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

PEGGY HOPKINS JOYCE 

 SPENDTHRIFTY GOLD DIGGER

First posted on April 5th 2010

Born Emma Marguerite Upton

1893 – 1957

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

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

PEGGY HOPKINS JOYCE : THE GOLD DIGGER AS A COMIC FIGURE

First posted April 6 2010

Excerpt Page 84 :

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

 

PEGGY HOPKINS JOYCE : HUNGER MAKES YOU THINK

First posted April 9 2010

Excerpt Page 43: 

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

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

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MISTRESSES DISCOVERED IN THE GLORIA SWANSON STORY : PEGGY HOPKINS JOYCE and CLARA KIMBALL YOUNG

As you know, MISTRESS MANIFESTO depends most often on books - biographies and memoirs especially - that have been published in the past and which I've selected and read cover to cover.  Once in a while I read a book about one of the women I plan to elect to the Mistress of the Month pantheon, and I find that another Mistress or two has been mentioned.

That's been the case reading 'Gloria and Joe' by Axel Madsen, which was my primary source for posts last month about Gloria Swanson.

Golden Era Hollywood - Silent Films - Talkies -  The development of technologies, the movie-makers - producers - directors - studio heads -  Madsen's book tells a lot.  To my surprise a woman I wrote about in April of 2010, Peggy Hopkin's Joyce, called a 'Gold Digger' and who ended up one of the world's largest diamonds, is mention. Another woman mentioned is the actress Clara Kimball Young, who, shame on me, I never had heard of before. These two women who were in Hollywood and hoping to become movie stars in the same era as Gloria Swanson.

Now, if you've been reading MISTRESS MANIFESTO, you know that the Classic Mistress is a woman who was (or maybe is) entirely "Kept" by a man who she isn't married to. Kept as if being financially provided for, often for her entire life, sometimes though he is married to one - or several women - over time.

Gloria Swanson was a talented and determined woman whose personal life suffered because of her fame and wealth and perhaps her own unconventional values. However, I think that if she had come of age in the 1960's she would have had affairs but not married the men she did when it was believed with good reason that a celebrity could have their fans turn against them if they went against the morals of the day. Having a series of lovers and not marrying them is rarely such a scandal now. 

But what about Peggy Hopkins Joyce? Clara Kimball Young? Let's find out what author Axel Madsen wrote about them in his book Gloria and Joe. I'll add-to with research and reportage as we go along.

Missy

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ANITA LOOS ABOUT PEGGY HOPKINS JOYCE

"The era (abounded) with millionaires who kept their sweethearts in love nests that dotted Manhattan all the way from Murray Hill to Riverside Drive," Anita Loos reminded her readers, and in her opinion Peggy ranked as the most shameless of such kept women.

C Constance Rosenblum 2000

GOLD DIGGER : PEGGY HOPKINS JOYCE : BOOK EXCERPT

About Peggy Hopkins Joyce

EXCERPT: 

"Unlike a wisecracking Mae West, whose sexuality was so exaggerated she became a caricature of herself, or Marion Davies, who insisted to the very end that she and William Randolph Hearst were simply good friends, there was nothing coy or ironic about her persona. Others may have called her a tramp and regarded her as a high-priced call girl, but Peggy fit more easily into another mold, that of a full-blown courtesan whose approach to the opposite sex was frankly strategic. The critic George Jean Nathan, who had discerned "a touch of the French eighteenth century about her," was right: had she lived in another time, in another land, she might have taken her place in a long and distinguished line of women for whom being a courtesan represented an honorable and prestigious way of life..."

"As author Cornelia Otis Skinner noted respectfully of the legendary courtesans not of the eighteenth century but of Belle Epoque France, those visions of loveliness wreathed in clouds of ylang-ylang who drifted from the races and the Polo matches to the Opera and Comdie Francaise and onward to late suppers at Maxim's : "The leading coquettes were in an upper echelon not to be spoken of in the same breath as the status of ordinary prostitute. They were celebrities as filmy established as the top starts of theatre. They were the talk of the smart set. Boulevardiers quoted their bon mots... Even the press rated them as important news."

C Constance Rosenblum

MAY 2021

Please note that both MAE WEST's man PAUL NOVAK  and MARION DAVIES have been featured here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot.

PAUL NOVAK – 27 Years as Mae West’s Much Younger Live-In Companion: Protective and Loving Till The Day She Died.

MARION was featured in July 2013

Go to PAGES to find out what's in my ARCHIVES or scan using the search feature! 

CONSTANCE ROSENBLUM ABOUT PEGGY HOPKINS JOYCE

About Peggy Hopkins Joyce...

... "Peggy's real career was her love life... "

PEGGY HOPKINS JOYCE : HUNGER MAKES YOU THINK

PEGGY HOPKINS JOYCE : HUNGER MAKES YOU THINK

First posted April 9 2010

Excerpt: Page 43 :

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

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

C 2010-2026 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

PEGGY HOPKINS JOYCE : THE GOLD DIGGER AS A COMIC FIGURE

PEGGY HOPKINS JOYCE : THE GOLD DIGGER AS A COMIC FIGURE

First posted April 6 2010

Excerpt Page 84 :

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

May 2021 

I've been thinking about the term GOLD DIGGER.  This month, May 2021, I featured Anna Bey.  Go to that month and see what she has to say about the term GOLD DIGGER.

C2010-2026 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot - All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

PEGGY HOPKINS JOYCE : SPENDTHRIFTY GOLD DIGGER : MISTRESS OF THE MONTH

PEGGY HOPKINS JOYCE : SPENDTHRIFTY GOLD DIGGER : MISTRESS OF THE MONTH

EMMA MARGUERITE "PEGGY" UPTON

First posted on April 5th 2010

PEGGY was THE MOST PUBLICIZED MISTRESS - COURTESAN OF THE 1920's and 1030's. She was introduced to Florenz Ziegfeld, who owned the famous showgirl venue New Amsterdam Theatre, by a dressmaker to fashionable ladies, Madame Frances, and her career began. She was a heartbreaker and international celebrity, perhaps the first famous to be famous woman of the 20th century. She was known for her spendthrifty ways as well as a steamy sex life. Was Peggy ruthless and sociopathic? Or did she simply decide at a young age that she would do well, beyond her childhood as the daughter of a Norfolk barber?

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

 
I'll be quoting from the book GOLD DIGGER by Constance Rosenblum, on this blog. The link to the New York Times book review is at the title above.

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