. Born in 1870 of Russian-Jewish heritage, he was about twenty years older than Clara. At the age of 26, he had married Florence Sachs, with whom he had four children. (One of them, David, followed his father into the movie business and is renown in his own right.) Initially settling in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area, he owned jewelry stores. He retained them when he got involved in the movie business, and apparently he gifted Clara with jewelry quite a bit. For when it was over between them, when she was 'ruined' by him, it was said that she was reduced to selling her jewelry.

Something to be careful with, I think, is the way a woman's will to independence or to have a business in which she can earn more money, might be attributed to a man or men in her life.  In those times this was, unfortunately, often enough true. I feel sure that there were some people who thought she was daring for even considering having her own Production Company.

Apparently, while married to James Young, she was already involved with Lewis Selznick, for a passage from Madsen's book, which I'll soon post, is that she fell in love with a co-star, Harry Garson, and out of jealousy Selznick revenged. (But the book doesn't say that she married Garson! - Which she did in 1920.) Garson was an actor but also a film producer and director. The implication is that she ended her marriage with first husband James Young to be with Garson, and therefore, that she saw no point in continuing with Selznick, if ever there had been a chance he would leave his wife and their family to marry her. 

Another take on this, and perhaps her personal life was this complicated, is that her relationship with Selznick was considered to be volatile and the cause of her first divorce, as, according to the Turner Classic Movies Fan site dedicated to her, "She became involved in a much publicized affair with Selznick, culminating in a 1916 divorce suit accusing her of alienation of affection. James Young finally obtained a final decree on April 8, 1919 on grounds of desertion." (But she marred Garson and stayed married to him until 1927.)

Clara's third marriage in 1928 was to Dr. Arthur Fauman. They stayed married until his death in 1937. Widowed at 57 years old, Clara didn't remarry again. She had never had any children.

Or did she?

I tried to track this down as to where the information came from, but a Rudolph Valentino fan site called Mad About the Boy on Facebook references an authorized biography. It was written by Joan Wester Anderson and was titled Forever Young: The Life, Loves, and Enduring Faith of a Hollywood Legend and was published in 1999 or 2000. Because Valentino and Clara Kimball Young starred together in a film, there's some interest in her on that fan site. According to that post on the Valentino fan site, to quote:

"During her active career, she was not known to have any children. However, in a 1999 authorized biography, it was confirmed that Young gave birth to a biological daughter, Judith "Judy" Young, on November 6, 1935. The child's father was reportedly actor Clark Gable, with whom Young had a brief affair."

(So she had a child she kept secret though married to Dr. Arthur Fauman?)

"To preserve her public image, Young temporarily placed the baby in an orphanage shortly after birth and initially claimed she had adopted her. Judith later took the last name Lewis after Young married Tom Lewis." 

Tom Lewis?  Did this person mean Lewis Selznick? As Clara did not marry a Tom Lewis...

I tracked the book down and it turned out this was misinformation.  Anderson wrote the book about another actress, Loretta Young!

All right!

Let's look into Clara Kimball Young, who was once one of the most popular actresses of the Hollywood Silent Film era and does have a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame!

Missy

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Research includes using Google, AI, Wikis, YouTube, etc.

PEGGY HOPKINS JOYCE : SPENDTHRIFTY GOLD DIGGER : THE GOLD DIGGER AS A COMIC FIGURE : HUNGER MAKES YOU THINK

PEGGY HOPKINS JOYCE 

 SPENDTHRIFTY GOLD DIGGER

First posted on April 5th 2010

Born Emma Marguerite Upton

1893 – 1957

PEGGY HOPKINS JOYCE was the most publicized Mistress-Courtesan of the 1920's and 1930's. She was introduced to Florenz Ziegfeld, who owned the famous showgirl venue New Amsterdam Theatre, by a dressmaker to fashionable ladies, Madame Frances, and her career began. She was a heartbreaker and international celebrity, perhaps the first famous to be famous woman of the 20th century. She was known for her spendthrifty ways as well as a steamy sex life. Was Peggy ruthless and sociopathic? Or did she simply decide at a young age that she would do well, beyond her childhood as the daughter of a Norfolk barber?

