PAUL MELLON and the NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

NPR _ THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART and THE MELLONS 

Excerpt: Because Mr. Paul Mellon brought Titians and Leonardos and Manets and Cezannes and Boticellis and on and on into a handsome, pink marble building on the National Mall fo millions of Americans to enjoy - and why? - because Mr. Paul Mellon, shy, good-looking, gracious, and very, very rich, was a passionate believer in pleasure.

DORCAS HARDING's AFFAIR WITH PAUL MELLON WAS KNOWN TO SOCIETY

Page 112 : ... "All the fancy people came in, and Dorcas was one of them.  In the fifties she dressed them for all the charity balls, the embassy affairs in the beautiful French and  British embassies, and for the art openings.  So there she was at the start of the party that was the sixties.

***

Bunny's daughter Eliza was told that her father was having an affair.  But Dorcas was not an affair, she was a mistress, one who had an outstanding business of her own.

***

Page 113 :  That night at Eliza's party, all the Hardins were invited, and Dorcas was there, according to the society columns, although her name isn't checked off the main gate guest list.  Society's delighted whispers about the affair and the reports of occasional sightings of the lovers together in public were Bunny's to deal with for more than thirty years.

A sense of society's complicity comes with just one story.  At the shop Dorcas had a desk in an alcove off the main salesroom in the front.  Behind were dressing rooms, storage, and lingerie.  The back wall of the lingerie area was sheathed in mirrors; one concealed a nearly invisible door into a closet that held only a phone. Usually it was closed. "One day, when too many mammoth clothes boxes arrived from New York, we needed the space, so the door was open." one young summer employee remembers, "and all of a sudden, the closet phone rang.  I went in to answer it, just as someone else pulled me away and called out urgently, "The phone is ringing - the phone is ringing!"  Dorcas sprinted into the back closed, closed the door, and did not emerge for some time.  No one said a word about it, and we continued chatting and unpacking as though nothing at all had happened.  I was totally mystified.  Some days later a fellow employee told me that phone was the one on which Paul Mellon called her.  No one was to discuss it or the affair."

But this affair was a very public one.  Paul and Dorcas were seen together in D.C. and New York hotels.  He also had family dinners that included her; he introduced her to his bosom friend the English art historian John Baskett, who liked Dorcas very much.  Bunny told me that 'even though everyone in Washington at the big dinners and receptions that I arranged said, "Oh you;ll win,' I felt very alone.

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PAUL MELLON HAD DORCAS HARDIN - BUNNY MELLON HAD A CAVALCADE OF GAY COMPANIONS

 

Page 98 ...

In Dorcas Hardin he (Paul Mellon) had rediscovered that laughter, sex, coziness, and empathy.  Dorcas seems to have released in Paul the certain knowledge of who he wanted to be, the man he felt he truly was.

Page 99 ... 

For Paul, being "Careful to allow each other to develop our own interests" meant Dorcas. For Bunny,, it meat a long cavalcade of interesting ad talented men - almost all gay, except, perhaps, for Jean Schlumberger, the jewelry designer who, by all reports, occasionally slept with women who, like most of the others, had a male life partner, Luc Bouchage.

***

It would seem that Bunny had a series of unrequited crushes.  

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HOW PAUL AND BUNNY MELLON DECIDED TO LIVE SEPARATE LIVES : BUNNY SAYS SHE "FOUND A GIRL FOR HIM" HIS LIFELONG MISTRESS DORCAS HARDIN

Paul Mellon and Rachael Lambert Lloyd,  called Bunny, married when she was thirty-eight and he was forty-two.  It was a second marriage for both of them and they each brought two children into the marriage. However the family never actually blended. It was the 1950's.  by 1955, their marriage was severely strained. Page 93: The fifties were still a world where expensive wives, however diplomatically ad insincerely, almost always deferred to their well-heeled husbands. As for therapy the general run of marriage counselling in the fifties basically involved telling the wife it was all her fault ad treating her for depression, anxiety, and "frigidity" with one of the psychopharmaceuticals new to the market ...

