NATHANIEL BRANDEN - BARBARA BRANDEN - FRANK O'CONNOR OBITUARIES

NY TIMES OBIT FOR NATHANIEL  2014: entitled Nathaniel Branden, a Partner in Love and Business with Ayn Rand, Dies at 84, I think that's a rather brave title.

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As a note Branden was married four times.

Ayn Rand exited him from her will, and she said she would destroy him.  She said she would stop the publication of his boo, The Psychology of Self Esteem.  In 1968 she let it be known that she had broken with Nathaniel. Barbara, Nathaniel's wife began to think that Ayn's mental health was deteriorating.  Rand accused of both Barbara and Nathaniel 

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NY TIMES OBIT FOR BARBARA 2013 : entitled Barbara Branden, Biographer of Ayne Rand, Dies at 84.

Excerpt:  Ms. Branden and her former husband, Nathaniel Branden, were at the center of Ms. Rand's inner circle during its heyday in the 1950's and '60s. a following that included future scholars and economists, most notably Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, who went on to shape the conservative Republican and libertarian movements.

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NEW YORK TIME OBIT FOR FRANK 1979 : entitled Charles Francis O'Connor, Artist, Husband of Ayn Rand

Excerpt: Every hero was modeled after him," Miss Rand said.  "I sometimes took an entire monologue from him and slipped it into my book.  When I couldn't think of a title for one of my novels, he did.  He told the whole story in two words.:  Mr. O'Connor's two word title was "Atlas Shrugged."

NEW YORK TIMES OBIT FOR AYN 1982

Excerpt: Miss Rand was perhaps best known for her novels "The Fountainhead" of 1943, for which she wrote the screenplay when it was turned into a movie with Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal, and "Atlas Shrugged," published in 1957.  From the 1960's on, she increasingly devoted herself to expouinding her views more directly, in such books as "The Virtue of Selfishness" (1965) and "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal." (1966)

She also served as editor of The Objectivist, a monthly journal, from 1962-1971 and wrote The Ayn Rand Letter from 1971-1976.  Her philosophy of objectivism holds that only individual ability and effort account for real achievement and that laissez-faire capitalism provides the optimal environment for talent.  her view of selfishness as a virtue and altruism as a vice as a reversal of the traditional Judeo-Christian ethic.

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TWENTY FOUR YEAR OLD NATHANIEL BRANDEN IS SEDUCED BY FORTY-NINE YEAR OLD AYN RAND

 

Missy here.  I wish I could think of Ayn Rand's husband, Frank O'Connor, as her creative muse, but it seems he fulfilled another role in her life, one of unending support - the unselfish one. Nathaniel Branden, though intelligent, educated, and heading for a career as a psychologist, seems to have fallen under Ayn's spell.

Excerpt page 256:  Nonetheless, he felt an unfamiliar sense of elation, power, even mastery.  The woman with the magnificent eyes and the penetrating mind was looking to him for romance; and when he looked back at her, "the image (of myself) I saw reflected (in her eyes) was that of a god," he later wrote.  "I am in love with you, " he said aloud.  It was a fiction that would last fourteen years.

It wasn't a conscious fiction, not at first.  That they had fallen in love struck them both as philosophically inevitable and romantically and morally correct.

That first afternoon, they told each other that whatever they did they would not hurt each other or their spouses.  Rand suggested that the affair would be "nonsexual" in the ultimate sense," meaning that their lovemaking would stop short of intercourse.  Brandon agreed, disappointed but also relieved, he recalled.  As crusaders for integrity and honesty, they also prepared to present the fact to Frank and Barbara. They decided to ask permission to meet by themselves twice a week....

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And actually, they all four met.  Ayn and Nathaniel claimed that this did not mean they did not also continue to love their spouses. So, as I see it, they altered their relationships and were now in Open Marriage.  A couple months later they revamped the agreement to include full sexuality.  Barbara also felt that her frustrating sex life with her husband was part of the reason.  But Barbara was not well, suffering nightmares and panic. Nathaniel, who was enrolled in a master's degree program at NYU began to play therapist with his wife - and others - using Rand's theories.  Evolved a whole language of ideas about a person's psychological state.  By my way of thinking, what this all amounted to is psychological abuse of Barbara. If she could not find this change in her relationship with her husband acceptable then she was blamed.  Objectivists could not also be Emotionalists, like Barbara.

By the fall of 1958 Ayn herself was depressed despite increasing wealth and being in demand as a speaker and lecturer. She was also having to face literary criticism and took to secluding herself. She remained depressed until early 1961. She smoke and drank coffee. She had also begun using stimulants by prescription and may have used the drugs to lift her mood, loose weight, or get wired.  Frank O'Connor didn't desert his wife, but he also withdrew.

Missy

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WHY ARE YOU AGAINST FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS MISSY? IS THIS TYPE OF RELATIONSHIP THE SLIPPERY SLOPE TO BEING A MISTRESS?

Question for Missy:

Missy, I want to know why you're against Friends With Benefits  I'm 21 and a senior in college.  I'm smart and I use contraception.  I have two friends I have sex with.  We think this is a good way to avoid having sex with partners who would want more with us.  We're not ready to get married to anyone.

Becky

UCLA - Los Angeles

Answer from Missy:

I'm for Choice and respect that the Friends With Benefits lifestyle is your choice at this time in your life. However, it's possible that you might be missing out on being completely available to someone else who might be an excellent choice as a partner in your life in your youthful stage.  Let's face it that as the years go by it's more difficult to meet someone to partner with, not impossible but more difficult. Many college students find their first partners while at school. After that is a career building period, with many feeling themselves established and seeking a first marriage in their late twenties. Into your thirties a great number of previously available potential partners are already in commitments. I tend to think a woman should consider being a Mistress only after having experienced their twenties - early thirties. By then a person probably knows themselves well enough.

Right now you're sort of man sharing and maybe you'll also find that an interesting way to live your life as a Mistress. Here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot we continue to try to define what a 21st Century Mistress is or is not. We know being a Mistress does not necessarily mean adultery or being involved with a person who is married. We also know that there are many who give it a try and do not like it. The days of the Classic Mistress, a woman who is fully supported for her lifetime by a rich married man, may be over. We also know that the best mistresses are not known to us.