She had three multimillionaire husbands. And a great number of generous patrons. She came to own one of the largest blue diamonds known to the world in her time.

PEGGY HOPKINS JOYCE : THE GOLD DIGGER AS A COMIC FIGURE

First posted April 6 2010

Excerpt Page 84 :

"Though the gold digger is a comic, not a tragic figure, she is not totally uncomplicated. While men adored these creatures, they were also made slightly uneasy by them. It was appealing to have a glamorous plaything whose favors could be bought for no more than the price of a fashionable apartment, a generous allowance, and a regular supply of steak dinners and expensive jewelry. But in making such a hard-nosed exchange, these women exhibited not only a deep cynicism but also a degree of power, which is one reason men felt a certain anxiety in their presence. Men were also made uncomfortable by females who so flagrantly flouted the social rules designed to keep people in their places. Unlike the courtesans of Europe, who occupied an established an respected niche, the American gold digger was a renegade; there was nothing subtle, or admirable, about her methods - or her goals."

 

PEGGY HOPKINS JOYCE : HUNGER MAKES YOU THINK

First posted April 9 2010

Excerpt Page 43: 

In her memoirs Peggy described her transition from society wife to Broadway showgirl as the ultimate Cinderella story... As she told it, she left home in March on 1915 with a single suitcase full of clothes and headed by train to New York, where she ensconced herself in the Hopkins family suite in the St Regis Hotel off Fifth Avenue... Wearing torn stockings, her last pair of fresh underwear, and a plaid suit that badly needed cleaning, she headed south towards Times Square pondering the ways of the world.

"Hunger certainly makes you think about things," she wrote. "When I was a kid I used to think that it was Love that was the most important thing in Life, then after that experience in Denver I thought it was money, but now I know it is food." - Peggy Hopkins Joyce

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MISTRESS GLORIA SWANSON & WIFE ROSE KENNEDY : A LOVE TRIANGLE

 Joe Kennedy told his wife that Gloria Swanson  was his most important business partner.

Excerpt page 212 : ... The two women in his life played along.  Echoing Joe's exact sentiments, Gloria told Rose she was grafted she had her husband to giver her the right business advice because her affairs were a mess.  Gloria would always wonder what exactly Rose knew, and she always watched for a remark, a glance, a gesture, that would tell her whether Rose was a saint, a fool, or a better actress than she.  There were moments she knew she was being tolerated, for Joe's sake, and moments when Rose must have been aware of the fatuously surprised face Gloria showed.

Rose willed herself to believe that her husband told her.  She, they, had nothing in common with Gloria, no convictions, no sanctity. The mere fact of lying - if that was what Joe was doing - showed he respected that sanctity, the family they had created together, even if he had deserted their marriage bed. So to Rose, Gloria was a talented star, incipiently crucified by her own good looks, terribly lonely behind the put-on self-deprecation and blasé indifference to her own fame. Gloria was a woman married to an affable but untalented man and therefore desperately in need of Joe's solicitude and financial acumen.

Joe Kennedy promised Gloria that she would never have to be alone with his wife, Rose. He had Gloria come out to the family compound in Hyannisport. But the day came when Gloria was tricked into being taken to talk to the Cardinal O'Connell of Boston. She bluffed that she had only a business association with Joe. He knew better. He told her that Joe was in trouble. His Catholicism was being challenged by having the affair with her. She was offended. She thought the Cardinal should be talking to Joe. But the message was clear. She was being told to quit the affair with Joe, to leave him be. It's possible that Rose's father was the person who had contacted the Archdiocese of Boston. The gossip columnist Hedda Hopper reported that the former Boston mayor (Rose's father) had ordered Joe Kennedy to get out of Hollywood.

