JOSEPH P. KENNEDY - THE PATRIARCH : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

 JOSEPH P. KENNEDY - THE PATRIARCH : 

The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy by David Nasaw. 

MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

first posted February 26, 2018

This is a fine work, well researched with permission of the Kennedy Family who allowed sealed documents at the Kennedy Library to be open to the author, and can be read just for the historical content.  Joseph. P. Kennedy was the self made man who fathered U.S. President John F. Kennedy and left his many children millions.  We Americans seem to know a lot about them, and this vast family still has some illustrious members. Of surprise to me (and I've read so many books about the Kennedys and Jackie and Marilyn) is that Joseph P. Kennedy had quite the relationship with Franklin Roosevelt before and after he became President of the United States and was no stranger to visits to the White House, but also that he socialized with William Randolph Hearst and his Mistress Marion Davies.  Author David Nasaw's focus is entirely on Joseph P. Kennedy so the relationships of all other's named, including his wife Rose, are not detailed, and if you've read a lot of books or seem a lot of films around the Kennedy's much of the information you read here may seem repetitive.  However, I'm reviewing this book for MISTRESS MANIFESTO because of the many characters in it that you have read about here (and can easily summon up using the Google Search feature embedded in the side bar to bring up past posts about!)

These include: 

Joseph P. Kennedy's Mistress Gloria Swanson

William Randolph Hearst and his Mistress Marion Davies

Missy Lehand, said to be the in-Whitehouse Mistress of President Franklin Roosevelt,

Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy, daughter of Joseph P. and Rose Kennedy.

Clare Boothe Luce (Who I owe a month to.)

And of course Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, who I think would have made a better Mistress than a Wife.

I came away with an understanding that Joseph, though frequently not home due to business, and the fact that he and Rose seemingly lived separate lives though united by their children. wrote loving letters to his children and had not abandoned his fatherhood.

C 2018 -2026 Mistress Manifesto - BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

Here's where you can find posts in my archive:

November 2019

MARGUERITE "MISSY" LEHAND :OFFICE WIFE AND WARM SPRINGS MISTRESS OF FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT

July 2013
MARION "ROSEBUD" DAVIES : MISTRESS OF NEWSPAPER MAN AND HEARST CASTLE BUILDER  WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST

March

KATHLEEN “KICK” KENNEDY ; Sister of J.F.K., Widow of Billy Hartington, Mistress of Peter Wentworth Fitzwilliam When They Died in A Plane Crash

CAMERA GIRL : THE COMING OF AGE OF JACKIE BOUVIER KENNEDY by CARL SFERRAZZA ANTHONY : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

 Camera Girl has a different perspective on the life of Jackie Bouvier Kennedy than most of the Jackie books I've read because it focuses on her life before her marriage to John F. Kennedy as a career woman.  The senator who would take the White House and end his presidency assassinated. was barely romantic and had not actually courted her much.  He was too busy and too much of a womanizer to think of it.  

Born Jacqueline Bouvier in 1929, the child of divorced parents who were always at war over her and her sister,  the future First Lady had a natural intelligence but wasn't especially academic. She was artistic and drew fun images revealing a sense of humor, considered being an actress, but being a writer was her most earnest desire.  Only an eighth French, more Irish, Jackie worked hard to learn French language and culture and adopt that ethnicity as her heritage. She was multi-lingual and a perfectionist.

Her step-father had greater wealth than her father, who was in a slow decline of fortunes and health. Pressure to marry and before the age of 21, she wanted to be a writer and journalist first. This book follows her efforts, against sexism, as she established herself as a roving photographer who wrote an article composted of  quotes of conversation. She came up with the interesting  questions and that asked people from all walks of life to answer. Her time as the Inquiring Photographer lasted about a year and a half and ended as she became officially engaged to the Senator. One of her articles focused on questions inspired by Marilyn Monroe.  

