MARIA CALLAS : LA TRAVIATA : 1958 in LONDON

For those of you unfamiliar with opera, I offer you this link to the three acts which were adapted from a play by Dumas by Verdi.   ENO.ORG - OPERAS LA TRAVIATA

About this time Maria, born in 1923 was in her mid-thirties, still wanted a baby, was married but not happily and would face a difficult divorce.

MARIA CALLAS : METAMORPHASIS : THE END OF MARRIAGES andTHE BEGINNINGS OF A DIFFICULT RELATIONSHIP WITH ARISTOTLE ONASSIS

In her early thirties, soprano opera star Maria Callas finally lost the weight  that had plagued her and became fashionable. On stage she wore gorgeous costumes but it was now the time in her life to dress for her fans, the international public. In 1954 Maria went to a Swiss clinic where she accepted a new type of weight loss medical treatment; Special shots to stimulate the weight loss and injections into her thyroid. She lost 140 pounds and developed an hour-glass figure. She also had her teeth capped and surgery to slim her upper arms and lift her eyes. She had spa treatments like massages and facials. But the more fascinating fiction was the rumor that she had swallowed a tape worm in a glass of champagne out of desperation!

Then Maria Callas went out shopping and bought in excess. She possessed hundreds of dresses, hats, and shoes.

She was recording. She was performing. Her new beauty attracted to her even more men fans. Yet she was very married, and by the Italian way of thinking, however her confidence improved with her appearance, however "flirty" she might be at times, she was off limits.  Even if her marriage was one of "convenience" and her husband was rumored to go for fat prostitutes?

By 1949, Maria may have reached her most commanding and demanding phase, the Diva phase, you could say. She was having issues with her contracts, lawsuits had started to fly, and she was cast in the press as not just difficult, but a tyrant. However, she was also doing interviews and performances on television. Would we in our feminist consciousness think she was too demanding? Hadn't she earned the right to defy her husband as agent?

Her reason for living was singing but, some realized that her voice was in decline. After years of training and exercise, the sour or shrill note was noticed. In the 1958-1959 contract era, Maria Callas was fired from the Metropolitan, the opera company in New York that had been her goal in coming to America all those years before because she hesitated to sign the contract. However, she made appearances in many other cities in America and Europe and these productions might not have been the Met, but they were sold out.

And Maria Callas still wanted a child. Time was running out. She spoke of remarrying after her husband died just as rumors that she was infertile swirled. She was married when, after a performance, she met Aristotle Onassis and his much younger wife, Tina, who invited them to sail on the Christina, the Onassis pleasure ship. This first invitation was declined. Aristo's marriage with Tina had been breaking before he met Maria. Tina had two children with Aristotle but was bored with the jet set life style and her husband's abuse.

A society hostess, Elsa Maxwell, got herself into the situation, encouraging the two towards each other, and told Maria to take everything in life that was offered her. Meanwhile, Onassis' attitude towards love was that all women eventually had sex for money - so to speak.  Not outright cash but in exchange for jewelry, gifts, travel. He pursued Maria, claiming he was married in name only. She was flattered to be pursued by a man with such ardor, passion and intensity.  Maria began to have serious problems with her husband who she now considered to have been pimping her - as her manager. As confrontations with her husband increased, Maria was also not taking Aristo's calls. However, she well knew that the Italian attitude laws regarding divorce put her at a terrible disadvantage and then there was her career and reputation both as a woman and an artist.

The Principality of Monaco figured into the romance. The tiny principality might not have been officially owned by Onassis but he owned the casino and so the income into Monaco. And his boat, the Christina, named after his only daughter, was docked in Monaco.

Another invitation to cruise came from Onassis, who had the famous British Winston Churchill and his family aboard the Christina. This time Maria Callas and her husband, Giovanni Battista Meneghini, accepted the invitation.

Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis had things in common. They spoke Greek together. She laughed at his jokes. They dined alone. The two of them went to a holy site of the Greek Orthodox church, the religion they both were raised in, knelt together, and received a blessing: Maria would consider this to be like a marriage. (Though not divorced, her Italian marriage was not recognized by the Greek Catholic Church.) Then, it was clear to others on the Christina that Aristo and Maria were having an affair. Tina Onassis used the situation to her advantage in asking for a divorce from Aristotle. But, had Maria misunderstood her seduction?  Aristo had told her of his sexual exploits and at the end of the cruise he gave her a bracelet which was his way when he was through with a mistress.