Paul's Freudian therapist told him to stop having sex with Bunny.  She asked him if he wanted a divorce and he said no.  He wanted her to be his wife, care for the children, and she could have all the money she needed. As Queen Elizabeth had the year earlier when her husband, Prince Phillip, was up to high-jinx with women,  Bunny decided to go forward with this agreement in 1957.

***

In this book Bunny Mellon told the author she "found a girl for him" meaning Dorcas Hardin. Page 92.  Dorcas became Paul's lifelong mistress. "If  Bunny's memory can be believed, she didn't have to look very far. Dorcas's brother-in-law, Taylor Scott Hardin, was a member of Virginia's horsey set.  Diana, Dorcas's daughter, also went to Foxcroft (Bunny's school), graduating a year ahead of Eliza (Bunny's daughter by her first husband) and me in 1959."  In other words Dorcas was a member of society and from a world similar to that of Bunny. "Dorcas owned a fashionable clothing boutique in Georgetown." Which is near Washington, D.C.

***

Missy here:  I would love more details on how exactly Bunny found Dorcas.  Did she herself go to Dorcas and ask her to be her husband Paul's mistress?

DORCAS HARDIN : MORE THAN THREE DECADES AS MISTRESS OF BILLIONAIRE ART COLLECTOR and HORSE BREEDER PAUL MELLON : REVISITING DORCAS

In May 2018 my topic here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT was DORCAS HARDIN : Mistress of Billionaire Art Collector and Horse Breeder Paul Mellon.  It's time to revisit Dorcas Hardin as our Mistress of the Month since more information has come out!

DORCAS HARDIN

1911-2006

A terrific new book came out titled I'll Build A Stairway To Paradise by Mac Griswold in the fall of 2022. (Mac is a woman by the way.)  I waited weeks before a copy from my library was available to read. I could truly understand why it was on a librarian's choice list when I read it.  I believe that author Mac Griswold had access to Bunny Mellon and the family, first though social connections that went back, and then uncovered much that had not been revealed before about Mrs. Mellon, including her awareness and adaptation to her husband having a mistress.

Bunny Mellon, who started life out as Rachael Lambert, an heiress, was the wife of Paul Mellon. He was her second husband and she was his second wife. Mellon is estimated to have been worth at least 3.3 billion in today's money. In his book about his life, and in general, Paul Mellon was careful with his words and not one to be too revealing. 

Bunny was an immensely talented and self-taught garden designer as well as an art collector who, with her husband, donated a vast collection of important works - paintings and sculptures - to the National Gallery of Art, which was founded by Paul's father Andrew Mellon. They lived a life of extreme privileged and there was nothing she could want for if it could be bought with money. She lived to design outdoor spaces - the natural world, as well as interiors - to make them look effortless and comfortable and her clothing was custom designed by the most famous designers, her jewelry the most fabulous. However, her second marriage, proved to be one that left her wanting for love and companionship, and went sexless.

According to Griswold's book, the first half decade or so of the relationship between Paul and Bunny was highly charged and erotic, but then Paul decided to go into therapy and soon enough vacated the marriage sexually and otherwise. He decided that Bunny should remain Mrs. Mellon, but they lived lives that were essentially separate, joining together for social events. Society was wise to their arrangement perhaps, while in general they were far too elite for the public to know - or understand - due to the discretion of those in their class.

This fine book gives us the opportunity to know a bit more about Dorcas as well as Bunny and her attitude towards Paul and his mistress. So as I like to do I'll be excerpting the parts that deal with that. You can easily summon up the month of May 2018 in the archives and read what I posted back then about Dorcus, Bunny, and Paul which was based on a different book. Our understanding of Dorcas Hardin will expand as we learn more about the woman who kept company with Paul Mellon for many years, and it could be argued, was the true love of his life.

