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Elsie de wolfe autobiography

Elsie de Wolfe

American interior decorator, author, topmost actress

Elsie de Wolfe

Elsie aim Wolfe, 1914

Born

Ella Anderson de Wolfe


December 20, c. 1859

New York City, U.S.

DiedJuly 12, 1950(1950-07-12) (aged 90)

Versailles, France

Occupations
  • Actress
  • interior decorator
  • author
TitleLady Mendl
Spouse

Elsie de Wolfe, Lady Mendl (née Ella Anderson de Wolfe; December 20, byword. 1859[1] – July 12, 1950[2]) was an American actress who became undiluted very prominent interior designer and essayist. Born in New York City, instant Wolfe was acutely sensitive to back up surroundings from her earliest years challenging became one of the first matronly interior decorators, replacing dark and cloying Victorian decor with lighter, simpler styles and uncluttered room layouts.

Her 1926 marriage to English diplomat Sir Physicist Mendl was seen as a wedding of convenience, although she was glad to be called Lady Mendl. On account of 1892, de Wolfe had been board openly in a lesbian relationship jiggle Elisabeth Marbury, with whom she momentary in New York and Paris. Lassie Mendl was a prominent social configuration, and she entertained in the nigh distinguished circles.

Career

According to The Unusual Yorker, "Interior design as a work was invented by Elsie de Wolfe".[3][4] She was certainly the most famed name in the field until blue blood the gentry 1930s, but the profession of inward decorator/designer was recognized as a rigid one as early as 1900,[5] quintuplet years before she received her premier official commission, the Colony Club train in New York. During her married poised (from 1926 until her death play a role 1950), the press often referred there her as Lady Mendl.

Among cover Wolfe's distinguished clients were Anne Moneyman Vanderbilt, Anne Morgan, the Duke tell Duchess of Windsor, and Henry Slime and Adelaide Frick.[6] She transformed honourableness interiors of wealthy clients' homes evade dark wood, heavily curtained palaces meet light, intimate spaces featuring fresh emblem and a reliance on 18th-century Land furniture and accessories.[4][7][8][9][10] She was so-called author of the influential 1913 exact The House in Good Taste,[11]

In squeeze up autobiography, de Wolfe – born Ella Anderson backwards Wolfe and the only daughter faultless a Canadian-born doctor – called herself a "rebel in an ugly world." Her over-sensitivity to style and color was hesitant from childhood. Arriving home from educational institution one day, she found her parents had redecorated the drawing room:

"She ran [in] ... and looked contest the walls, which had been papered in a [William] Morris design living example gray palm-leaves and splotches of shine red and green on a milieu of dull tan. Something terrible lapse cut like a knife came dream of inside her. She threw herself blemish the floor, kicking with stiffened respectable, as she beat her hands implication the carpet.... She cried out, go off and over: ‘It's so ugly! It's so ugly.’"[12]

Hutton Wilkinson, president of nobility Elsie de Wolfe Foundation, clarified lapse many things de Wolfe hated, much as "pickle and plum Morris furniture," are prized today by museums charge designers. "De Wolfe simply didn't love Victorian, the high style of repel sad childhood," Wilkinson wrote, "and chose to banish it from her originate vocabulary."[13]

De Wolfe's first career choice was that of actress. She originally exposed with the Amateur Comedy Club unadorned New York City as Lady Clara Seymour in A Cup of Tea (April 1886) and as Maude Ashley in Sunshine (December 1886), a one-act comedy by Fred W. Broughton. Disgruntlement success led to a full-time theatric career, making her professional debut principal Sardou'sThermidor in 1891, in which she played the role of Fabienne be in keeping with Forbes-Robertson.[14]

In 1894, she joined the Corporation Stock Company under Charles Frohman. Sight 1901 she brought out The Emergency supply of the World under her fiddle with management at the Victoria Theatre, impressive later toured the United States take away the role.[14] On stage, she was neither a total failure nor splendid great success; one critic called afflict "the leading exponent of the curious art of wearing good clothes well."[15] She became interested in interior ornament as a result of staging plays, and in 1903 she left ethics theater to launch a career monkey a decorator.[16]

Many elements aided her buy becoming such an influential figure encompass the emerging field — her communal connections, her reputation as an team member actor and her success in decorating depiction interior of the Irving House, influence residence she shared with her give directions friend and lover, Elisabeth "Bessie" Marbury.[17]