How could Jackie do more than be a housewife when most employers had the "you'll just get married anyway" attitude?  She, as an expensively educated young woman, tried to campaign to be assigned to hard news but the social status implied by that education actually went against her. (There were women employed as journalist at the time.)  Connections landed her a start, but even then she was told that an engagement would end her employment. 

It didn't help that her mother felt that men would not marry intelligent women and that her aspirations for her daughters was that they would marry way up.  Many a beau entered her life, most not serious, and she herself began to see marriage as the strongest opportunity she could have. She had a fiancee that she returned a ring to.

This book asserts that, though years younger than Kennedy, and certainly not as worldly, Jackie knew what she was doing when she decided she wanted to marry the womanizing man.  Warned by John's best friend Lem, she decided that a lot of opportunities, including being able to influence, came along with being the wife on a senator or First Lady. She advised her sister-in-law to evaluate those opportunities to stay in marriage. She used her research skills to help John F. Kennedy succeed.

Page 285:

Distinctly unromantic, Kennedy qualified his inability to easily express emotion by claiming it was a result of his mother being unemotional and rarely expressing affection to him.  By accepting this deficiency in him, Jackie realized she was just as unusual...."

***

Here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot, we have been interested in the saga of Jackie, Johm, Marilyn, and Big and Little Edie Bouvier.  Of interest to the Little Edie fans is that Jackie's father, nicknamed Black Jack, a sexual adventurer, may have had an affair with Little Edie, his niece.  You'll also learn more than in Grey Gardens about how it was that the Bouvier inheritance was depleted and possibly mismanaged by Black Jack, who was the brother of Big Edie. He may have used some of their money to finance Jackie's first trip to Europe in 1950, where she lived in Paris.

This book has much to reveal about Jackie and the relationship she had with those parents, who both wished to control her and have her to themselves; as a result she became careful with her words - both written and spoken.  She manipulated them by sometimes leaving out information or thinking three steps ahead.

page 91:

Reviewing her early writings during her train ride from New York to Kingston, Rhode Island, station, near Newport, would remind Jackie that she not only had a gift for adapting the events of her life into fictionalized stories but had always relied on doing so, particularly as a way of responding to the unpleasant incidents of her life, including her parent's divorce.  "It amuses me," she wrote at that time, to craft fairy tales.  When her balance was thrown off or her boundaries were crossed, Jackie would retreat into the role of imaginative chronicler, casting allies as heroes, violators as villains, artfully transfiguring reality.  She often illustrated her fanciful chronicles with caricatures of friends, family members, teachers - and herself, literally turning her real life into an absurdist cartoon world.

C 2024  book review-report  Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

If you're interested in more about Jackie, John F. Kennedy, Big and Little Edie Beale, Marilyn Monroe - you've come to the right place.  To pull up posts about these famous people, you can use the search feature and put in their names, or you can go into the archives.

2014 

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

December

Special Edition
AN EYE TO JACKIE KENNEDY ONASSIS

2016 

May

MARILYN MONROE (Norma Jeane Baker)

Mistress of Super Agent Johnny Hyde Early in Her Career

N ANGEL WING : HOLIDAY GIVING and CHARITIES 

2017

March

KATHLEEN “KICK” KENNEDY ; Sister of J.F.K., Widow of Billy Hartington, Mistress of Peter Wentworth Fitzwilliam When They Died in A Plane Crash

2020

July

JUDITH KATHERINE IMMOOR  AKA CAMPBELL EXNER : MISTRESS OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY : COURIER BETWEEN KENNEDY AND MOBSTER SAM GIANCANA

August

MIMI ALFORD : BEFORE MONICA LEWINSKY THERE WAS A J.F.K. INTERN IN THE WHITE HOUSE

September

MARY PINCHOT MEYER : WAS SHE THE PRESIDENT'S TRUE SOUL MATE?  WAS SHE ASSASSINATED BY THE C.I.A?