When Joe dumped Gloria, he simply left Hollywood without making plans to see her.  Some years went by and, perhaps both had become philosophical, because the author reports of a friendly-enough phone call and favor.

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GLORA SWANSON IN JAZZ AGE PARIS : YOUNG and RICH - READY TO REMARRY - PREGNANCY and THE NIGHTMARE ABORTION

Gloria Swanson in Jazz Age Paris : She wrapped a movie called Madame Sans Gene, which was being touted as another success and galas for the opening were being planned in New York City. Starting in January 1925 she would be making $7,000 a week. She had met the man who would become her next husband, French nobleman Henry de La Falaise, reputed to be a millionaire himself. He wasn't close. Her net worth was higher. He was alarmed by her spending; A costume party in which guests danced to three bands, for instance, or that she had bought gifts for every member of the cast and crew of the film. She was mixing with the most famous and successful creative people in Paris.

Excerpt page 109: News of Gloria Swanson's sumptuous wrap party reached American gossip columns, together with rumors that the screen idol had gone totally French - indeed, that as soon as her divorce became final in January, she would marry a French Millionaire and quit the movies. ...... She discovered she was pregnant.

Gloria  had signed the morals clause in her contract. Her divorce from Herbert Somborn was not final and she dreaded being known to have had an affair by giving birth "very prematurely." She couldn't marry Henri de La Falaise asap and become a bigamist. She decided having an abortion was the only thing she could do. And she decided to do so without telling him.  It would not be her first abortion. For she had been aborted during her first marriage to Wallace Beery. She called a journalist, the only person she thought she could trust to explain her dilemma and find a doctor for her.

Excerpt page 109 : ... When she said she saw no other solution but an abortion, he agreed. "You and Henri are both young," he said. "You have all the time in the world to have another child." The words stung. When she was seventeen a nurse had told her the same thing. She had judged Wallace Beery harshly then, had never really forgiven him, and now she was ready to do the same thing.

Andre (Davin) arranged the abortion while Henri arranged a civil wedding.  As it turned out, she was given permission to legally marry Henry earlier than she had thought and as it turned out the abortion had been arranged for the day after she had the permission to marry!

She married Henry and then Andre went with her to the abortion doctor. She was given ether (put her under before the surgery) and afterwards she was "surprised she could walk." She went back to their hotel suite at the Plaza Athenee and went to bed, awakening with a serious fever. 

Except page 110: By nightfall she was drenched in fever. Henri called a doctor, who had her hospitalized. Each time she woke up. Henri was there. She told him the truth; he told her she had tetanus. He didn't say that such infections were often fatal and characterized by violent spasms and rigidity of many or all the voluntary muscles. Nurses tried to make her stand up; her feet folded under her. Finally, she had her first meal sitting in a wheelchair. Everybody applauded when she began moving her toes.

Of course, the truth of her illness was kept a secret. 

Excerpt page 111: The return to America was a triumph. Gloria's marriage to a nobleman and her long battle with death had provided Famous Players-Lasky/Paramount with millions of dollars' worth of free publicity, and Zukor and Lasky pulled out all the stops. Adoring crowds nearly smothered the far from recovered movie star, but it was out of the question for Gloria to lay low.

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JOSEPH P. KENNEDY PRESENTS by CARI BEAUCHAMP ! MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY PRESENTS by CARI BEAUCHAMP ! 

MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

First posted May 14, 2009

Long wait for this new book from the public library but worth it! Joe Kennedy made a fortune in the movies about the time (1920's - early 1930's) that talkies and sound film came into being, leaving most silent stars in the dust! Read all about his outside of marriage relationship with actress Gloria Swanson... (Did his bail out of her misfortunes end in a rip off and personal betrayal?)

pages 276-277

...Rose (Kennedy - Joe's wife, mother of eventual President John F. Kennedy) never publicly wavered from her deep-seated belief that Joe's relationship with Gloria was purely professional... (Goodwin) was incredulous about Rose's "strange attitude" and concluded that "it is impossible to believe that Rose did not know," yet she had "willed" that knowledge out of her consciousness. it was "better perhaps to follow the pattern set by her mother long ago: to suffer in silence rather than take the enormous risk of shattering the entire family and bringing public disgrace upon herself and her husband."....