Ten years younger than her husband, but still an "older man," Aristo became Maria's obsession. Back home in Milan she immediately asked her Giovanni for a divorce. Since she was an American citizen, Maria wanted to have a fast American divorce, which, at the time, was fastest in the state of Alabama. (Tina Onassis too would consider Alabama.) Maria's husband was not going to let her go easily.  He showed his character by using threats of International shame to keep her married to him. To the public she stated that Onassis had nothing to do with the divorce. Maria's horrible mother threatened to put a curse on her, again not concerned with her daughter's happiness, only that Maria continue to earn and keep her family in money. As rumors of the affair became international, Maria threatened to kill her mother.

Was Ari the real reason for demanding a divorce - finally - when her marriage had been a disappointment to her as a woman? According to Lyndsy Spence, whose book Cast a Diva, is the prime reference for my posts this month, here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot, Maria did become pregnant by Aristotle Onassis.

I'm aware from other books that this has been a controversial question.  Some suggest that Maria had a baby in secret and the child was adopted.

In 1959 Giovanni Battista Meneghini did file for a legal separation from Maria Callas.  The Italian law was in his favor and if she remarried without an Italian divorce, she might be considered a bigamist. Italy had been of great importance to her opera career. She worried that if she had a child, her husband would take it from her. Onassis wanted her to have an abortion and it was rumored his wife, Tina, had abortions as well. Maria had wanted a child for years and so it must have been crushing when, around her fourth month, she either had an abortion or a miscarriage.

In Monaco Arstoi and Maria and been photographed dancing together. She announced that they would marry, which he dismissed as a joke. By 1961, Onassis had gone on cruises on the Christina without Maria but also with her. There were opinions that she was loosing her voice, but could any opera singer go on for decades? Onassis became verbally abusive of Maria, and it was her weight and her looks, the things she had so little confidence because of, that he picked on.

It occurs to me that Onassis was one to enjoy the pursuit of a woman and that Maria seems to have been far more serious about him than he was to her. Did he ever actually love her?

I will continue on in the next posts about Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis...

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You may find other posts by searching for Onassis in the Google Blogger search feature!

MARI CALLAS BECOMES FAMOUS - NAZI OCCUPIED GREECE and THE LIBERATION CHALLENGE HER PERSONALLY : HER ATTITUDE ABOUT LOVE

From Chapter 3 and 4 of Lyndsy Spence's audiobook... My notes!  (In this we learn about Maria's take on love and marriage.)

Maria Callas, living in Greece, was already considered an artist and local star in 1943 when she sang at a benefit concert. Recognize in the streets, there was constant speculation about what man would become hers. She dealt with a seriously dysfunctional family, the demands of her superiors and the jealousy and gossip of her rivals at the opera. It is known that she had a romance with a man who she had known for a year, the son of a multi-millionaire who wined and dined her. Maria, whose sister was a Mistress being Kept by a man who supported her and her mother as well, did not want to feel obligated to return the "favors" in a sexual way. Her career was the most important thing to her. Like all of us, Maria was living through history, and in the Spring of 1944 the Nazi occupiers of Greece owned the National Opera. As she succeeded there were rumors that she was involved with an officer or a collaborator. She was in a terrible position. Sleeping with the enemy could put any woman in danger. Any woman living in that time and place was in danger of rape. The Greeks thought the German women were whores and the Germans were thought by the Italians to be barbarians... In tears due to accusations, she threatened to resign from the National Opera. But in October of 1944, came Liberation when the British and American troops came into Greece and Greece-based groups like the National Liberation Front and National People's Liberation Army took part in getting rid of the Nazi Germans. Dating but nothing serious, Maria, her family - most people, faced one of the worst winters in history.

Despite her career, the budding star was in danger of starvation. Having money didn't help because it was worthless. She saw a man die of starvation in front of her. National Opera members who had been collaborators were executed. Women who were collaborators - or suspected to be - had their heads shaved and were raped as punishment... The National Opera was closed. Then the Communists came into the mix and threatened to kill Maria and her mother and sister.  At one point they were down to a box of beans.