I tend to think that a woman should experience her sexuality and figure out where she's at with it before she partners. I also tend to think this, which I recently shared with a man I know. I said to him - and to you - and my readers - that idealistically I think it should be that people get to experience loving in many ways and with many people - with everyone in the know and unbothered by jealousy - but pragmatically we choose commitment to have and hold family. In the Western world the majority do marry and attempt to restrict their lives to just one partner, making those in Open Relationships or who share a partner with someone else in the minority.

And though there are women who Keep men, and there are women who have more than one lover at a time, it's usually men who have arrangements such as this.

So check in with yourself Becky, and ask yourself if you're the type to happily remain independent and relatively unattached, and what it would be to have great sex with someone you love rather than with a friend you like. Will you be OK when one or both of your Friends With Benefits partners end it with you because they found someone Special?

Missy

JOHNNIE RAY HAS OTHER MEN and DOROTHY : HUSBAND RICHARD FINALLY CONFRONTS THE COUPLE : THE PASSIONATE LOVE AFFAIR ENDS

Notes and Excerpts:

It seems that Dorothy's understanding that Johnnie was bisexual may not have been any more sophisticated than his own understanding of it.  He had other men, some living with him at his home, while he had his passionate affair with Dorothy.  According to this book, she was jealous of other women but not these other men. She even went out with him and some of his men on the town. Perhaps she didn't know he was not sexually loyal to her. While some of these men might have been leeching off Johnnie and tagging along on their dates, Dorothy may have become clingy at this point in their affair. It's reported that Johnnie avoided some of her phone calls and did not want to have her over, creating a boundary there for his other personal life. She might not have thought him capable of sexuality with anyone else, because he spent so much time with her. 

Unlike with her husband, she was sexually fulfilled with Johnnie.  

As 1960 went on, Dorothy found that her celebrity had caused a curiosity about her that was resulting in media interest as well.  She found herself roasted in some media and took to having to defend herself.

While some people were horrified by her affair with Johnnie Ray, there were those who genuinely liked her and liked Johnnie, separately and as a couple. One man said, 'He is so kind, so innately generous... "  However, people who were in the know felt she was not being realistic about there being a future for her with the much younger singer. Johnnie might have lead her to believe he wanted a future with her too. There were those in his camp who thought she was not good for him. By 1962, the hard drinking with Johnnie had taken a toll on Dorothy's health as well and she may have been checking into hospitals to withdraw from not only alcohol but pills too! It's thought that her heath went downhill after this. (And the portrayal of Dorothy as in need of rehab in this book makes the idea that she could not have died of an overdose a bit more realistic.)

'One night in early 1963, Dorothy, Johnnie, Allen, and a large group of frolickers did the town in several limousines. They all drank heavily.  While the rest of the group returned to Johnnie's, the singer and the columnist went off on their own.

They stopped at the Left Bank (Richard's restaurant) and, with Richard present, they necked.  Richard attempted to ignore the situation. They were at a table and he was at the bar. His bartender watched the couple until he could tolerate it no longer and whispered to Richard, "Are you just going to stand here and let her humiliate you like that?"

Richard ordered another drink and said nothing.

Johnnie took Dorothy home to her town house. The two of them were fondling in the Black Room when Richard, bold with booze, burst in on them.

He screamed at Johnnie:  "I'll kill you if I ever see you with my wife again."

"That is entirely her decision," Johnnie said.

"I want you out of here and out of her life," Richard raged.

As Johnnie put on his jacket and prepared to leave, Dorothy, her entire face trembling, begged; "I want to go with you now. Please take me with you. I don't want to be in this house anymore."

Johnnie recalled the episode and all the reasons he marshaled against her desperate imploration: "I thought very fast. I knew that if she were to walk out - and she was ready - everything would collapse for her. I explained to her that she'd lose the column, the television show, everything she had worked a lifetime to achieve. She said she didn't care about any of it.  And I thought about Kerry. I told her, "I'm gonna have to walk out and leave you here.' (page 347)

And though she begged, Johnnie, aided by his friends, tried to make the final cut with Dorothy, who even threatened to kill herself. No doubt she was obsessed with him. Is obsession love? I wonder who hasn't had an experience like this. Dorothy ended up hospitalized and the Dorothy and Dick radio program ended after many years. This passage in Lee Israel's fine autobiography of Dorothy leaves me to think that the marriage was not an agreed-upon Open marriage and that she did have a serious drinking problem and was also psychologically unwell. By mid 1964 Johnnie had moved on and Dorothy had accepted the situation.  (That Richard threatened to kill Johnnie and the idea that he had cause, made Richard Killer a possible murder suspect when Dorothy was found dead, however this is not explored in Israel's book.)  Johnnie Ray became involved romantically with the younger man who came into his life to rescue or revive his career.  As it turned out, Dorothy flew to Las Vegas to see him perform shortly before she died, and this was the last she saw him.

 

Over the last few weeks we have learned so much about the woman Dorothy Kilgallen, who was willing to give it all up to be with her lover, Johnnie Ray, while the book by Mark Shaw is focused on her as an investigative reporter. What I want to know is if Johnnie Ray accepted that Kerry was his son and if he was at least a friend to him.