... Gloria too was shocked at Rose's failure to see anything untoward in her relationship with Joe. "If she suspected me of having relations not quite proper with her husband, or resented me for it, she never once gave any indication of it." Was Rose "a fool, I asked myself as I listened with disbelief, or a saint? Or just a better actress than I was..."

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THE DYNAMIC SCREEN STAR GLORIA SWANSON : HER TWO - THREE YEARS WITH JOSEPH P. KENNEDY MAY HAVE RUINED HER CAREER BUT IN LIFE SHE PERSEVERED

GLORIA MAE JOSEPHINE SWANSON

1899 - 1983

Back in 2009 when I began this blog, the very first posts I made here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO included Gloria Swanson, a silent screen star who made it to the talkies, was married repeatedly, and might be most known today for the 1950 film "Sunset Boulevard" in which she portrayed an actress clinging to a famous past long gone. An unconventional woman for her times, the petite and classically beautiful Swanson was a talented actor who earned fabulous sums of money but lost control of her finances when producing her own movies. In 1927, Joseph P. Kennedy, the future father of President John F. Kennedy, and by then a successful banker and broker in his late 30's, married with children, came into her life. She was married too, to her third husband.

Some would say he targeted her.  But, my dear readers, after reading this book I've decided to take the perhaps unpopular stance that Kennedy's confidence, built through other business and investment successes - as a Harvard educated banker who was quite savvy with money and investing in other areas, including the stock market - might have given him the idea that he could succeed in the movies too. But he was in over his head, in business and in love -  and so was Gloria when it came to the business side. There was a lot of ruthless competition and the Stock Market Crash of 1929 that plunged the country into the Great Depression, though Kennedy personally wasn't plunged, is something to consider too.

The silent film era was almost over and Swanson was one of the actresses who moved into the talkies with some success. But perhaps, though Swanson was at the top, earning record-breaking sums for her acting, she wouldn't have sustained her career anyway, for she was getting older.  Acting for women, like modeling, tends to span years, not decades, to this day. Swanson wanted to produce her own movies. Kennedy wanted to expand his financial empire by investing in the movie business, by owning his own production company, and making movies with a star that would attract the audiences. So, he was quite possibly learning as he went himself and the day came when he knew it was all too much for him and he got out. However, the overall opinion circa 2026 is that the man was ruthless and heartless, allowed her to sink her fortune into a movie that didn't go so well, and then left her in a lurch and broke. 

That's why the book "Gloria and Joe" by Axel Madsen jumped off the library shelf; and my quick review of it at this moment is that it goes into detail about both Gloria and Joe's career success and financial dealings before they met, while I will focus on what happened when they did. Though Gloria Swanson was at the top when they met in November of 1927, she had been taken advantage of by men before, in various ways. Joe Kennedy had done his business research, had interesting questions that proved he'd done his 'due diligence", but also manipulated her to agree to let him get her out of debt and into his bed.

Gloria Swanson was married several times, the first time at age seventeen to Hollywood star Wallace Beery, who was thirty. According to Gloria, he raped her on their wedding night and he was very abusive. She had an abortion he tricked her into during that brief marriage and wanted out quickly. They were married in 1916 and divorced in 1918; she had to wait a year before the divorce could be granted at that time.