THE PRESS, SOCIETY, and KEEPING AN OPEN SECRET - DORCAS HARDIN and PAUL MELLON

Page 343  Like all of JFK's sexual affairs, Paul Mellon and Dorcas Hardin's arrangement was never covered by the press, although it seems that everyone in D.C. knew about it.  "Dorcas was fun!  Easy.  IT was a very open relationship," recalled Janet Bruce, David and Evangeline Bruce's daughter-in-law, who had been one of a party of four women, including Dorcas and Polly Wisner Fritchcie, who went on a shopping tour together in New York.  Jim, the Mellon's chauffeur, had driven them around.

Katherine Graham reportedly threatened her reporters to ensure a kind of official privacy for Paul's affair, saying, "If a single line appears in (the) paper about this, that reporter will be out of a job before the ink is dry on the page." Graham had publically acknowledged her friendship with Bunny only by noting its breach, calling her "mu then-friend Bunny Mellon" in print without saying what had happened.  Graham protected Paul and Dorcas, which thus in a sidelong sense protected Bunny as well...

Who were Bunny's real friends in D.C.?  Jackie Kennedy topped the list even before she became First Lady; after she moved to New York in 1964 she remained Bunny's closest confidante until her death thirty years later.  Evangeline Bruce was an ally and a closemouthed one.  Bunny did talk to her family and friends about Dorcas, but when she did so she cast the affair mostly as a tiresome joke...

***

A note that Katherine Graham was the owner of several publications but most noteworthy the Washington Post.

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TOUCHED BY THE SUN by CARLY SIMON: MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

"The Glint isn't necessarily sexual - but it's not unsexual either. The Glint has something more to do with some crazy charismata, weirdly acknowledged power."   page 131

TOUCHED BY THE SUN : My Friendship With Jackie

This book was short and glorious. Simon is known as a singer-songwriter but, with her books, she proves to also be a wonderful and descriptive writer, not just of scenes but of an array of fine emotions.

Will this book reveal Jackie Bouvier, who became First Lady of the United States widowed in a tragic assassination, then the wife of a controversial Greek millionaire, and then the long term companion of a man in the diamond business who never quite divorced his wife? SImon, a famous woman, struggles to be sensitive to another woman who is even more famous, and the Jackie she portrays is difficult to know, but yes you will have a glimpse of a woman who is ever aware that she is on the world stage, even in more intimate settings.

The quotation above I found most intriguing. Simon is talking about something I've experienced too, people - rare, who have the Glint, who you meet and feel some kind of energy emanating from, as if it comes from their eyes. As for their fame, Simon says she doesn't know who entered into whose "magnetic field" first.

That she was one of two close women friends allowed to come to Jackie's death bed says so much. The other friend was Bunny Mellon.

If you're interested in Carly Simon, Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, or Bunny Mellon, you will find lots to read in my archives here at Mistress Manifesto..

Bunny figures in the story of politician John Edwards and his mistress Rielle Hunter featured here in June 2012. as well as the Dorcas Hardin and Paul Mellon story May 2018 since Paul was her husband.

Carly herself is very much the story in June 2017 when I featured her then husband James Taylor's mistress called "Evey."

Jackie herself was HONORARY Mistress in December 2014.

Her cousin Edie Bouvier "Little Edie":had August 2014 to herself.

And Jackie's husband had mistresses too.  And so a few of the best known ones were featured here in July 2020 - Judith Campbell, in August 2020 - Mimi Alford, and in September 2020 - Mary Pinchot Meyer.

You can go to the month, or you can use the search feature to bring up posts with these names!

Missy

June 22 - I just edited this slightly.  Rereading it I saw some editing done previously had not been saved.

ANNA BEY : UPLEVELING INFLUENCER and HONORARY MISTRESS OF THE MONTH

 ANNA BEY

One of many images found on Google Images of Anna, who herself posts many images on Instagram.

Just when I thought to honor ANNA BEY with an Honorary Mistress of the Month because I think she'd be (or maybe has been) a successful Mistress, she started the year out by getting married. She moved to Geneva, Switzerland from London, England. She married her love, a man originally from Lebanon, a banker whose privacy she will respect, in a small civil ceremony due to Covid-19 restriction. She'd been with him for about three or four years. She says they'll get around to a proper church wedding after Covid-19.