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DOROTHY KILGALLEN'S AFFAIR WITH JOHNNIE RAY: SHE BIRTHS A THIRD CHILD AND THE FATHER IS NOT LIKELY HER HUSBAND :

 Notes and Excerpts:

Dorothy was competitive by nature and liked to win, so when she became a panelist on the television game show What's My Line, she was respected, if not enjoying a camaraderie with her fellow panelists; their various personalities made the show, which involved guessing the profession (i.e. line of work) of a guest. Her career in reportage continued. In 1953 she covered the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II wearing 'a voluminous gown with more than fourteen thousand embroidered jewels and pearls that were encrusted at the scalloped neckline.  She placed a tiara on her head, put on her white mink cape lined in silver lame, grabbed some pencils, and was off to Westminster Abbey. ... Dorothy's apparent fragility continued to bring out the chivalric in the male animal... (page 238)

(With her husband Richard Kollmar's endeavers in the theater and a restaurant called The Left Bank, he was rarely around. She was tremendously busy too. However, she did not want to be seen socially without a male escort and usually found one.  As for Richard, as he hit middle age, he was rarely totally sober and began to bloat while Dorothy was healthy and energetic. She found other men attractive and had lost respect for her husband. Never the less, the couple bought a five story town house right off Park Avenue, a another upgrade in housing, this one taking most of their income. They had been married fourteen years.)

Excerpt: 'The union that produced their third child was suspiciously identifiable. They were late for a dinner party at the Boscowitzes, offering a flushed and clearly bogus excuse.  Hubie and Lillian giggled at their embarrassment and could pinpoint, years later, the evening Dorothy had conceived. ... He was named Kerry after a county seat in Ireland and Ardan for an Irish warrior who, Dorothy wrote, "was said to have the most beautiful singing voice in all Erin.' (page 253)

'In the early part of 1956, Johnnie Ray appeared on 'What's My Line? as a guest celebrity.  The twenty-nine year old singer, sandy-haired and boyishly lanky, was still headlining in clubs, though the hysteria of the early 1950's had cooled. He remained, however, one of Dorothy's pet-pailletted crushes.  Endsville!' (page 278) 

(After this evening, the two saw each other socially and she started being nice to him in her columns. She was 44 and this was her first affair. They even went to The Left Bank restaurant together but she never joined him when he went on the road to tour.)

'Johnnie did not possess the polish and panache to which Dorothy had gravitated all her life.  He was tender, guileless, show-biz smart but essentially neither intellectual nor verbal... (page 279)

'Johnnie, Johnnie, Johnnie lit up the life she had.  She mentioned him so often and so effusively in the column that he had to tel her to cool it. (page 280)

'She came to Johnnie with staggering emotional and physical appetites  She had not had any sexual relations with Richard for years... (page 283)

'Johnnie was fond of Dorothy and attracted to her, and a bit in awe.  He did not have the macho peer problem that turned so many men off. That she was not regarded by the community as beautiful did not affect his feeling for her or his pride in being seen with her... "She was probably the most feminine woman I've ever known, " Johnny said. "And I always thought she was a pretty lady - the softest thing you ever touched...' (page 283)

'She bought him gifts from Bergdorf's and Cartier including a pair of cuff links with diamonds and sapphires, which he was afraid to wear because of their value.  He sent her lavender roses when he could get them from his little corner florist. "They were almost steel-blue and gorgeous,  I think they were brought in from Holland...  She was as sentimental as a pop tune.  Johnnie was constantly receiving surprise packages... (pages 286-287)

(Some of her friends didn't like him and some dumped her. After some time Dorothy and Johnnie became less discreet. They were excessively together and sometimes openly affectionate.  People thought Dorothy had radically changed.  Johnnie considered himself heterosexual and Dorothy thought of homosexuals as feminine men, which Johnnie was not.)

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COMING UP : AN INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST TRIES TO REOPEN A DEATH INVESTIGATION OF A HIGH POWERED WOMAN IN AN OPEN MARRIAGE

Hello My Dear Readers!

Over the next two months I'll be delving into the Open Marriage and Love Affair of a Reporter who ended up suspiciously dead. 

I was going to do what I usually do, and devote one month to this married woman, who was not a Mistress in the traditional sense, and perhaps instead Kept her husband, while being a bit of a Sugar Mama to a man who didn't need her money.  But, with luck, I was able to obtain two more juicy books that I found enhanced my understanding - and will yours - and as I bookmarked and excerpted from three books and tried to fit it all in 30 days, reasonably spaced, I realized there was no way I could be fair to my subject without giving it two months.

This story has interested me for a couple years now and I think it will interest you also.

It is also my hope that increased interest in this case will help the investigative journalist who has done so much to create interest in the first place, through intensive research, book publications, and speaking engagements, that include interviews on radio and can be found in YouTube videos, further his quest to get an investigation into her death opened.

Missy

ALICE DE JANZE - THE AMERICAN HEIRESS WHO LOVED AFRICA MORE THAN ANY MAN OR HER CHILDREN

As part of our inquiry to the Happy Valley Set of Kenya, Africa, a group of people who had Open Relationships, who had affairs, and who often divorced and remarried in the 1920's through 1940's, this month we look at the life of an American heiress and ex-pat named Alice De Janze. Born Alice Silverhorne, also a debutant, Alice and her first husband went to Africa and stayed with Lady Idina Sackville at a time when Sackville was called The Life of the Party.  A few years later, when Idina was pregnant while still married to her then-husband Josslyn Hay, she was concerned that he might not stay with her.  So she invited her best friend Alice De Janze and her husband to come and keep Jossyln entertained, choosing who he might have an affair with, in an attempt to control him. Alice did have an affair with Joss.  She probably had a place in her heart for him for many years. Alice, an American heiress, is thought to have been mentally ill, most likely with some form of mood disorder. She had been suicidal at times since her youth. Her life was wracked with violence - including her own. When he was murdered, she was a suspect.

ALICE SILVERHORNE

The author's mother was friend of Alices and in writing this book 

he wanted to set the story straight.

1899 - 1941

Overall, in my reading, the lives of these British aristocrats and other wealthy and important people who chose lives in Kenya over America or Europe, do not seem essentially happy. Some of them worked, even worked hard physically, many did not have to work at all, and it seems they did some hard partying.  The reason the Wanjohi Valley was called Happy was that the high altitudes were said to enhance the effects of alcohol. They almost all drank and some also used morphine or heroin and possibly other drugs. (The only thing missing was the Rock and Roll!) Alice was not a Kept Woman, rather her independent means meant that men were interested in her money. Did she mind?