Her second husband was Herbert K. Somborn, a movie business executive who was the president of Equity Pictures Corporation at the time. According to author Madsen, he hid his financial problems from Gloria until they were married and unfairly threatened to ruin her by lying that she'd had a long list of men - adulterous affairs, in order to get money from her, when she wanted out. They were married in 1919 and divorced in 1922-23.  Movie moguls at the time were involved in getting Somborn a settlement that would preserve her reputation and thus her career, though there were some shenanigans going on there too. Gloria felt this husband was blackmailing her. A morality cause was added to her studio contract. Herbert was the father of her daughter, Gloria Swanson Somborn, who was born in October of 1920 and called Sister. It was a difficult birth and so Gloria also adopted a son from an orphanage, Joseph, called Brother. Somborn used the money he got in his divorce settlement from Gloria to invest in the restaurant business, the popular Brown Derby. Of interest to me, though perhaps it is just a coincidence, Gloria named the son, said to be of Irish heritage, Joseph Patrick Swanson...

Her third husband was Henri de la Falaise, a French aristocrat with a noble heritage who also benefited by his marriage to Gloria. She met him in Jazz age Paris, and he followed her to Hollywood where he was offered the opportunity to become a movie director. It Joseph P. Kennedy who offered him that opportunity and Henri had to go back to France to take the job; this was likely Kennedy's manipulation to get him out of the way. Some of her friends thought Henri was a gigolo, but he was one who could hold his own in conversations and an intellectual who seemed to have loved Gloria, if his heartfelt, sad goodbye is to be believed. They were married in 1925 and divorced in 1931, this being Gloria Swanson's longest marriage.

Her fourth husband was Michael Farmer, a rich sportsman, who she married in 1931 and divorced in 1934. During this marriage Gloria gave birth to Michelle Bridget Farmer in 1932.

Her fifth husband was William Davey, an investment banker, who she married in 1945 and divorced in 1946.

Her sixth husband was William Dufty, a  successful ghost writer and anti-sugar activist, who she married in 1976 and stayed married to until her death in 1983. They shared a macrobiotic lifestyle. Gloria believed healthy food was the key to, not only health, but also her enduring good looks. She was considered to be a "fitness pioneer."

Now dear readers, I want to let you know that while reading this book, I learned a little bit about a mistress I had never heard of and a little bit more about one I elected Mistress of the Month years ago. So stick with me, because next month I'm going to include them in this narrative!

Missy

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For this month's posts, Axel Madson's book is the primary reference.  Having once read Swanson's memoir and at least two books about Joseph P. Kennedy, I also did some Internet research.

You may be interested in :

January 2016

CLARA BOW

Actress, First "IT Girl" and Roaring Twenties Mistress of Old Hollywood Film Producer B.P. Schulberg 

THE PRINCE DIDN'T AVOID THE WOMEN WHO'D BEEN HIS MISTRESSES IN THE PAST : LILLIE LANGTRY, DAISY WARWICK, and AGNES KEYSER BUT ALICE KEPPEL WAS HIS FAVORITE

As Princess and Queen, Alexandra busied herself with motherhood and other duties that came with her rank.  As Prince and King, Edward Albert kept up with some of the women who had been his mistresses in the past.  Or perhaps these relationships lingered?

He was not always successful in persuading hostesses to invite Alice Keppel as they favored or were better friends with these other mistresses.  Additionally, he had interest in children he had likely sired with other women. Lillie Langtry was one of these women, who endeavored to have a daughter she had with him presented to society so that she might make a good marriage.

Daisy Warwick was another mistress who he renewed his passion for. Very likely at least one of her children was his. And a the time, he was also involved with Agnes Keyser, our Mistress of the Month last, though this affair was thought by some to be a friendship.

His mother, Queen Victoria, had warned him that when he became King he would have to end his friendships but when he did become King at her death he did not break with Alice Keppel or anyone else.  What happened is that Alice was recognized as his favorite.

Excerpt page 210: "There were several reasons for her preeminent. The chief one was that the King was devoted to her. Physically, mentally, and socially, Alice Keppel meet his every requirement.  he not only adored her, he admired her. It was noticed that whenever they were in company together, he never took his eyes off her, and was on edge if he noticed her talking to another man.  This adoration was to have an echo in the love of his grandson, the future Edward VIII, for Wallis Simpson. He, too would keep a constant watch on his beloved and, if she left the room, would look anxious and fretful until he returned.