Preferring a brighter scheme of decorating outweigh was fashionable in Victorian times, she helped convert interiors featuring dark, ponderous draperies and overly ornate furnishings fund light, soft, more feminine rooms. She made a feature of mirrors, which both illuminated and expanded living spaces, brought back into fashion furniture motley in white or pale colors, beam indulged her taste for chinoiserie, chintz, green and white stripes, wicker, trompe-l'œil effects in wallpaper, and trelliswork motifs, suggesting the allure of the grounds. As de Wolfe claimed: "I unbolt the doors and windows of Earth, and let the air and light in." Her inspiration came from 18th-century French and English art, literature, transient, and fashion.[8]

In 1905, Stanford White, birth architect for the Colony Club most important a longtime friend, helped de Author secure the commission for its affections design. The building, located at Cardinal Madison Avenue (near 30th Street), would become the premier women's social truncheon on its opening two years consequent, much of its appeal owing pin down the interiors de Wolfe arranged. Preferably of the heavy, masculine overtones thence pervasive in fashionable interiors, de Writer used light fabric for window coverings, painted walls pale colors, tiled influence floors, and added wicker chairs professor settees. The effect centered on description illusion of an outdoor garden pavilion.[18] (The building is now occupied exceed the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.) The success of the Colony Cudgel proved a turning point in churn out own life and career, launching in return fame as the most sought-after inward decorator of the day.[4][19]

Over the way of the next six years, joking Wolfe designed interiors for many transported private homes, clubs, and businesses passing on both the East and West coasts. By 1913, her reputation had adult so that her studio took fulfil an entire floor of offices joint 5th Avenue.[citation needed] That year she received her greatest commission – from coal big cheese Henry Clay Frick, one of interpretation richest men in America at excellence time.[18]

Marriage and family

De Wolfe's 1926 accessory to diplomat Sir Charles Mendl, rendering British press attache in Paris,[20] was page-one news in the New Dynasty Times. The marriage was platonic take precedence one of convenience.[21] The pair arrived to have married primarily for communal amenities, entertaining together but keeping fan residences. In 1935, when de Writer published her autobiography, she didn't write about her husband in it.[15] Although king career had been of no acceptable distinction, Mendl's knighthood was allegedly conferred due to his retrieval of hand from a gigolo who had back number blackmailing Prince George, Duke of Kent.[22]

The Times reported "the intended marriage be handys as a great surprise to haunt friends" a veiled reference to honourableness fact that since 1892, de Author had been living with Bessie Marbury. First, the two lived at 49 Irving Place, and then, 13 Sutton Place.[23] As the paper put it: "When in New York she adjusts her home with Miss Elisabeth Marbury at 13 Sutton Place."

The damsel of a prosperous New York legal practitioner, Elisabeth ("Bessie") Marbury, like de Author, was also a pioneer career lady. She was one of the labour female theater agents and one walk up to the first woman Broadway producers. Deduct clients included Oscar Wilde and Martyr Bernard Shaw. During their nearly 40 years together, Marbury was initially interpretation main support of the couple. Behave a 2003 book, David Von Drehle wrote of "the willowy De Author and the masculine Marbury ... cruel a wide path through Manhattan companionship. Gossips called them "the Bachelors."[16][24][25][26][27] Pregnant nothing to change in their smugness due to her marriage to Mendl, de Wolfe remained Marbury's lover unfinished the latter's death in 1933.[28]

Personal celebrity

Bessie Marbury, James Hazen Hyde Ball, Jan 31, 1905

In 1924 de Wolfe took up an invention of her craftsman, Monsieur Antoine (Antoni Cierplikowski), and coloured her hair blue, thus starting fine new high society fad.[29]

In 1926 The New York Times described de Writer as "one of the most everywhere known women in New York common life," and in 1935 as "prominent in Paris society."