But that doesn't mean she never was Kept.

I first encountered Anna on YouTube and I must have watched every one of her many professionally made videos in which she talks about elite life; fashion, composure, etiquette, and many other subjects of interest to those women who want to "level up." She starts by addressing her audience as "elegant ladies."

I found that I agree with her on some of what she has to say, though not everything. One thing I strongly do not agree with Anna about is that if a man has women friends he is just not that into you. I'll write more about that later in this month.

I find Anna Bey to be beautiful, charming, intelligent, wise, accomplished, and willing to help other women. She runs her School of Affluence for a reasonable fee, an online finishing school, or you can go to one of her websites where she posts free advice pages to supplement her videos. (You sign up on her mailing list.) I'm convinced that she is sincere in her willingness to share her lifestyle philosophy, that she has learned from harsh experiences in her own life, and that she can be a positive influence on other women. She says no matter what path you've been down, you can always turn around.

Anna believes in self improvement from the inside out though she first became known for modeling fashions she approved of. You can even listen to her video about which handbags that costs thousands are not classy. She even wrote a book on how to be classy. 

Yes, she spent $10,000 to get her nose done and wears hair extensions but she's a also into positive affirmations, dream boards, journaling, astrology, and psycho-therapy too, for as long as it takes. 

Of course, here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT, we know that there are very many ways to love, and that there are very many ways to be a Mistress. In fact, sometimes, with so many people living together today without marriage, it becomes a bit difficult to know what adultery is. Plus some women knowingly and willingly share men and not everyone is interested in monogamy. 

Being a Mistress does not require adultery. It often does but unmarried men have Mistresses too. I'm also sure when I say that being Kept does not require that you be fully supported financially by another person. Though a Classic Mistress expects and gets this, today there are few Classic Mistresses. 

I think a woman's independence begins with education and work. Opportunities for women are better now than ever, at least generally in the West, though still not at all equal to what men have overall. Covid-19 has effected women's employment far more than men's: I was told that by a person who works to help women gain job experience at a non-profit. As a result of today's desire for independence, most women like to be working at something, paid or unpaid. Women like to have their own money, which they earn. For Anna this has become teaching and running her business. She advises women to get busy. She also says the reality is most women who gain an elite lifestyle do so through men.

Has Anna benefited from a man's generosity? Surely, for she advises women not to keep cheap men in their lives and says rich wives should not be embarrassed about living off their husbands.

A moment here from me about "Sugar."

A Mistress and her Man are not in "just" a Sugar Baby and Sugar Daddy relationship either, though some of those experiences become loving relationships that endure. We have to be a bit cautious because there are people who sign on to be Sugar Babies who might be living as escorts or a Sugar Daddy might see it as hiring one rather than having relationships.

Sure there may be economic benefits to being a Mistress, but that's not all there is to it. If that's all there is to it, it probably won't last. Mistresses love their men and their men love them too or what's the point? Why would you chance being punished for going against the social norms or get dragged into a terrorizing divorce to tie yourself to another person in a unloving relationship when you could be out there looking for love? 

Here in the pages of Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot there are examples of women (and some men) who have been Kept, completely, a little, a while, or a lifetime! 

Although I don't know so, I get the feeling Anna has been Kept, without knowing if the man or men were married. I want to say that many women have experienced being in a extra-marital relationship for a while, didn't like it or did, but the experience didn't stop them from one day having a career or a legal marriage if they wanted one.

I will admit, though, that while I watched dozens of Anna Bey videos, the thought kept running through my head, "Is she a Mistress? She'd be a good lifestyle coach for Mistresses." The reason was primarily because of her emphasis on obtaining a partner, a man, who does help a woman financially, that also helps her - as she helps him - "level up," a term I get while wishing there was a better way to put it.