So there was Maria, who had struggled with eating and her weight, starving and afraid. Her mother found a job working as a Greek-English translator. But they were living in the "red zone" a dangerous area, and it was easy to be accused of something and pay the price, fair or not.  They lived without heat or electricity, behind drawn curtains, and burning rags for some heat during that brutally cold winter.  Finally a boy disguised as a vendor came to the house to bring Maria out of the "red zone" and into the British white zone. She left and the boy returned for her mother.  In the "white zone" she was able to wash in hot water and eat.  Though in 1945 peace was somewhat restored half a million refugees came into Athens.

Because Maria Callas was raised without a father in her life, there is speculation that this lead to her looking for a father figure in her romances.  She did begin a romance with an opera star who was about fifteen years older than she but denied going to bed with him.  He was married and already had a mistress as well, with whom he had two children. She was on friendly terms with both his wife and his mistress!  Sexual freedom was not a problem for him but she said she was an old fashioned woman.  In an ethereal way, Maria thought love was a kind of purification of the soul.  When he asked her to be his mistress, Maria declined. As she saw it a man might have more than one woman but a woman only had one man... She said she was not about to take him from two women and that she had to have to love with head and heart and only then could have sex. Her mother had a far away husband and a lover.  Her sister was a mistress. What was to happen for Maria? Despite the limitations that this friendship-romance presented, it ended badly, suggesting that Maria and the man were emotionally passionate.

When Maria was demoted at the National Opera and took a pay cut, something jealous rivals at the opera wanted, she secretly plotted her way back to the city of her birth - New York - and sought to make her dream of performing at the Metropolitan Opera true.

She had been secretly writing with her father since 1942 and when he became an American citizen, so did Maria. So, while she accepted the National Opera of Athens and signed a year contract with them in May of 1946, in August she went to the American Embassy where she was recognized as an American.  Still, she had to fund her travel somehow. So she leased a theater and did a farewell concert to earn the money.  She left with a couple dresses and not a cent in her pocket.  A loan from the United States government paid for her travel.

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TAKE FIVE : DAVE BRUBECK

KAZAN ON HIS CONFUSED AND MIXED FEELINGS ABOUT BARBARA

 

Excerpted from Google Books

(Kazan reports that he dreaded marrying Barbara, although he was free to and they had their son Leo. He reports that Barbara gave him an ultimatum, though she is also prepared to pack up her junk and move out. He reports that his friend has advised against it. He goes off to Europe, taking a woman he met in the park, doesn't know anything about, who when asked said she would go anywhere with him. However, in Europe he begins to write with extensive exploration into his own life, what becomes his book and film The Arrangement, saying that he could not write about Molly, his wife, and that the wife character is not Molly.  As he traveled from Greece to France and beyond, he also was having correspondences, and he wrote to Barbara and told her where he was going so she could write back to him.  Eventually the woman from the park ended her travel with Elia and Barbara agreed to meet up with him in Japan.

EXCERPT:  The basic premise was the same.  No enduring relationship was to be formed.  But as I went on planning the structure of my book, I found the character of the woman who stirred up the discontent (in the male character's life) of the hero was inspired by Barbara.  She had some sort of effect on me, one that I now dramatized in fiction. I felt a continuing interest in her and I also felt gratitude that the relationship was still meaningful for me.

... When she arrived I noticed a striking difference in her manner. A female wise in her sex might have tipped me off that this change was a manipulation, chosen to achieve an end.  I would never exclude craft from a place in Barbara's bag of techniques, nor would I deny that any dog could wag its tail and I'd be charmed. Sill I truly believed in her altered personality, even if it was an effort to reassure me that she could make good in a more permanent connection, one in which different personal qualities are required. I was delighted with how we were together for the next two weeks. She was always interesting, frequently surprising, ever loving, and would listen when I talked.. without her mind wandering as it often had in the past...

(He prolongs his stay in Japan two weeks because they are getting along so well. He even confesses that he had another woman along for the trip. But back in New York, he becomes determined to keep both women.)

Missy here: Hopefully you'll be intrigued enough to read this book for yourself.  The feeling I got was that Barbara was not being manipulative, that she was changing and actually becoming more independent and accommodating as much as she could, but that Kazan felt entitled.  If she behaved as he did, such as being secretive about where she was or who with, he resented it.  