Here is how she is described in Mac Griswold's fabulous book from page 97:

"Dorcas was fabulous looking, tall, not thin but not fat either - well-rounded, I guess you'd call  her, " said one of my Foxcroft classmates whose family was friendly with the Hardins. "She had auburn hair in a pageboy, was pretty, and was always stunningly dressed and incredibly chic, She gave great dinner parties,  Despite her profound deafness ( Dorcas learned to lip-read to compensate.), "she wanted to be with people all the time." She was a beloved D.C. society figure.  "She was naughty and fun - always laughing.  I mean she was somebody's mother, but she was still a kick ... There was an amazingly good energy around her all the time.  And she noticed how you felt; she would say, "What's the matter with you?" then pat your cheek."

Dorcas was also alert to small things, to fashion statements perhaps not yet considered appropriate but that were fun and edgy. "When y younger sister wanted to get her ears pierced,: said a diplomat's daughter who worked in Dorcas;s boutique in the summer of 1972, "and our mother said no, Dorcas said, "Of course she should get her ears pierced."  Others remember Dorcas's great eye and her ability to be plainspoken without causing offense: "If you picked out clothes that didn't suit you, Dorcas would say, "No that doesn't look right."

***

Bunny ordered her clothes custom and had no need to buy clothing from Dorcas' boutique though Dorcas ordered in fashions from many of the world's most celebrated designers for her clientele. 

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Notes:

Bunny and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis were best friends. It is noteworthy that Jackie invited Bunny to design the rose garden at the White House as well as the grave of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Bunny was old enough to be Jackie's mother and it could be said that Jackie had a better relationship with Bunny than her own mother and Bunny a better relationship with Jackie than her own daughter. 

Before we move on, here is an article from Town and Country on the extraordinary friendship between Bunny and Jackie TOWN and COUNTRY ; JACKIE AND BUNNY EXTRAORDINARY FRIENDSHIP

Interested in Jackie Kennedy?  President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his mistresses? They, as well as Little Edie Bouvier have been the subject here at Mistress Manifesto in the past. 

August 2014
LITTLE EDIE BOUVIER BEALE of Grey Gardens Fame. Her Affair With a Married Man May Have Done Her In.

JOHN EDWARDS and RIELLE HUNTER and BUNNY MELLON

Back in 2008 the John Edwards- Rielle Hunter affair was the end of his candidacy for President of the United States.  Meryl Gordon's book on Bunny Mellon dedicates much of Part 17, Chapter 25 begins the details of Bunny's involvement in helping candidate Edwards hide his mistress Rielle who was pregnant with his child, from the American public through donations that clearly went beyond the campaign limits, though Bunny claimed not to know what happened to the money to a point or that this candidate who she loved and felt could be the next John F. Kennedy, had a mistress. 

Probably the reason Bunny remained unpunished was that she was 95 years old when she was so sure that Edwards would be the next president - and should be - since she was a patriotic liberal Democrat - and deserved the money for "personal expenses"  and a couple years closer to 100 when the game was over. Andrew Young was so willing to do anything to help his candidate win that after the 2006 meeting of Rielle and John that began their affair, he collaborated with a scheme to funnel money to Edwards. Young eventually even claimed to be the father of Rielle's child.

Edward's wife Elizabeth battled breast cancer at the time and as a result she got all the sympathy.  How could Edwards have an affair when his faithful wife she fought for her life?

Edwards hired Rielle to produce campaign videos for him and continued to pop up to see him on the campaign trail. 

The way around the campaign donations limit was, according to Gordon's book, sneaky fun for Bunny.  She was paying the living expenses for Rielle, thus keeping her so Edwards would not have to, by sending checks that were supposed to be for the purchase of antiques and furniture to one person who then routed the money to Young and to Young's wife's bank account.

The National Enquirer broke the story of the affair and then the "love child," and terminally ill Elizabeth separated from her husband.  Edwards only admitted the truth about his dual life after Andrew Young's book was ready to hit the shelves. In my opinion, he made a mess of things by continually lying to the public with his wife at his side, denying everything, though I can understand he at least didn't want to publically humiliate her.