Why not aspire to better and greater for yourself and your children?

Well, the condemnation of Anna is fierce, and it begins and does not end with the term Gold Digger, which she addresses in one of her videos. She says a Gold Digger is a person only into it for money and her high financial standards do not mean she is one. One rake considers her a "former yacht girl" implying she once lived a life of travel and leisure in exchange for casual sex thereby ruining herself for love. (I think of Groupies and think many of them went for the casual sex without the luxury and in some cases any love. There's a lot of raunchy and not elegant aspects to Rock and Roll.) In an interview with Cosmopolitan magazine in 2018, Anna admitted to having some experience with the jet set and boating scene. A frightening experience lead her to decide she needed to find a better way to partake in the rich life. Implied is that she could've been entrapped. She started as a blogger with a site called Jet Set Babe in about 2012 and expanded from there. 

Other women, who ought to take down their videos now, attacked Anna with claims that she's a fake because they didn't believe she had a man or was living affluently. 

I have a problem with the attitude. You see, if we condemned every person who once was a nobody with nothing but had aspirations and worked hard on themselves we'd be condemning a hell of a lot of people. Most people aren't born with a lot of advantages. We'd be condemning people such as the author of Sex and the Single Girl and a long time Cosmopolitan magazine editor Helen Hurley Brown, who influenced a generation beginning in the 1960's. We could even find fault with First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis who started out in an elite world but still "leveled up" and believed a woman should do this for her children, not just herself.*

I've also read attacks on Anna from people who seem to think we shouldn't dare try to be more than we got born into; these posters can't be Americans!

Anna has said publicly in interviews that she does not think she could love a man who was poor. That's her honesty. Some people think that way and won't say it. The other side of this is that being obsessed with status can turn a person into a person who's loosing their soul. She is wary of that. She says we are all human, we all make mistakes, and while striving for elegance we must be careful not to get into the perfectionism of elegance extremism.

Another reason I think of Anna as an Honorary Mistress is that she's pragmatic. You see, Anna basically sees femininity in a traditional way, the way until very recently in history most women had to. She sees that it's still a man's world. So some of what she has to say is just what most every older woman I knew growing up thought. Anna isn't "conservative" in thinking her way. (If you think a child needs a daddy, you're conservative.) A man needs to show he can support a woman and a family before he can be in a relationship that could lead to children.

He pays for dates and if he shows off his expensive car to you it's to show you he can support you.

If he is not using some his earnings to help you succeed as a woman, then you may find yourself living like an unmarried woman when "off the market" in marriage to him.

Anna calls the men worth having "high value" men but she also admits that in order to meet wealthy men and keep them you most often have to gain status too. Initially this is about how you look but it's also how you walk and talk, your manners, and the boundaries you set.

Anna Bey, about 35, was born Aija Raty and grew up in Stockholm, Sweden with parents who are professionals. Her mother comes from Russian heritage. After high school, at about 19, she moved to Italy, a country she loves, living in Rome. Her first boyfriend came from money and showed her the good life. She knew she wanted that life. As a self improvement lifestyle coach, she tells her students it takes time to transform. Hers is ongoing. She is multi lingual, has some marketing background, and last summer attended a Swiss "finishing school" to improve her knowledge of entertaining, which she can then pass onto her students.

I will admit, so far I haven't heard Anna talk about being Kept, being a Mistress, or advising women that they should aim for marriage though she has strong ideas about how to avoid bad boys and men who don't treat a woman as his priority. I did find one video where she condemns cheating. Perhaps it's her world view or the words she uses that seem to indicate that she's aware of alternative lifestyles.

Please continue on this month to read about Anna!

C 2021 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

If interested in Helen Gurley Brown or Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, look for posts about them within this blog's archive using the search feature. 

* In a book written by singer-songwriter Carly Simon who was good friends with Jackie, Jackie advised her to marry up, to think of her children. Carly wrote a book also about her life with ex-husband James Taylor and his Mistress Evie was profiled in this blog.