Have you ever been in such a situation yourself?  If so, leave me a comment!

ELIA KAZAN : AN EXCERPT ON WHEN BARBARA'S SON WAS BORN

 

I was unable to obtain this book, copyright 1988, to read it cover to cover but was able to excerpt due to Google Books. - Missy

"On the second of January, 1962, I flew to Stockholm to publicize a film I'd recently completed, Splendor In The Grass.  The big studios were still doing things in style in those years, and we stayed at a hotel where we were attended by servants who looked as if I should be serving them.

On the day after our arrival I received a cable from New York  City informing me by a prearranged code, that I'd had a new son by a woman not my wife.  I can't remember that I was flustered. I went to a press conference and did my best to "push" my film."

At the time, Barbara continued to be married to her first husband, Larry.  The relationship with Kazan was a bit off and on, but ultimately, after the death of his first wife, Molly, who had been married to Elia for many years, he was free to marry Barbara.  Despite his having had many affairs of shorter duration while married to Molly, and while involved with Barbara, Elia married Barbara.

Missy here: Ultimately I feel that Elia Kazan was not a man who could be faithful to any one woman. He had earned respect as a film director and certainly met a lot of women, famous and not. I keep wondering though how much the sexual revolution and a new urge for sexual exploration and "loving the one you're with" had to do with the choices that these people made to accept what would have been considered to be marital infidelity or adultery just a few years earlier.

Are we "liberated" by having sex with whomever we wish? Does a man prone to Mistresses get a new one after he marries one?  I'm not sure we have the answers to these questions a half a century later. 

CLEO DE MERODE TRIES TO TAKE NEW YORK BUT FAILS

Cleo de Merode arrived in New York City in 1896 at the height of her fame in Europe where the Germans and Austrians loved her as much as the French and the first locally taken photos of her appeared in September of that year in the New York Journal.

She had hopes of attaining even greater fame and fortune but she failed. My notion is that perhaps during this era when so many were leaving Europe to immigrate to America and leave behind allegiance to Kings the supposed consort of a King seemed to be just too Old School, from the Europe they left behind. 

According to Michael D.Garval, the author other book on Cleo that was a primary reference for this month's posts, there's the possibility that Americans were merely curious about what Paris thought of as beautiful when they went to see her. They might also have been disappointed in her skills at dance. In New York she presented herself as the star of a ballet called Phryne on Broadway.  Perhaps they were expecting "a spectacle of sexuality" and got classical dance instead and felt disappointed.

Cleo danced at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris when she was twenty-five. (Colorized videos are being posted this month thanks to YouTube contributors.) Watching them it seems to me her presentations were graceful and modest rather than exotic. Was it that her modest performances didn't live up to her racy or sensationalized reputation? Cleo would end her dancing career around the age of thirty-nine, having begun at seven. It was a long run and is still typical of dancers who are often suffering from injuries and arthritis by forty.

Her apparent failure in New York City didn't stop the dancer from continuing on in her tour of America.  She appeared in Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, and smaller cities in the Midwest.

But then, what did she do until she died at ninety-one?

Had she made a fortune to sustain her? Or had she been given gifts enough to sell? 

Perhaps we will never know the details but the world would hear of Cleo De Merode again long after she had been a star.

C 2021 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

My notes from the book on Cleo by Michael D. Garval included

EVA BRAUN - LIFE WITH HITLER : HEIKE B GORTEMAKER

Back in June 2010, when I was just getting into the groove with this blog, I elected Eva Braun Mistress of the Month.  It was easy to think of Eva because she was one of the most known, infamous, 20th century Mistresses ever and her story of being married at the very last moment to Adolf Hitler before the two of them commit suicide makes us wonder how she ever got involved, stayed with, and endured with a man who was so evil.  Was she also evil?

Since then I've covered some other Mistresses who are part of the Holocaust history. You can find posts about them in the archives.  November 2017 was dedicated to Righteous Gentile Oskar Schindler's (i.e. of the film Schindler's List) Mistresses.  That month included a post about Ruth Irene Kalder, the Mistress of Nazi War Criminal Amon Goth (also in that film).   June 2018 brought forth a new question about to CoCo Channel, the fashion designer, as I asked if she was a Nazi Spy or simply a Society Woman in Love due to her affair with Baron Hans Guther Von Dincklage.