So attractive, so chic, Alice Keppel was a decorative addition to the King's circle. In many ways she epitomized the Edwardian society woman - worldly, witty, lighthearted. Unlike her royal lover, she was very articulate...

Excerpt page 211; Her outspokenness even extended to the King. Alice was one of the few people in the world to stand up to him... She knew exactly how far she could go with him.  Alice always handled the notoriously impatient monarch with great expertise... Her tact, her skill in keeping the King amused and diverted was greatly appreciated by his entourage....

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Missy here!  Reading about how well Alice handled the King made me think of another woman who I elected to be Mistress of the Month who was known for how she handled her man. Barbara Sinatra!  See those posts in my archive!

October 2018
BARBARA BLAKELEY MARX-SINATRA : Twice a Mistress Thrice a Wife : Singer Frank Sinatra.

ALICE KEPPEL AND HER FAMILY MOVED HOUSE SO AS TO BETTER ENTERTAIN AS A MISTRESS : SHE WAS GOOD TO THE SERVANTS

The Keppel family moved - George, Alice, and first child daughter Violet - from their home in Wilton Crescent to a more elegant home in Portman Square where Alice conducted her affair with the Prince of Wales.  

The house was six stories and the servants toiled all day but were expected to do their work without being seen.

Except page 191 -192 : ..."It had few of the amenities which were already being installed in comparable houses, such as central heating or the telephone, and food had to be kept cool in an outhouse in the area yard.  Yet it did boast some modern conveniences: it was lit by electricity instead of gas, and husband and wife had a bathroom each - an almost unheard of luxury for a London house. For most homes had no bathroom at all. Where, in some of the grandest country houses, there were one o two bathrooms, they were invariably huge, icy caverns situated at the end of unheateded corridors.

Additionally, the Keppels kept a modest two servants per, when it was typical of rich families to have up to eight servants per person. The servants were not paid well  A typical family had a housekeeper, cook, lady's maid, nurse, housemaids, kitchen maids, scullery maids, laundry maids, maids-of-all-work, as well as a butler, under butler, valets, footmen, pantry boys, lamp boys, odd-jo-men, and kitchen porters - and that was just for the inside of the house.  Much depended on how well they were treated by their employers.

Excerpt page 194: "By all accounts, Alice Keppel was an exceptionally considerate employer.... She was the kind of fair-minded and warmhearted mistress that servants appreciated.... As well as having a staff worthy of her Royal lover, Alice Keppel needed rooms worthy of him..."

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EDWARD ALBERT PRINCE OF WALES INTERCEEDS IN THE DAISY GREVILLE - MINA AND CHARLES BERESFORD SCANDAL

Edward Albert, Prince of Wales, paid a visit to the lawyer that Mina Beresford had hired to negotiate for her and her marriage.

The lawyer was impressed that the Prince himself had paid him a home visit - even thought he'd arrived in the wee hours of the night. He, unprofessionally, showed the Prince the letter Daisy Warwick had written to Charlie Beresford. The Prince ordered him to destroy the letter but this lawyer wasn't going to act that unprofessionally...

Instead he suggested he ask his client if he could destroy it. Was he joking? Mina stood her ground unwilling to bend to the Prince's will. That made him furious.  So, what he decided to do was to return to Mina and ask her if she would be willing to destroy the letter on one condition.  Daisy would be banned from London for the entire social season.

Missy here!  I have to say that this might have been an excellent and fair solution. Though society would undoubtedly know why, and Daisy might suffer socially, it was only one season.

 

The solution infuriated Daisy. The Prince, now fallen in love with Daisy, tried one more time. This time he suggested that if Mina would not destroy the letter and forget the whole thing, that by his orders she, not Daisy, would suffer the ostracism and give up her own position in society. She refused to change her mind.  Charlie had also tried to persuade his wife to give up and destroy Daisy's letter. 