Research for this month's posts including watching dozens of videos by and about Anna Bey, pro and con, reading internet news articles, as well as looking at her web sites, images, and so on. Interviews she willing did tended to be headlined to sensationalize, and gave me the impression she was not being reported accurately or heard. She is not a matchmaker, for instance, nor is she a dating coach and in upleveling she's guiding you on how to have a better life, not guaranteeing a woman will marry a billionaire.

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." 

DECLARATION FOR MISTRESSES - Non-confrontation of Wives

"It's his place to deal with his wife, not mine. "

I know that when I use the word "SHOWDOWN" in a blog post title it attracts hits.  And oh, people love the "cat fight" between two women fighting over one man, hating each other like that, and maybe coming to physical violence.  A few years ago a couple Chinese women Kept by the same man went at it, someone posted it up on YouTube, and it enjoyed a lot of hits.  However, if any relationship you're in makes you get that mean and nasty, that physical, with another person, it's probably not a relationship for you.

Frankly, some men like women to fight or compete over them.  It doesn't have to be a wife - mistress situation.  I've always loathed people who go out of their way to try and make me jealous.  Sometime it's all more subtle - or maybe the term "passive aggressive" would be better - and the man just wants his ego stroked by one or both of the women he's dating or seeing or something - to reveal their passion for him. This type of person plays two people (or more) that he's involved with at the same time just to create such a situation.

However, when you're a Mistress, your place is aside your man's marriage, and sometimes your presence helps him stay married, but coming between them is never a good idea.

Yes, many a woman feels the need and right to confront the Other Woman, who thinks she is the Other Woman.  From what I've read it's even possible that the First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, gave a little phone call to Marilyn Monroe.

I'll never forget the time when I and my 20-something best girlfriend drove to the mall because she wanted to confront her Other Women. She and her man were not married, engaged, and hadn't even had the "going steady" talk.  No ring!  However, when she found out that the man she was sleeping with was also sleeping with this Other Woman who worked at one of those kiosks all alone, we were on our way.  I stood back as she went up to her and said, "I just want you to know X is sleeping with me."  I could see this Other Woman was shaken.  First of all, even if her boss wasn't around, she was at work.  Secondly, what could she say?

Now I'm more mature and if I have a friend who thinks doing something like this is a good idea, I would tell her I think not.

You have every right to stop having sex with another person and every right to break it off with them if your needs are not met.  But when he is married, that's his marriage, not yours.
So even if his wife shows up on your doorstep, my advice is to tell her she needs to deal with her husband.  I know it may be incredibly difficult to understand and to keep your mouth from going off, especially if you have good reason to Hate her for him, but really, it's his place not yours to deal with his wife.  Besides, she's probably at least as nice as you!

C 2017 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

All Rights Reserved

WHAT WOULD JACKIE DO ABOUT DATING VERSUS MATING?

What Would Jackie Do?
Gotham Group - Penguin
C 2005 Shelly Branch and Sue Callaway

Excerpt from PICKING A DATE VERSUS A MATE
pages 102-103 - 104 -105

It is unwise to hook up with men who are merely outwardly eligible - i.e. the multitude of socially inept bankers and lawyers and ad men who stuff themselves into custom-made Italian suits but have no interest in seeing Rome....... You'll do far better to choose a successful, broad-minded man who not only looks good...but can give you the platform you so richly deserve. ... Business leaders, entrepreneurs, politicians, artists, and other(employed) intellectuals are all find candidates. So, too, are emotionally balanced men with trust funds - as long as they have some cause or activity to keep their time, and minds. occupied...

Know where the boys are:

Swell parties,

Concerts,

Smart Cafe's (Starbucks does not qualify),

Any Embassy. The diplomatic service attracts adventurous single men who are gifted in several tongues and favorable male-female ratios.

Church Events (It's okay to recreationally stray to a church in a wealthier zip code.)