I'll focus a bit on the scandal in her life a little later in this blog. Right now let's learn

about Alice's childhood and her wealth.  She was born in Buffalo, New York, then the nations 8th largest city, which had its own millionaire's row! Her mother was a society beauty from Chicago and her father was a self-made man, very successful in business and it would seem, rarely home. Her mother's family may have been one of the riches in America at the time. Alice was, like many aristocratic children, home schooled - tutored. She was destined to be a debutant and to have a life of opportunity and advantage. 

But as we know since we've featured a number of debutants here at Mistress Manifesto, the reason for a presentation to society is marriage, early marriage, and the propagation of family through having children as a duty. The Chicago debutant scene bored Alice. She went to jazz clubs. She associated with mobsters and might have had an affair with one. Her mother's family prevailed in moving her towards marriage.

Alice's mother had died at the young age of 35, when Alice was a young girl. Her father rapidly married a cousin of her mothers, who he might have been having an affair with before his wife died. Her father had spent lavishly on her and spoiled her but there was something amiss with their relationship. In 1913 her mother's side of the family had taken action to take her away from her father and his new wife.  Alice reportedly never saw him again. Reading between the lines it might have been that he was inappropriate with her. Her childless Aunt Tattie became her new legal guardian when she was 13 years old. Alice was sent to Mt. Vernon Seminary, a private not religious school in Washington D.C. Alice was devastated at this change in her life. At 16 she was miserable enough to have first tried to take her life. 

Alice came into her inheritance at 18 and her Aunt set her up in an apartment in Paris. It was the jazz age there too but Aunt Tattie was satisfied that she had gotten Alice away from bad influences in America. Alice got a job at a small fashion house. A job was unexpected for a young woman of her wealth an status. She worked long hours but still went out into the Parisian night to clubs where she met celebrities and artists - but no more Chicago mobsters.

Alice did marry. She was 21 and her groom, Count Frederic de Janze was 25.  He came from a family of the French nobility but his mother was an American of Early American lineage. He was Cambridge educated and had already served in World War I so no worry that she might become one of the many thousands of women who lost their young husband to the war. His mother liked her. He had called off an engagement with another American girl and quite possibly his family saw in Alice a way to replenish their wealth. Their engagement made it into the Chicago Daily Tribune. Before she married him, Alice converted to Catholicism, so the relationship was meant to be enduring since in Catholicism there is no divorce. Alice had doubts before the marriage but she went through with it and (echoes of the wedding of Jackie Bouvier to Jack Kennedy) her father was not invited and did not walk her down the isle. Perhaps Alice expected her marriage would provide an escape from her family.

Alice became pregnant on her honeymoon. The couple traveled and then bought an apartment in Paris but she could not get used to the formality of the French nobility. Her first child was born in June of 1922, a daughter.  Alice was perhaps too young to be a mother. overly protected and controlled, unable to experience being independent first.  She continued to socialize in Paris, to go out on the town. Then, the couple went to live at his family stead in Normandy, where his brother and her sister-in-law were also living. Her sister-in-law, from an elite British family, was superior to Alice in education and beauty and dominated the situation there.  Alice had thick curly hair and there was a suspicion that lingered that she had African blood. People started calling her "La Negrese."  Her sister-in-law used that. Alice had a second daughter in June 1924.  She felt depressed, not  much into motherhood. She felt trapped.

Fredrick de Janze and Alice Silverhorne de Janze might not have had a great romance but they became 'excellent friends.'  The man did care about her, the mother of his children. He thought a trip to Africa might be just the thing to improve her spitits, so, in 1925, the could did just that. They went to Kenya (then British East Africa) where they had an invitation from Lady Idina Sackville and her then husband, Josslyn Hay.  It was a month-long journey and no doubt the couple felt far away from all the things in life that controlled them.

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BEST WAY TO GET INTO A OPEN RELATIONSHIP? HONESTY : OPINION BY MISSY

What is the best way to get into an Open Relationship?  

This is my opinion.  

Just as I think some people one day find themselves in an extramarital relationship or being Kept without having plotted to be, I tend to think some people one day find themselves in an Open Relationship, in other words "organically."  Love might lead you there, or you might just realize you are actually comfortable with how things are in your primary relationship and this is how things are.  

You might not have sought a first experience of including other lovers or love while committed to a primary relationship. Well, maybe you have...  It's just that I'm convinced that the taboos are still in place and if they were not, why would we even call these forms of intimacy an ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLE? 

Even if everyone involved has formed these relationships honestly, no sneaking or "cheating" or lying or conning, the notion that you 'should' be guilty could be hurled at you by others. So, you're not necessarily "out" about it.

Recently I met a divorced man who told me about the day his daughter called and said "Daddy, I saw mom kissing another man in a car." He said it was true and he was done, and immediately acted to begin a divorce. I had to wonder about his wife. Had they married as two virgins?  Was he giving her enough attention or had his time spent devoted to developing a business thrown her to another man?  It had been years ago and he had not remarried. His ex-wife had. The man cherished hearing that she told the children she sometimes missed their dad. I had to wonder how different his life might be if he had not such a quick and drastic reaction to learning his wife was "cheating" him.  They had not even tried therapy.

He said he was signed up on various dating sites and he was never going to get married again.

I said, "You should make that clear to anyone you start dating so that a woman who is interested in marriage can decide not to date you."

My statement befuddled Mr. Honesty.

What are the ethics of being in a marriage that you want to stay in, if only you can have sex with other people?  It is truly possible to never fall in love with someone else while married?  If you read Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot, then you know the attitude to accept the affairs of a husband or wife is common - supposedly in France anyway!

As we learn from the example of Lady Idina Sackville's life that we're exploring this month, one cannot prevent a person from falling in love with another person anymore than you can 'make' them fall in love with you! She and her Set were sexually adventurous and they changed partners for an experience or for a lifetime.

However, I do believe that there are many ways to love and that we humans can and do love more than one person at a time, in different ways.

If it is your intent to be in an Open Relationship you should discuss this with any potential partner you may have in this inquiry into Alternative relationships before you ever have sex with that person!  Honesty is the best policy. 