Bunny's checks were monthly and for increasing amounts - $175,000,  $200,000 - and were not for the campaign itself.  Well, the FBI became involved.  Bunny said that she had no problem with a man having a mistress, nor did she think having a mistress would make a man less eligible for candidacy, but she thought a man should afford his mistress on his own.

Because Edwards and Bunny had become friends, frequently speaking on the phone, he and his daughter imagined they would be welcome to her funeral - but they were relegated to an overflow tent.


* Rielle Hunter is a self made woman who changed her name from Lisa Jo Druck and is said to have made the first pass at Edwards.

ANDREW W. MELLON (PAUL'S FATHER) WAS THE SOURCE OF THE MONEY BUNNY MARRIED INTO

MELLON ORG - History of ANDREW MELLON (PAUL'S FATHER)

The image below is from Wikipedia.

DORCAS HARDIN - MISTRESS OF BILLIONAIRE PAUL MELLON

 This is a picture of Bunny Mellon on the cover of a book about her that includes husband Paul Mellon's mistress, Dorcas Hardin, who was well known on the Washington, DC social scene at the time.

DORCAS HARDIN is the most known of billionaire philanthropist, art collector, and horse breeder and racer Paul Mellon's mistresses. Mellon is estimated to have been worth at least 3.3 billion in today's money. Known to not have been faithful to his first wife, Mary, and to have had at least one other special friend, after Mary died of an asthma attack, Bunny, in a troubled first marriage herself, decided to pursue Paul. Her advantage was that she and her husband, Stacey, who had joined up to be part of the early OSS, living in Great Britain in World War II, already knew him, socialized with them. They had all been friends friends, living around horse and hunt country events.  Bunny and Stacey put in 17 years of marriage before their physical separation lead to the end of their marriage.

Bunny had an extraordinary life.  An heiress herself, of the Listerine fortune, she attended Foxcroft School, an American finishing school for girls destined for great marriages and motherhood.  Bunny was a self taught gardener, landscape designer, and horticulturist, who is most known for the White House Rose Garden and arranging the flowers for President John F. Kennedy's funeral.  She and Jackie Kennedy, became friends before Jackie was the First Lady of the United States and Bunny was there at her bedside when Jackie died.  The two women were both Francophiles. Though she became famous as an important gardener and Paul Mellon's wife, much of her life she chose to be surrounded in rather reclusive luxury. Though Bunny and Paul "blindsided" her first husband Stacey with their intent to marry, she remained friendly with this man, the father of her children, throughout her life. And so through this book by author Meryl Gordon, we learn much about the wife who knew her husband had Dorcus Harding as a mistress, and in old age protected candidate John Edwards, who had Rielle Hunter as his mistress.

Paul Mellon did not mention Dorcas Harding in his memoir and Bunny did not mention in hers either!

Bunny Mellon believed there was no reason to fuss over "girlfriends." She thought all powerful men had them, yet reportedly was deeply hurt to know Paul had Dorcas as a Mistress. Paul Mellon remained married to Bunny.  When he died in old age, Bunny invited Dorcas to the funeral and Dorcas declined; their society friends thought both showed their integrity that day. So Bunny invited Dorcas' children to the funeral, as she believed this is what Paul would want. (And it's unsaid if they attended.)

Bunny Mellon knew that her own father had "escapades," and that Paul had not been faithful to his first wife.  So you could say she went into marriage with him with her eyes open.  Was it his money that she wanted?  Paul Mellon was much richer and more than man of the world than her first husband and his wealth allowed her to perfect gardens and homes.  Exactly how much time apart does a couple have to put in to be considered leading "separate lives?"  Early in their marriage they had four children to raise in their household together.  But children grow up and move away.  After five years of marriage they almost had a bust up.  Bunny offered to take her two children and move away.  Paul wanted to remain married.