Excerpt page 152: ... "As one of the offending parties, Charlie had kept a low profile, hoping that the problem would just resolve itself. But now, upon hearing rumors that Bertie had stollen Daisy away from him, Charlie cast aside all attempts at diplomacy.  Due to set said on the HMS Undaunted, Charlie demanded to see Bertie immediately, and have the matter out once and for all. The two men argues. In the end the Beresfords lost because they did not comply with Edward Albert. He demanded of their set that they not be invited to any event that they invited him to. They were dropped from society. Meanwhile Mina's lawyer was knighted.

By now Daisy Greville Countess of Warwick and Edward Albert Prince of Wales had become lovers. Charlie Beresford knew it too. Daisy had lost at love, had to give up this great love affair of hers, and now she was one of the mistresses of the future King. She became the star of the house parties and her husband had no choice but to accept or retreat.  Over time he would retreat.

Excerpts Pages 154-155:

 ... "This was a world that Daisy adored, and she played the role of mistress to perfection, accompanying Bertie to balls, receptions, country house parties, and horse racing at Ascot, Goodwood, and Epsom.  The correspondent of The World magazine, craning her neck to see Daisy at the opera with Bertie, described, a 'goddess whose fame had penetrated even to the dim recesses of the placid country, her profile was turned away from an inquisitive world, but I made out a rounded figure, diaphanously draped, and a brilliant, haughty, beautiful countenance." the diaphanous fabric became Daisy's signature look, a fittingly classical style to show off her superb figure to its uttermost....."

... "Daisy and Bertie's affair was conducted against the backdrop of London society, and the stately homes of England, particularly Daisy's own Easton Lodge."

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DAISY GREVILLE - COUNTESS OF WARWICK : SOCIALIST PHILANTHROPIST MISTRESS OF PRINCE EDWARD ALBERT : SHE FOUGHT FOR WOMEN and THE POOR

1861-1938

A 1905 oil painting by John Singer Sargent of

 FRANCES EVELYN MAYNARD 

who became DAISY GREVILLE - COUNTESS OF WARWICK 

with her son who was fathered by Joseph Laycock, Maynard Greville. 

Daisy had five children, only one who was fathered by her husband.

Image from Wikimedia public domain

I chose this book by author Catherine Arnold to learn about  DAISY GREVILLE - COUNTESS OF WARWICK. It serves as the primary reference for this month's posts. Let's talk about how it is that Daisy got involved with Edward.

The closest friends of Prince Edward Albert, the son of Queen Victoria, were called the Marlborough Set. These were rich people - upper class members of society in Britain - who often married for reasons beyond love, such as the preservation of estates and keeping the bloodlines within a small group of high-born people for the purposes of breeding. Often, once a wife had provided an heir or heirs, she was free to pursue affairs, so long as she was discreet. Everyone who played understood these rules. Generally, once married, any children a woman gave birth to were considered her husband's and he was to financially support those children. Therefore, today's DNA tests might prove that there were many a child not related to both its legal parents.

Queen Victoria was at her wits end with Edward Albert, her eldest son due to become King, and even blamed the stress he caused with his pleasure-seeking lifestyle for the early death of her beloved husband, Albert. 

Prince Edward was 59 before he became King and, though he attended to duty while in wait for the throne, what he really loved was seeking pleasure - wine, women, song, and the horses - the races and betting. Fun for Edward as a youth included mock duels with soda siphons, party games and high-jinks. It has been said, in general, that he may have been taken to Paris and introduced to sexuality at fourteen in a brothel. His parents were aware of his doings - at least enough to be scandalized. His mother thought that getting him married young would resolve the problem of Edward's promiscuity.

Known for arranging good marriages for her many children, Queen Victoria was instrumental in attracting Princess Alexandra of Denmark, known as "Alix," to marry Edward. Alix was 16 when the agreement was reached and they married in 1863 at Saint George's Chapel in Windsor. He was 21 and she was about eighteen. Though the couple had a "honeymoon period," Alix experienced one pregnancy after another. From the time she married until she was 26, when she stopped, the woman had six children. The Princess who would eventually became Queen had certainly done her duty. She was thought of as a 'long suffering" wife who knew her husband could never be faithful to her. 