Missy

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THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO SAY IT : LADY IDINA SACKVILLE'S LAST YEARS WERE TRAGIC

She had been Mrs. Euan Wallace... and Mrs. Josslyn Hay (He'd since become the 22nd Earl of Erroll) ... She had married and married and married.

Idina Sackville had given birth to three children, two sons, and a daughter. True, people of her class were used to sending their children away to boarding school and having relationships with the children then was dependent on letter writing, if that. Idina had been kept from being involved in the raising of her sons though. She'd made an effort to get to know them as they neared adulthood that went not so well. World events affected her personal life as it did so many others.

World War I had affected her life when her first husband Euan Wallace, had joined up and came back uninterested in her or their marriage. He and his next wife, Barbie, had raised those sons as well as three sons of their own.  

Now World War II would further destroy lives.

In a series of tragic events, Euan Wallace and Barbie's three sons would also not live long enough to produce offspring.  

Lady Idna Sackville's daughter by Josslyn Hay would live to adulthood, did marry, have children, and continued on her matriarchal line.  When she married, the Queen and the Princesses Elizabeth (the future Queen Elizabeth II) and her sister attended the wedding. And so, despite all of Idina's scandal, her daughter did not suffer for her mother's reputation. Perhaps that is because relatives had raised the girl.

Idina's sons were killed during service in World War II. As had been the case in World War I, young men of the peerage did not normally avoid military service for their country. This left Euan, who had been so possessive of them without any male heirs.

Then her first two husbands, the fathers of her children died. Josslyn Hay was murdered and her once best friend, Alice De Janze was a suspect.

These deaths put Idina Sackville into a notable depression in which she did not eat or sleep properly and also developed a nerve disease called neuritis, which was said to be made worse because she lived at her house, Clouds, at high altitudes up the mountain. These high altitudes were also said to enhance the effects of alcohol. Idina Sackville was forced to go down the mountain to live in lesser circumstances.

Of great hope to Idina was that her daughter would come to visit her in Africa.  It was not to be. She died before that could happen!

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Excerpts are from The Bolter, a book by Frances Osborne, the main reference for this month's po

My readers, we are not yet done with the Happy Valley Set. Next month we will turn our attention to another book and another woman of that set and learn again how Idina Sackville's life and hers entwined.

A FIFTH AND FINAL HUSBAND

Lady Idina Sackville had one final husband... After her divorce in 1938 from Donald Haldeman, she married William Soltau who was a Royal Airforce Lieutenant.  They divorced in 1946.  I dare say that men never brought Idina happiness but then, it could be argued, she did not bring men happiness either.

As well, her health was starting to wane.

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IDINA LIVED WITH A MAN BUT HE WAS ONE MORE TO GO AWAY

By 1933, Idina Sackville had decided that Chris Langlands would make a good boyfriend.  He had wanted to marry Beryl Purves, now Markham in her second marriage, and was likely already in a ménage of some sort, but Beryl, an pilot, lost interest in him when he crashed a plane trying to show off to her. Chris owned a charter pilot service. As well, Idina and Chris met when he flew a guest over to Idina's house, Clouds.  Now that small planes were providing the transportation in Africa, the isolation of farms and ranches far apart had been breached, and friends didn't necessarily need to drive for hours to go to a weekend house party. Chris and Idina took off on safaris flying from location to location. 

She was living openly with a man without being married to him.

When I think of Idina and her life, I think she married too quickly in every case. For a woman to live openly with a man without being married to him in the 1930's was daring, even for a woman who was already shunned for divorces and deserved the reputation as a seductress.  The pressure to be married is still strong and I'm aware that many couples who decide to live together a while in order to make a decision to marry are often pressured by parents and others to make that decision.  (As well, in many states in the United States living together for seven years is called Common Law Marriage.)

Then, like now, marriage was associated with permanence and having someone to be with in old age.  So, this time Idina was the one to suggest to the man that they get married. But by 1936 Chris was also gone from her life.

What had happened to the Happy Valley Set, with all their entwining friendships and sexual adventures?  Sadly, the scene had diminished as people aged, as people did decide on someone that they stuck with, and drug addiction - especially morphine - and alcohol had consumed some of them.

EXCERPT: " The weekend parties with the old crowd were starting to become, even for Idina, a little unhinged.  The 'sheet game' took a new turn.  A sheet was strung up across the room. One gender would hide behind, a single representative of the other would grope in a sort of blind man's bluff, to work out which of the figures on the other side was who and select a partner.  As cocktails were sunk, the game developed further. Holes were cut into the sheet. Hands, feet, elbows, noses were struck through for identification.  More cocktails were drunk.  A new sheet was pulled across the room.  New holes were cut. The men unbuttoned their trousers..."  (Page 226 of the paperback.)

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Excerpts are from The Bolter, a book by Frances Osborne

A FOURTH HUSBAND WHO BECOMES OBESSED WITH HER : IDINA and THE AMERICAN

If you're the type to get jealous or obsessed, you should never contemplate Open Relationships or find yourself married to a sexual adventurer.  That is the lesson that Idina Sackville's fourth husband, Donald Haldeman, an American who'd been born in England and educated at Eton, and who lead safaris in Africa, was to learn. - Missy

..."Visitors to Kenya started to return to Europe with tales of wild parties, abundant narcotics, and strange ménages of approved infidelities and potentially Sapphic bonds, all occurring within the Wanjohi Valley.  The gossip columnists seized upon the stories, reprinting them, as was the practice then, with clear descriptions but no precise names, and rechristening the place 'Happy Valley.' (Page 173 of the paperback.)

In October 1926 Wall Street crashed and the Roaring Twenties were over.  When her mother died in 1930, Idina learned that her daughter had been provided for, but not so much for her. In November of that year, Idina went for another civil marriage, a honeymoon in the United States, and then back to Kenya the newly married couple went. Unlike previous husbands, this man was not a womanizer. The estate they founded, called Clouds, was not in Happy Valley. While he was off on safaris Idina, true to herself, began having sex with other men. Donald hated that. 