I recently read a book about Eva called  EVA BRAUN - Life with Hitler by Heike B. Gortemaker

EXCERPT: 

Page 85 "THE DIARY"

Meanwhile, hardly any letters or personal documents exist from the dictator himself or from his companion of many years that shed any light on the nature of their relationship, or Eva Braun's role, or how she saw her role. It's well known that Hitler rarely wrote private letters, aside from thank-you notes or birthday cards. His secretary Christa Schroder, in fact, stated immediately after the end of the war that he had considered hit "his great strength" that "even in the years of struggle he wrote no letters." Such letters might have fallen, "into the wrong hands" and been "exploited." He also, before his suicide, made sure to destroy the greater part of his private correspondence, of which there was presumably little to begin with. Julius Schaub, hs adjutant of many years, left the bunker in Berlin for this reason at the end of April 1945, on direct orders from Hitler, in order to burn the private letters and files stored in safes at Hitler's Munich apartment and at the Berghof.

Here is a New Yorker review of the book by Meredith Blake.

NEW YORKER BOOKS: EVA BRAUN CIPHER SILLY COW or SOMETHING ELSE?
Dispelling all these myths?

EXCERPT:  For instance, unlike other biographers, she rejects the assumption that Hitler and Braun did not have a normal sex life; the book even includes a story about a couch where they shared many an assignation -- and where Neville Chamberlain later sat.  The author also doesn't buy the idea that Braun was anything less than a passionate believer in Nazism.  "She was in the loop and knew what was going on.  She was no mere bystander." Gortemaker explained to the Observer. 


Heike B. Gortemaker's book was translated from the German by Damion Seals Alfred A. Knopf, New York is the Publisher

Translation copyright 2011 by Damon Seals

Originally published under C 2010 Verlag C.H. Beck oHG, Munch called Eva Braun: Leban mit Hitler

LUCY MERCER RUTHERFURD : FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT's MISTRESS WHOSE EXISTENCE WRECKED ELEANOR and ENHANCED HIS LIFE

LUCY MERCER RUTHERFURD

1891-1948

Their relationship never really ended, though after they ended the affair and she married another man, it may have been a deep friendship; Lucy Mercer managed to attend his Presidential Inaugurations (four of them) as Mrs. Rutherfurd; she'd married an older rich man after Franklin said he could not leave his marriage. She called him at the White House, using the code name Mrs. Paul Johnson. She came back into the President's life and visited him at the White House, Hyde Park, and Warm Springs (The Little White House) when in her 50's and fifteen years after their affair. She was there at Warm Springs, the Polio rehab resort that Roosevelt purchased and turned into a non profit, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt died. 

When they first met, she was an upper class woman living in genteel poverty who needed to work to pay the rent and help her mother. Lucy Mercer was hired by Franklin's wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, to be her social secretary, thus entering the Roosevelt home as an employee. She was 18 and had just finished school in Europe. She was paid $30 a week - not bad for the times. She was ladylike and some thought her bearing regal.

Lucy began her relationship with the future President of the United States before Polio crippled his legs. Before he entered politics.

*

Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife and eventual First Lady of the United States, is a feminist icon today but back in the day she was primarily a loyal and dutiful wife and mother who was defined by the expectations of Upper Crust Society and Christian womanhood. Eleanor was just fifteen years old when she went to Allenwood, a private school in England, to be educated, the founder an "out" lesbian. At eighteen she came to New York and debuted in 1902 as marriage ready, a spectacle she dreaded and fled as soon as she could. (Shades of our Mistress of the Month Edie Bouvier - Mistress of the Month - August 2014). No great beauty and unsure of herself, Eleanor was destined to do charity work and be a wife and mother. She joined the Junior League and would later work with the poor in a Settlement House but as Camilla Parker Bowles (our Mistress of the Month for May 2010 and April 2016) and  Pamela Digby Churchill Harriman (March and April this year), also experienced, finding a husband was the reason for being a debutante. Importantly, in 1902, President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was more related to Eleanor than Franklin, but the families had high expectations since one of their own achieved this most important office.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt came from one of America's oldest families Old Dutch and Protestant. His mother's wealth kept him in line with her expectations. He was a Preppie, graduating from Groton and then onto Harvard where he was most known for his athletics, his membership in The Fly Club, a graduate of the class of 1904.  