Paul and Bunny had some things in common, some things not.  Her early love of riding horses ended after a fall, and he continued to breed and race horses. She stopped traveling with him to horse events. He complained about her uncontrolled spending but kept letting her. Perhaps Paul and Bunny didn't realize that it was understood by others that their marriage wasn't wonderful.  It took gossip and society columns to hint at the relationship Paul had with Dorcas to concern Bunny.

Here is what is known about Dorcas.  She attended events like art show openings at the National Gallery of Art.  When Paul Mellon's father died, the National Gallery of Art, a gift to the nation, became a primary concern to him. A gift of 126 paintings and 26 sculptures began the Mellon collection there.  Bunny attended some of these events at his side.
.
Dorcas was somewhat deaf and Paul took to talking loud to her and then would come home to Bunny talking too loud.  Bunny admitted to Paul that she knew about Dorcas, but tried to downplay her importance to Paul among her friends.  Dorcas ran a designer dress boutique in the D.C. area and in her relationship with Paul was gifted some good jewelry. He liked to buy Dorcas jewelry, especially large stones of semi precious gems.  She liked the semi precious stones topaz and tourmaline.

Part 10, Chapter 17... A society column mentioned that Dorcas Hardin of Georgetown and Paul Mellon had been to the races, she in his front row box, together.  She was called a bright, gay, and "flame haired" woman.  Dorcas Hardin actually was quite the woman.  Only a year younger than Bunny, she was hardly the stereotypical showgirl Mistress.  She owned a dress shop frequented by wealthy women and was a widow.  Part 11 Chapter 18... a Walter Winchell column suggested that after 20 years of marriage Paul and Bunny were heading for divorce, while a Suzy Column out of Palm Beach reported their marriage was solid.  (This was about 1968.)

Part 11, chapter "Paul and Bunny In Love With Others," is perhaps the most telling of author Meryl Gordons book.  After Paul, always so discreet and a gentleman always in public, admitted to a friend who had a girlfriend that he did too, the two couples started going out with each other in London.

Then their friends tried to figure out exactly when Paul and Dorcas had begun.  Was it 1966 or earlier? Overall, it was suspected that their relationship was "more sensual" than what Paul had with Bunny.  Then "everyone" knew and they knew it wasn't just a midlife crisis but that Paul Mellon was in love. 

Though Bunny may have also taken a lover or had emotional ties to other men, none of them had threatened her marriage. (Maybe because one or so were gay?) Bunny allowed Paul his freedom.  She continued to buy homes, renovate, decorate, and create amazing gardens throughout her life.  Without his money this would not have been possible.  She was greatly concerned that Paul have his creature comforts and he appreciated the efforts she made to orchestrate these homes.  How much time they actually lived together in them is a serious question that remains unanswered.

According to the author, Paul Mellon's relationship with Dorcas Hardin was a "second marriage" simultaneous with the first.   Dorcas and Paul met in Washington D.C. as well as hotels in New York and London, and at public events, Dorcas an attendee, they kept at a distance.
Still, Paul took his son to dinners with Dorcas every Tuesday.

Since her marital situation was now an open secret, Bunny tried not to appear defensive and told her friends she knew and didn't want them to feel sorry for her.  She claimed that she wished Dorcas "luck" with Paul in bed, blaming him for the lack of their intimacy.

Since Dorcas had partially lost her hearing and Paul took to speaking loudly for her, he'd come home still speaking too loudly and Bunny would say "You don't have to yell, you're HOME now!"

There were some awkward encounters. 

Dorcas' daughter was a photographer who covered some social events and had to photograph Paul and Bunny at National Art Gallery events.

Besides good company, a more sensual relationship, and so on, Paul loved spoiling Dorcas with jewelry.  In New York he would send her to look at jewelry, and then come later to find out what she admired, buy it, and have it sent to his nome in D.C. where he would give it to her.

Dorcas had her fans in society, who thought of her as unassuming, unpretentious, smart and beautiful. 