We wonder what his expectations were. Did he not know of her reputation?  Did he think moving them away from Happy Valley would make a lot of difference?  Did he think that she had outgrown or aged past her previous sexual adventures? Had these two even discussed it? In late 1933 he came home to find another man making a run for it.  Donald fired a gun at the man. He was violently angry. Idina had thought of him as protective, but it seems he was also possessive, obsessive, and controlling.  Donald Haldeman would not give up on his wife easily, threatening to shoot anyone she slept with.

Idina had friends be there for support and as witnesses when she told him she wanted out.

Idina told Donald she was taking her daughter, now eight years old, to England to be educated at a boarding school.  Once there, the young girl was lucky to be offered private lessons along with Idina's brother's child and to be raised by him and other relatives.

This time she kept the house, Clouds.

In 1934 she met her older son, now nineteen and who was discontented with the world and his place in it.  They met at the Ritz Hotel in London. This was a three-hour conversation with a young man who she had not been allowed to see since the day she left her first marriage and agreed to leave her sons with their father, David Euan Wallace. Barbie, their step-mother, had taken on raising the boys and had three children with Euan. She was apparently not going to give the boys up to their birth mother. Idina made an attempt to establish a bit of relationship with them but did not succeed. 

Her last years would be full of grief.

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Excerpts are from The Bolter, a book by Frances Osborne, the main reference for this month's post.  

HER WELL EARNED REPUTATION AS A SEDUCTRESS : AN OPEN MARRIAGE WITH A MUCH YOUNGER HUSBAND

It seems that Lady Idina Sackville well earned her reputation as a seductress and that she may've even sought out scandal.  If there was inner torment, she hid it well. But while her reputation was trashed, she looked immaculate, having clothing made for her by Molyneux, wearing a bosom-flattening androgynous style that was fashion in that moment, which we are familiar with as that of the Flapper, the liberated woman of the 1920's.  She even had furs she had been given as wedding presents redesigned.

Thirty years old, her wild life well known, Idina did find love again. This time one of Britain's most eligible bachelors was penniless but much younger, only twenty-one to her thirty. Josslyn Hay would one day inherit a Scottish earldom and climb socially by inheritance but until then he was out for fun. Idina called Joss "My Darling Lion." Charles Gordon, her second husband, wanted to marry someone else and easily gave a divorce so that Idina and Joss could marry. The new couple made it on the cover of the society tell-all magazine Tatler.

A small civil marriage again, no one from Joss's family attended. In fact, they were unaware of it for several months and were angry when they found out but Idina won them over. That done, Idina took her third husband to Africa, to Kenya, to that dream of a life there free of all expectations.

Here again she came under criticism. Society forgave affairs, not repeated marriage. She was committing treason to her class. Suspicion was that she was mothering her husband instead of mothering her own sons. Expecting an Open Marriage this time around, Joss began having affairs immediately. Idina claimed she did not mind. He had an affair with an American heiress, Alice de Janze, and the two women shared him. Eventually they became friends both awaiting his return from some other woman's bed.

Idina may have married Joss in an attempt to keep him or control him.  She was soon to learn that he was always on a hunt for sexual adventures with other women.

Not to be outdone by a husband, Idina set the stage for a home to host wild parties. In Nairobi she managed to fill a house she had built with beautiful antiques and carpets brought from England and defied the African heat and soil by planting a green lawn and English flower beds. British settlers attempted to ranch but imported cattle and sheep that did not do well in the sun. These settlers remained as British as they could considering. They protected themselves from the sun with hats. Some of them thought Idina, who shockingly got sunburned and pragmatically wore pants, had "gone native." (Native Kenyans often had several wives.)

But where to find sex party participants?  The Muthaiga Club was where the newly landed gentry went for time off.  Many of these African adventurers were the second sons who had no birthright inheritance. All regarded extramarital sex as normal. The settlers lived miles apart, trying to establish their own working farms and ranches. Their opportunities to meet and socialize with one another and beat the isolation and boredom were limited to livestock auctions and horse races and the club. During Race Week in Nairobi, evening balls gave women the opportunity to look their best, dress in the latest fashions, and show off their expensive jewelry. They had not entirely left their Britishness or their class attitudes behind. While not every party was thrown with the intention to swing, Idina's invitations were sought after. Invitees were willing to drive hours to spend a "weekend" at her home. There they were attended to by servants, took hot baths, put on silk pajamas, and started drinking and entertaining themselves with talk about farming and books, pulling 'stunts' and revving up for Idina's swinger games.

But then Idina got pregnant. Concerned that she'd loose Joss over her pregnancy, she asked  Alice de Janze to move in.  Married for four years and the mother of two, Alice and her husband arrived in December 1925. Alice immediately started an affair with Joss. Asked if she minded, Idina replied that Alice was her best friend.

She gave birth to a daughter who was clearly Joss's.  This was her second chance to be a mother. He had no need for a male heir. 

Her efforts to keep Joss ultimately failed. 

Joss qualified as a man who preferred to be Kept by a woman - at least until he inherited. While out and about he met the second wife of Cyril Ramsey-Hill, Molly, born Mary Maude in London in 1893.  Like Idina, she had also given up a child in another marriage to marry Cyril. Molly was less than a year younger than Idina, so still an older woman for Joss. However, Molly had a private income that outshone Idina's. 

Joss knew Idina and he were drained financially and sexually. As a man after a fortune, he deliberately befriended Molly's husband so that he could be invited to spend time with Molly at their much more impressive house. Then, while Cyril was out of the country taking care of business, Joss moved in on Molly, and despite almost dying of malaria, abandoned Idina.  

Joss' parents became the new Earl and Countess of Errol and Joss and Idina became Lord and Lady Kilmarnock, he got a small but decent amount of money, which gave him independence rather than the opportunity to pay back some of the bills he and Idina had, and all their hard work was for naught.  The bank foreclosed on their property. 