It was FDR's dominating mother who threw him a three day house party at their estate, Hyde Park. Eleanor and her maid stayed the duration. Their connection as cousins wasn't first cousins as their common ancestor lived five generations earlier and she was more closely related to Teddy, the President. He was still at Harvard, not yet in Columbia Law School. Perhaps FDR wanted a broodmare of a wife and nothing more at that age. Oddly, when their surprising engagement occurred, it was his mother who was so against the marriage that she asked them to keep it a secret for a year. For the rest of their lives just about everyone thought them to be an ill matched couple. When the marriage fractured upon the revelation l of his relationship with Lucy Mercer, it was his mother who was against divorce.

Though he was tall, handsome, and known for his energy and she was plain and awkward, her looks being commented upon as such for her entire life, both had their own incomes. Eleanor brought to the marriage an annual $8000 a year (about $169,000 in 2008 dollars), while he brought $5000.  This was not enough for the lifestyle they wanted and his mom provided the extras such as private school educations for their children. The couple destined for an enduring but not happy marriage wed March 17, 1905. She was 20 and he was 23, both likely virgins. They both left others with broken hearts - or at least others who were interested. Their wedding was shared with New York - a parade even - attended by New York Society. But the poor Mercers did not attend.  Lucy Mercer was just fourteen years old.

Tall, blue eyed, with almost blonde thick hair, with beautiful skin and voice, poised and chic, Lucy Mercer was hired (as May Pang, May 2012 Mistress of the Month had been by Yoko Ono, ex Beatle John Lennon's wife) to be an in home secretary. Franklin had begun his law career and four years later was still a clerk - nothing illustrious to brag about. He went clubbing - the Knickerbocker, Harvard, the Yacht Club, without Eleanor and started thinking about politics, even dreaming about the American Presidency.  After bearing two children, his mom, in 1908, bought them a brownstone in New York and decorated it - right next door to hers - leaving Eleanor to feel she had no home of her own. Summers for Eleanor and the children were spent at Campobello Island, also dominated by his mom. The Roosevelt's were starting to live separate lives.

In 1913, eight years married, FDR achieved his first step towards the Presidency, when he was sworn in as assistant to the Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson. He wasn't going to be home much.  Eleanor's social obligations to visit other women increased her work load as she was expected, in those days so long before social networking on the Internet, to physically call on others to say hello. She could leave a card or end up spending hours. She had to make about thirty (30) calls each afternoon, visiting other wives of government officials. Lucy Mercer and her mom were now living in Washington D.C.  When in late 1913 Lucy Mercer was hired part time to help Eleanor as her Social Secretary, the children liked her too.  By now there were five.  So did Franklin, who also started giving her work.  He was 34 years old.

By 1916, World War I era, Lucy and Franklin were in love. He kept delaying his visit to Campobello Island. In 1917 Eleanor was still oblivious and having Lucy over for dinners and including eligible men as guests. But the dutiful wife pickled up a vibe and fired her.  Five days later FDR found the way to keep her around.  He got Lucy hired as a Yeoman  (or Yoemanette) 3rd class (F) Serial 1160, in the Navy, with a year taken off her age of 26 to his 35.  She was enlisted.  In uniform now, she also earned enough money to pay the rent for her and her mother.  She still went to the Roosevelts home and did work for Franklin in Eleanor's absence. 

Among the gossips in their family and social circle the affair was known. Certain people were providing them places to meet up and invited them to social events as a couple.  Yet Lucy in 1917 also met Winthrop Rutherfurd, an older and rich man, a widower with six children who needed a mom. As the passion of their relationship heated up, Franklin and Lucy became reckless.  Lucy was a Catholic and there was speculation that the two were just sweethearts, not sexually involved.  But shortly after Lucy got promoted as a Yoeman because of her perfect work, she was suddenly discharged from the Navy by Special Order of the Secretary of the Navy. Clearly some people thought what Franklin was doing to Eleanor was wrong and wanted to break them up.  As a result Lucy had to go work for Franklin at his office and he he had to support her.