Schools You Couldn't Get Into
Antique Fairs/ Auction Houses (Not just haunts for gay men, these places are a magnet for straight art-history types with a taste for finer things...

At and around the office.

Yacht clubs, hunt clubs, nightclubs.
On the tennis court.
At the riding stables.
(Avoid picking up men at your regular gym.)

WHAT WOULD JACKIE DO ABOUT CHOOSING MEN?

Excerpt  from the book WHAT WOULD JACKIE DO
What Would Jackie Do?
Gotham Group - Penguin
C 2005 Shelly Branch and Sue Callaway

PLAY WITH THE BOYS, BUT CHOOSE A MAN OF SUBSTANCE

pages 106-107-108-109

MALE TYPE O
Men with keen minds (who aren't intimidated by ours).
Enthusiastic flatterers.
Men who know how to wield a soup spoon (scoop outward).
Men with pedigrees.
Men who like your children.
Men who know quality (i.e. you) when they see it.

PUT MEN IN THEIR PROPER PLACE

MAKE SURE HE IS AGE APPROPRIATE

Any man over thirty who considers clubs and bars to be his main social outlet falls solidly into the playboy/dunce category. It doesn't matter if he's got a Harvard MBA. Jackie equated maturity with dependability. Keep these (other) guys around for fun - for the occasional ego boost, free meals, etc.

WANDERING HANDS YES, wandering EYES NO. (Choose admirers who are happy - dare we say grateful?- to be with you.)

Jettison men who don't treat their mothers with respect.

TEST HIS PLATFORM
Ideally, your other half should open up a second world of opportunities to you. For some that connotes wealthy circles, for others, it may mean expose to an intellectual crowd, new places and ideas.

NOTICE WHAT HE KEEPS CLOSE AT HAND. (Missy here.  This means in his habitat.)

JACK AND JACKIE HONEYMOON PHOTO

VANITY FAIR - JACKIE AND JACK IN HONEYMOON PHOTOBOOTH

WHAT WOULD JACKIE (KENNEDY ONASSIS) DO? THAT'S WHAT AUTHORS SHELLY BRANCH and SUE CALLAWAY FIGURED

 

I enjoyed this book and you may too. 

 

The authors Shelly Branch and Sue Callaway obviously had a lot of fun imagining what Jackie Kennedy Onassis  (nee Jacqueline Bouvier*) would do in so very many social situations and about men and I think they got her. 

 

In my opinion, though duty to family, in particular her children, and the sense of being a historical figure and a public one, prevailed in her life, I've often thought that Jackie had many mistress qualities in her personality and character. I don't think that's how she got Jack.  It's how she got Ari. - Missy

 

What Would Jackie Do?
Gotham Group - Penguin
C 2005 Shelly Branch and Sue Callaway

WHAT WOULD JACKIE DO OFFICIAL WEB SITE  join in the fun!

P.S.  As for the Bouvier use the search feature on the sidebar to pull up posts on her cousin Little Edie and other Bouvier posts.

MISTRESS MANIFESTO : DECEMBER 2014 HOLIDAY EDITION (with a JACKIE KENNEDY ONASSIS THEME) : MESSAGE FROM MISSY

My Dear Readers,

I'm going to be Out Of Town this month, but as far back as September I've been thinking about my December 2014 Issue of Mistress Manifesto.  December has become the month in which I don't choose a Mistress of the Month, but look forward to the holidays and sort of wrap up the year.

My question for you, if you're a Mistress, or not, is if you're going to go through these few weeks content with your relationship status, be that unmarried, married, never married, whatever, if you're going to begin, stay in or end a relationship when the New Year comes, or if you're going to choose to move on into another way of life.

Our modern life is so challenging, and while I think it's good to think positive, that's not to say it's good to be in denial.  Intelligent decisions are mandatory!  So while I think it's a good idea to check in with yourself from time to time and speak your own truths to yourself, if no one else, something about the holidays, this first push into winter, can push you to those thoughts, while at the same time distracting you because of social events and all that good cheer.