Idina Sackville's third marriage was over and soon she would deposit her daughter with relatives in England. It was the spring of 1928, and she was thirty-five years old. Back in London her designer friend Molyneux let her earn some income by being a showroom model.  Her willingness to work was portrayed as her displaying her body to earn a living by The Express and she sued - and won.  This time around Idina also was the one to ask for and win a divorce.  She got it on the grounds that Joss had cheated on her with Mrs. Ramsey-Hill.

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Excerpts are from The Bolter, a book by Frances Osborne

A NEW HUSBAND AND KENYA : IDINA SACKVILLE and CHARLES GORDON

Since Euan had taken lovers, Idina Sackville thought she might also. If this was not revenge or evening the score, then it was because she loved sex and had been sex starved young woman as a wife whose husband was away most of the time. She started an affair with Charles Gordon and the couple were so open about it at one point they moved into a hotel together; Not the discretion required of a Lady who had been presented as a debutant at Court. So, it was thought best if she did not attend her sister's wedding as though she might bring bad luck to that marriage. 

Meanwhile Euan Wallace, though at least as much to blame for the ending of their marriage, remained close with her family, serving as the best man at the wedding, which unlike their own wedding, was a large and expensive and thus publicly acknowledged one. The wedding tweaked him to think a bit about his own marriage and the pending decision he awaited. He had given Idina two weeks to consider making another go of their marriage but in fact he had Barbie waiting for him, even if his intention was to continue to socialize and meet others. Idina held firm. She took the blame. He was granted a divorce based on Idina's infidelity, not his. The agreement included that the children would go to Euan. Weeks after the divorce Idina married Charles Gorden at the Chelsea Register Office, a simple civil ceremony. Weeks after that the couple headed for Kenya, then called British East Africa - Mombasa - the sea front and then Happy Valley - to establish a farm.

First roughing it by living in tents, then building a camp, as the couple walked and road around land purchased and made their plans for the future there in Africa, the excitement of the new adventure gave way to the realization that even though the cost of doing so was small compared to costs in England, it would require hard, hands-on work that they themselves would need to do even with all the inexpensive labor locally available. 

When they traveled on safaris, with porters carrying their belongings, they hunted Big Game, though often killing an elephant or other wild creature in its own habitat was thought of as self-protection. Idina was active on the hunt and shot animals as well as the men. She was comfortable with the lifestyle there in Africa and began a life-long love affair with the country. Back from such adventures, the new couple began to build a single-story house to settle in, a small, efficient house compared to the estates they were used to in England. Their plans would take time.

Then this second marriage began to come undone. Euan had been extremely active in life, getting things done, while Charles seemed lazy in comparison.  From his viewpoint, the problem was that Idina was a 'nymphomaniac.'  She took lovers even when he was around. 

By February of 1920, married only ten months, Idina left hot Africa for the cold of winter in England.  It had been a year since her divorce from Euan Wallace, who was still single.  He had been socializing in America, associating with some of America's richest and most prestigious families.  Was she hoping society would forgive her and allow her back in as a divorced woman?  Did she hope to get back into a relationship with him or miss her children? As it turned out, it was completely over between Idina and Euan. Even Euan had experienced being less than desirable in the marriage market. Euan proposed to Barbie and she accepted, breaking with her fiancée who was not nearly as rich. Barbie and Euan retained their friendship with Idina's sister.

EXCERPT : "It is one thing to close a door behind you. It is quite another to have somebody else lock it shut from the other side,  particularly if the person wielding the key is the woman with whom your husband fell in love when he was married to  you. To aggravate the situation, Idina would be expected to be grateful to Barbie for agreeing to stay in England and bring up her sons, while Idina had adventures abroad.  And now that her boys had a new mother there could be no question of Idina maintaining any contact with them whatsoever.  To do so would be regarded as destabilizing to the children, selfish of Idina, and unfair on Barbie, who had to establish her own relationship wit them." (Page 130 of the paperback.)

Now called British Crown Colony of Kenya, the country was booming. Her absence while in England had not made Charles Gordon's heart grow fonder.  Idina got busy going on safari's inviting other women as guests including famous aristocratic sports women who desired challenges previously unthinkable for women to attempt or achieve.  These were often other women who were also getting divorces. These women were, in my opinion, empowering themselves and making the way easier for other women. Most were rich in their own right.

In November 1921, having technically been married to Charles Gordon near another year, the twenty-eight year old Idina went back to London.  It could be said that she had lost near everything she could have had staying with Euan Wallace, and it was a changed London, not much like the Edwardian Era she had been raised in.

EXCERPT:  'This desire to overturn every previous code of behavior over-flowed into all areas of both the public and the private domain.  In restaurants the young crowd were louder, attempted to drink more champagne than anyone had before, and danced on the tables, the women sometimes wearing nothing under floating skirts.  Nudity was all the rage.  Women appeared in transparent dresses.  A fashion began for receiving guests while still in the bath and then openly and slowly dressing in front of them..."  (Page133 of the paperback.)

This time being divorced was not the shame and ruin it had once been and several of Idina's society women friends had been divorced. But there lingered the problem that a woman was not supposed to be the one to leave a marriage.

EXCERPT: "Society outlawed and branded a wicked woman. Idina clearly decided she might as well be as bad as she could.  She had her hair shingled to razor-thin shortness at the back and painted her fingernails green.  With her new pet, the serval cat*, on a leash, she stayed out all night and slept all day... " (Page 135 of the paperback.)

* a wild cat she took as a pet in Africa  Idina had once made the rounds carrying a black Pekinese dog she named Satan.

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Excerpts are from The Bolter, a book by Frances Osborne

WILL, JADA, and THAT OPEN MARRIAGE QUESTION

At the recent Oscars presentations, actor Will Smith, slapped comedian Chris Rock, after Rock made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith's baldness, which is caused by the condition known as alopecia.  Jada, a beautiful woman, with or without hair, sat in the audience and witnessed what has been interpreted as her husband defending her.  It was sudden and shocking, and of course, an International Event that left the Academy Awards people wondering what sort of punishment, if any, should be dished out.  Will Smith has been banished from attending the show presentations for a decade but gets to keep his Oscar.  Dozens of articles and commentaries have been in the media about it.  In some of them there is the speculation that Will Smith is overly defensive of Jada, the woman he loves, because their marriage is Open and has included a fairly recent affair of Jada's. Last September Will Smith confirmed that they had an Open marriage and that he never believed in a conventional marriage.  The couple have two children.