If the Queen and the Royals knew or not, history has brought us the names of some of the women that the Prince who would become King Edward VII had as lovers and mistresses. Before he married, he had low-born English mistress and early in his marital years he had low-born French mistress. Among the more famous, he saw Cora Pearl, Catherine "Skittles" Walters, Giula "La Barucci" Beneni, Lady Susan Vane Tempest, Jennie Jerome Churchill,  Sarah Bernhardt, and many other married society ladies. Having a mistress or having an affair did not mean that the Prince was momentarily loyal or faithful. He was not a serial monogamist. He could be married, have mistresses, have affairs, and visit prostitutes too. As I see it, he was a Royal sex addict.

Edward was sometimes in danger of being named in rare but extremely scandalous divorce threats and proceedings and was known to try to intervene between wives, husbands, and lawyers. When it comes to Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick, this would be the case.

Daisy's story will continue here in the next posts but, for now, let me say that the woman who started out life as Frances Evelyn Maynard in 1861 had many brothers to have adventures with. Her love of the outdoors where she could run wild and own a variety of animals including horses considered, she was thought to be a tomboy. Her mother had married Charles Maynard, the son of Henry Maynard, 3rd Viscount, who was quite athletic and spirited but also twenty years older. 

Still, when I began to read Catharine Arnold's account of how Daisy had sought out a extra-marital romance and fallen in love with a man other than her husband, I thought that her life might have all gone a different way. It seems that Prince Edward took full advantage of the fact that he had interceded with her on an earlier romantic dilemma to establish a relationship with her, expecting her gratitude...

Daisy was born during the winter in which London society was mourning the recently deceased Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband, and was significantly younger than Price Edward Albert. Her family was considered respectable members of the Peerage and had some famous ancestors such as Nell Gywn, a mistress of King Charles II and the Duke of Albans.

Her father had died three years after she was born, leaving their mother single with two daughters to raise. It was a shock to her mother to learn that her husband and willed his entire estate to daughter Daisy!  Daisy was a beautiful rich girl who was sought as a wife and had the expectation to marry up. Queen Victoria summoned her and wished to matchmake her with her youngest son, Leopold, but she got out of it with the help of Leopold. She married Francis Greville, Lord Brooke (later the 5th Earl of Warwick) in 1881 at Westminster Abbey. The Queen and Royals attended the wedding. But it seems Daisy was soon enough disappointed that her husband, and the life he provided her, while substantial, was too predictable and dull. 

Once married, the Countess of Warwick, Daisy Greville, who bore three children with her husband - the paternity is controversial - became a playing member of the Marlborough set. She also threw dazzling parties - for which she spent lavishly on gowns, jewelry, and all the rest.. Yet, she famously changed her point of view about life and began to help the poor, becoming a controversial socialist and personally going broke!

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You may be interested in reading posts about some of the women mentioned in this opening post.  I'll be including a bit about Lillie Langtry in this month's posts.

February 2025

LILLIE LANGTRY : THREE YEARS AS THE MISTRESS OF SEX ADDICT EDWARD ALBERT, PRINCE OF WALES IN THE 1870'S : SHE FOUND HER WAY FORWARD IN MODELING AND ACTING

July  2012     

CORA PEARL

BROUGHT OUT NAKED ON A SILVER DISH, LINED WITH VIOLETS

August 2024

CATHERINE WALTERS : IRISH-ENGLISH HORSEWOMAN WHO EVEN IMPRESSED THE FRENCH and RETIRED WELL

November 2025

SARAH BERNHARDT : DAUGHTER OF COURTESAN YOULE VAN HARD : TRANSFORMED HERSELF INTO A WORLD FAMOUS ACTRESS AND A NATIONAL ICON OF FRANCE KNOWN FOR HER OWN "SCANDALOUS" LIFE