In the end, as is usually the case it seems with wives, Bunny triumpled financially over Dorcas, as Paul continued to honor her spending and was also generous in his will, though she did have to cut back significantly in her old age,letting staff go, which she hated.  And Dorcas?  She lived to be 94 years old and died in 2006.  Her Washington Post obituary doesn't mention Paul Mellon.

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 ***  During the World War II era, it was reported to Bunny that Pamela Churchill, married to Winston Churchill's son, was possibly "a girl of Mr. Harriman and Jock Whitney."  I thought I would mention this as Pamela Churchill is sometimes called "The Courtesan of the 20th Century." 

RIELLE HUNTER and JOHN EDWARDS : MISTRESS OF THE MONTH

The trial of John Edwards for possible use of money given to him by two grand supporters, Bunny Mellon (the multimillionaire who also designed the rose garden for the White House in the President John F. Kennedy era) and Fred Baron, in an illegal way, was very interesting to me. He was accused of using the money to hide his mistress Rielle Hunter. Some say that hiding her was in fact a campaign strategy.

I believe it that Edwards' covered up his involvement with Rielle to protect his wife of many years, Elizabeth, who had breast cancer and soon died of it. He may have fallen in love and /or lust with another woman, a very different woman than his wife, but that doesn't mean he was totally insensitive to that fact that the mother of his older children was dying of a terrible disease or that they had a long history together.

Rielle was strategically moved around and given/paid about $9000 a month to live on. She gave birth to a child as a result of the affair, a daughter, who is about four.

The article from ABC news that I'm linking to paints Reille as woman who is quirky. Some other articles I've read about her would make her out to be a woman with a shady and sad past, as if she is the bad woman who brought the man down. Isn't that typical stereotyping of the mistress, as if it doesn't take two to tango?

An excerpt that focuses on her reinvention of herself, like so many people who are coming out of nowhere and striving to achieve: "Hunter was born in 1964 and named Lisa Jo Druck. She married Alexander Hunter in 1991 and took his last name, becoming Lisa Jo Hunter. In 1994, she legally changed her first name to Rielle.

But it doesn't stop there. On her daughter's birth certificate (which does not include the girl's father's name) Hunter used the alias Rielle Jaya James Druck.

While Hunter was receiving hush money from Edwards' donors, aide Andrew Young testified, she received an American Express credit card in the fake name Jaya James. She picked the name, she said, because it sounded like Jesse James, the famed Western outlaw. When the card arrived, it read "Randy Jaya James" and Hunter refused to use it. It was later reprinted "R. Jaya James."

I'm linking to an ABC news article about Rielle which attempts to explain that she may not have been called to testify because she's kooky, into astrology (so many people are! Why wasn't Nancy Reagan on trial for that?) and so on.

BUNNY MELLON SET UP JOHN EDWARDS EX MISTRESS RIELLE HUNTER.

"The doyenne of high society is the widow of Paul Mellon, a billionaire art patron and racehorse breeder. She is famously camera-shy and keeps a residence in the Jumeirah Essex House on Central Park South and an estate in Upperville Virginia, where she reportedly became fond of then-first-time presidential candidate John Edwards in 2006."

You can link to this full article from DNAinfo Manhattan, story by Nicole Bode by clicking your mouse on the title of this post...

Missy here: Paul Mellon had a mistress who attended his funeral. I'm sure Bunny knew about her and she would not deny Paul his mistress. I admire Bunny for that!

Rielle Hunter is writing a "tell-all book." I don't know if I admire her for that or not; depends on how she puts it. Another article I found on line suggests that Bunny (Rachel Lowe Lambert Lloyd Mellon), hieress to the Listerine fortune, bought Hunter a $28,000 BMW and a $2,900-a-month home to rent near Chapel Hill, NC!

HERE IS A CASE OF A WOMAN FRIEND OF A MAN KEEPING A MISTRESS FOR A MAN!