I'm no expert on Open Marriages.  In the 1960's a discussion about this Alternative Lifestyle began and this book, "Open Marriage" by Nana and George O' Neill was published in 1972.  I believe you can download this book as a PDF file on the Internet.

Back in the day when people simply did not live as long as we have an expectation to, marriage till death was rarely over 20 or so years.  Women especially had a high death rate due to childbirth and associated ailments, and men remarried, sometimes very quickly, because they needed a wife to do all the things that were assigned to women by gender - such as raising the children left without a mother, cooking, and household chores.  So, there were not too many couples together to celebrate Silver and Golden anniversaries.  

Then there is the fact that some couples have 'stayed together for the children' and who have gone their separate ways otherwise, and who perhaps have only tolerated His affairs but not Hers. Equality being what it is or should be, it would seem only fair if both partners could enjoy affairs. So, this falls into the category of women's liberation.  Because it liberates the "long suffering" wife, to do as she pleases.  (Not that there have not been 'long suffering' husbands.)

Perhaps the person who make a choice in favor of this form of Alternative Relationship also accepts that life is long and marriage may be forever, and is less threatened if there isn't any sneaking around.

Still, in a pragmatic way, openly having affairs - be they one night or enduring - does require the partner to accommodate and acknowledge.  People as wealthy as Will and Jade can hire others to do the things most of us do - from housekeeping and yard work to child care, and so their time is more available. For an average couple, it might mean that one is left at home to do these things while the other is out and about.  Therefore, I think there is an economic aspect to choosing an Open marriage.

Is knowing where someone is and with whom all the time a prerequisite? 

I think that the big question is about Jealousy.  Does a wife having an affair make her husband jealous?  Does he want her for himself more?  Is there always an implied competition to keep her?  Is it only human to want various sexual experiences?  What about the husband or wife who finds themselves no longer interested or capable of sex?  Perhaps this is a lifestyle for those who do not find themselves to be jealous people.

Has the couple settled into more of a Great Friendship?  Raising their children together and living in the same home, which is more easier that divorce and all those issues with whose turn it is to see them or care for them and living separated?  (Having a large house most certainly would be a help there.)

How about the difficulty of sorting out finances?

Can we get married and then figure this all out before we live it in a forever agreement?

It seems to me MORE COMMUNICATION would be necessary.

I think more people are living in Open Relationships who don't announce it, and even more are living in Open Relationships who don't quite define it that way or realize it.

Missy

WHO WERE THE "FREE THINKERS" and WHAT DID THEY BELIEVE?

 HUMANISTS UK - 19th CENTURY FREE THINKERS

The first thing I want to mention here is that if you research the words "Free Thinkers" you will find that a number of groups do currently use these words to describe themselves including some people we would think of as anti-Democrat politically. We have to be careful to eliminate those more contemporary groups when looking at the world that George Eliot, G.H. Lewes, and others inhabited in the 19th Century Europe. Actually, when I tripped across these anti-Democratic types on the Internet and saw what they advocate for, I thought they opposed what the 19th century group was for!

I encourage you to read this article, which explains.

Excerpt: Humanist thinking developed rapidly in the nineteenth century because it was closely associated with new scientific thinking and discoveries. Darwin's ideas, and new biblical research and scholarship coming from Germany, provoked a crisis of faith in many Victorian intellectuals, movingly evoked in Matthew Arnold's famous poem Dover Beach, Darwin's defender T.H. Huxley coined the word "agnostic" to describe his belief that there were things that we could not possibly know.

The Positivist movement of Auguste Comte put forward a personal and humanistic religion, and was fashionable and profoundly influential for several decades.  The German theologian and philosopher Feuerbach attacked conventional Christianity in a book translated by Mary Ann Evans/George Eliot as "The Essence of Christianity" (1854), and suggested that religion was "the dream of the human mind", projecting onto an illusory god our own ideals and nature. German scholarship also demonstrated that the books of the Bible were fallible human constructions, not divine revelation.

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THE APARTMENT : A 1960's COMEDY : MISTRESS MANIFESTO FILM REVIEW

1960 wasn't the Swinging Sixties yet and subject matter such as this,

which could have been considered offensive to society

which was far more religious than ours,

 was made into comedy.

All these years later, I think of this film as having social commentary embedded in it. There is sexism and there is classism and well... What will you think once you've seen it? Maybe relax and find it fun, relate to it, or simply realize this kind of situation still happens. Only now, we have the MeToo Movement.

Shirley MacLaine is one of my favorite actresses* and someone who lived an unconventional life. After marrying and having a daughter, her husband and daughter moved to Japan. Theirs was a long distance and alternative relationship. She sent money. Focusing on her career, aware that despite her talent and hard work she was lucky to have one, MacLaine's autobiographical works (books), several which I've read, reveal that she was free to have other relationships and did have them. Be it through negotiation or just how it worked out, her marriage was an Open one. (Back in the day her marriage would have been considered one in which there was a "role reversal")

In The Apartment, Shirley MacLaine acts as Fran Kubelik, an young and pretty elevator operator who only has access to the executives at a company because they ride the elevator. Her ethnic surname suggests that this job is the best she can do (circa 1960). Though in a lowly position, she is hopeful and open-minded for love. She's a respectable girl who seems not to accept dates out of some sense of professionalism or wisdom but how long can that last?

Mister Sheldrake, the Big Boss, played by Fred MacMurray, has his afternoons to entertain.  He and other characters at the office are using an underlings apartment to have afternoon sex, excessively.  The underling, C.C. Baxter, played by Jack Lemmon, can't say no. He needs recognition and advancement in his career. The neighbors can hear all that sex through the walls and think it's Baxter - very busy.

Who will seduce Fran?

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* Shirley was mentioned in this blog before because of her acting in the film Bernie. Bernie Tiedi was featured in January 2021