If you happen to the type of person who is more alone than lonely, you may actually be looking forward to staying home, cooking a favorite meal, setting a nice table for yourself,  listening to music, decorating for the holidays (or maybe redecorating your whole place just because), or maybe getting all dressed up and taking yourself out to dinner at a lux restaurant, and if you're like me, a favorite way to spend down time is reading a new book.

This month I'm going to excerpt from a book that came out a few years ago that is based on what we know of the life of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, called WHAT WOULD JACKIE DO?. This book is both fun and thought-provoking, and you just might want to ask yourself WHAT IT IS YOU DO when...  you're looking for a mate instead of a date, a man wants to take you out shopping, or you have to choose a man among men.  

Jackie wasn't perfect.  We put her up on a throne when she was First Lady of the United States.  But we can learn from her to this day!  Isn't she fascinating?  Her daughter, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg has decided to reveal some of her mother's personal papers years before her mother willed it.  The Kennedys have bought up letters that Jackie sent to a Irish priest she had befriended before she married detailing her loss of faith in God after her husband, our President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated. There are so very many books about Jackie, including new ones that reveal what a psychological mess (rather than pillar of strength) she was after that historic event.  She had the nerve to be human!

So I hope you will find this month lighthearted...

I'm wishing everyone the best for the coming year!

Missy


C 2014  MistressManifesto.blogspot.com  Missy Rapport  All Rights including International and Internet Copyrights.


UPDATE JANUARY 2017


  Just completed reading this book on Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, one of modern history's most fascinating women. You may find it interesting, as I did.  Subtitled, One Remarkable Year When Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Defied Expectations and Rediscovered Her Dreams, you learn that, though she had many advantages, and being famous and having marvelous social and other contacts certainly helped, Jackie still had to push herself forward.  The Chapters are titled,  The Wife, The Writer, The Preservationist, The Widow, The Target, The Seeker, The Hot Prospect, The Working Woman, The Empty Nester.


All of us go through transients or phases, and these chapter titles are telling.  Also useful to us here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT, is a Chapter that includes much about Jackie, her sister Lee, and their eccentric relatives Big and Little Edie.  Little Edie was our Mistress of the Month a while ago, and  you can find her in these pages using the search feature embedded in the Blogger sidebar.  The relationship was this.  Big Edie was the sister of Jackie's father, nicknamed Black Jack.  So Little Edie was the cousin of Jackie and Lee.  Like Jackie, Little Edie had been a "Farmington debutant."


C 2017  Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

TRIBUTE TO EDITH BOUVIER BEALE : YOU OUGHTA BE IN PICTURES

Love the tune that have been paired with the photos of Little Edie - in this fan video! She kept her figure into her fifties and her spirit forever!

GREY GARDENS ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY TRAILOR (1975) THE MAYSLES BROTHERS

The entire film may be on YouTube. I got it on CD. There is a second documentary by the same film makers. There is a film staring Jessica Lange as Big Edie and Drew Barrymore as Little Edie, there's a television show, there's a Broadway Musical...

BEAUTIFUL DEB WANTS TO BE AN AUTHOR... and her cousin JACKIE became an EDITOR OF LITERTURE.

MAYSLES FILMS OFFICIAL SITE

On the internet a number of reports about the pay the ladies received conflict.  Some day they were told they would get $5000 each but it was never paid.  Some say they got $5000 each but not film percentages.  While the film is now a "cult classic" I'm not sure that when it came out in 1975/6 it had much audience.

EDITH "LITTLE EDIE" BEALE ON MARRIED MEN

"I've sworn off bachelors.  They're boring, inconsiderate, pig-headed, stubborn, spoiled mama's boys who think they have a premium on women, which unfortunately they have - there being so many of us girls around.  But one has got to make the most in a difficult situation and that's why women in desperation have turned to married men.  Married men are generous and discreet.  They don't make a fuss, they don't stick around, and they let you have a career if you want one."

Edith Bouvier Beale in the 1940's