In the summer of 1918, with World War I keeping him busy, he left town for a couple months.  Eleanor found the letters that Lucy had written to Franklin in his absence. She was utterly devastated, injured emotionally, psychologically, and physically, and become so ill she could not stomach even a Communion wafer. He arrived home ill so she waited till he was well to confront him.  She offered him a divorce.  Adultery at the time was considered tolerable but divorce not.  Now her ally, Franklin's mother said she would cut him off financially if he divorced.  What of his political ambition?  FDR lied to Lucy, saying that Eleanor would not give him a divorce. Nor did he explain that in order to avoid divorce he had agreed to give her up as well as never again sleep in the same bed as Eleanor...

Winthrop Rutherfurd was a great catch though 29 years older than Lucy Mercer.  In 1919, the handsome and debonair man who once courted Consuelo Vanderbilt before she married the 9th Duke of Marlborough (Blenheim Palace), was in his late 50's.  He had homes in Washington, New York, Paris - and an estate in New Jersey.  He was one of their set.  Once friends with Eleanor's father and President Theodore Roosevelt, her cousin.  He supposedly had affairs until he settled down to be married near 40 years old in 1902 to the Vice President's daughter. She had died.

In 1920 Lucy was engaged to marry him and didn't want Franklin to find out in the newspapers so she asked that he hear about it in passing during a social visit of some mutual friends.  Apparently when Franklin did hear about it, he was as we say today, tweaked.

In her marriage to Winthrop, Lucy found love and position.The six children Winthrop had prior to their marriage loved her.  She and Winthrop had one child of their own, a daughter. The relationship endured until his death.  

But, she and Franklin kept in touch.  He had a massive cerebral hemorrhage and she packed up and left - perhaps not wanting to be found there at his end where his family should be. She called from the road to learn he had indeed died.

And so the saga went.  Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945. He left half his estate to his wife, Eleanor, and half to, not Lucy, who was well to do in her own right due to her marriage, and half to Missy LeHand.  Lucy died of Leukemia at the age of 57, on July 31, 1948.


Missy

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MIKE TODD and GYPSY ROSE LEE - BEFORE ELIZABETH TAYLOR?

Gypsy Rose Lee starred on Broadway and rumors were that she and Michael Todd, who would marry actress Elizabeth Taylor, had a thing, and that Gypsy was crazy about him.

Image replaced June 2021

MAY FUNG YEE PANG : MISTRESS OF EX BEATLE JOHN LENNON - MISTRESS OF THE MONTH

Some think of her as a groupie, but if you read the latest greatest book on John Lennon called John Lennon: the Man, the Myth, the Music -The Definitive Life by Tim Riley, you'll find out otherwise. May Pang was not a groupie.

May was an employee of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's, a personal assistant handling thousands of details from making coffee to finding flies for one of Yoko's movies, working first for their manager and then in their home. Ten years younger than John, she was hesitant when she began to have an affair with John. Yoko set it up. Then John and May fell in love.

May herself has two books. One is called "Loving John" which came out years ago. In 2011 she put out a book of photographs that she took during her affair with John called "Instamatic Karma"! I read them both.

May Pang was John Lennon's mistress. She calls her relationship that. She was in his life in some capacity for ten years and continued to have sex with him or see him once in a while years after he went back to his wife, even when he and Yoko were more interested in PRing their relationship than giving May the support she deserved; she was left near penniless and her career ruined with a hard recover.

In the years that she was John Lennon's mistress, she traveled with the ex Beatle. While Yoko set out to eliminate John's relationship with his son Sean, May encouraged him to reignite it.

Many of John's friends liked her and thought she was very good for him. It was a while before May learned that Yoko had cancelled her salary, while she continued to, through all of this work hard to make Lennon's life easy. Though he was wealthy, he had no cash flow. Perhaps this accounts for how cheap the multimillionaire really was. Or maybe he just wanted to find out if May loved him even if they had no real money to spend.

When it ended, and John ended it, rather mysteriously, just when they were planning to buy a house and live together, it was not a total shock to May's mind, just to her heart. Yoko, it is said in more than one book, may have even had John hypnotised to break the relationship and have him back to her. Maybe, simply, John was a coward or passive agressive and wanted some way out.

What's strange with this picture? Yoko.

MAY PANG'S OFFICIAL WEB SITE LINKED HERE.

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