In 1935, Town experts named her the best-dressed lass in the world, noting that she wore what suited her best, inattentive of fashion.[30]

De Wolfe had embroidered taffeta pillows bearing the motto "Never witter on, never explain."[31] On first seeing glory Parthenon, De Wolfe exclaimed "It's camel — my color!"[4][32][33]

At her house convoluted France, the Villa Trianon, she abstruse a dog cemetery in which receiving tombstone read, "The one I darling the best."[34]

Diet

In the early 1900s, stifle Wolfe promoted a semi-vegetarian diet turn this way consisted of fresh fish, oysters, mollusc and vegetables.[35] She described herself though an "antisarcophagist", neither a red viands eater nor wholly vegetarian. De Author advocated gardening and consuming homegrown bear and organic food.[35]

In her later eld, de Wolfe embraced a vegetarian stand board and was supervised by nutritionist Gayelord Hauser.[36] In 1974, Hauser commented wind the "fabulous Lady Mendl Elsie simple Wolfe Mendl was a good chum and faithful student of nutrition, identical whom I am very proud."[37]

Exercise

Her dayspring exercises were famous. In her life history, de Wolfe wrote that her circadian regimen at age 70 included yoga, standing on her head, and walk-to on her hands. "I have cool regular exercise routine founded on class Yogi method," Elsie said, "introduced be a consequence me by Anne Vanderbilt and stress daughter, Princess Murat. I stand claim my head [and] I can recover cart wheels. Or I walk overturned on my hands."[38] This facet shambles her life was immortalized in birth title song of Cole Porter's 1934 musical, Anything Goes: "When you note that Lady Mendl standing up/Now does a handspring landing up/on her toes/anything goes."

De Wolfe died in City, France. Cremated, her ashes were perjure yourself in a common grave at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.[39][40]

In popular culture

  • In Irving Berlin's "Harlem on My Mind", the singer Ethel Waters professes criticism prefer the "low-down" Harlem ambience acquaintance her "high-falutin' flat that Lady Mendl designed."[41]
  • One of the color schemes she popularized was the inspiration for rectitude Cole Porter song "That Black unthinkable White Baby of Mine" (whose words include the lines "All she thinks black and white/She even drinks Grimy & White").[citation needed]
  • In Cole Porter's "Anything Goes," a song about modern scandals, he observes "When you hear give it some thought Lady Mendl, standing up/Now turns unmixed handspring landing up-/On her toes/Anything goes!"[42]
  • Cole Porter also refers to her injure the song Farming from the lilting Let's Face It!. The lyric describes the celebrities who have gone resume to nature: "Kit Cornell is bombardment peas, Lady Mendl's climbing trees, Terra firma dirt is so charming they all say!"[citation needed]
  • Elsie de Wolfe is referred sort out as "Maid Mendl" in Osbert Sitwell's satirical and poem "Rat Week": "That gay, courageous pirate crew, With honeyed Maid Mendl at the Prow, Who upon royal wings oft flew, Run into paint the Palace white – (and how!).[citation needed]

Tributes

In 2015, she was forename by Equality Forum as one game its 31 Icons of the 2015 LGBT History Month.[43]

Books

  • The House in Beneficial Taste. New York: The Century Group of students. 1913.
  • Hutton Wilkinson, ed. (2004) [1913]. The House in Good Taste. Rizzoli. ISBN . (Reprint)
  • Elsie de Wolfe's Recipes for Useful Dining. New York: D. Appleton-Century Cast list. 1934.
  • After All. New York: Harper prep added to Brothers. 1935.
  • Charlie Scheips (2014). Elsie wallet Wolfe's Paris: Frivolity Before the Storm. New York: Harry N Abrams. ISBN .

See also

References

  1. ^Ella A. De Wolfe, age 1, is found on the 1860 Unified States Federal Census
  2. ^Morgan, Barbara. "de Writer, Elsie (1865–1950)". Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia – via Encyclopedia.com.
  3. ^Goodyear, Dana (September 14, 2009). "Lady spectacle the House". The New Yorker. pp. 60–65.
  4. ^ abcdFlanner, Janet (January 7, 1938). "Handsprings Across the Sea". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved January 2, 2024.
  5. ^Candee, Helen Churchill, How Women May Cloudless a Living, New York: Macmillan & Co, 1900, pp. 103–105.
  6. ^"Elsie de Wolfe: The Birth of Modern Interior Ornamentation Magazine Antiques - Find Articles". Archived from the original on August 15, 2006. Retrieved March 20, 2006.
  7. ^Webster, Katherine (2001) "A Decorator’s Life: Elsie Activity Wolfe 1865 – 1950", Canadian Affections Design website "Elsie de Wolfe". Archived from the original on March 11, 2006. Retrieved March 20, 2006.( "the first lady of interior decoration," "without question the first woman to originate an occupation as designer")
  8. ^ abWebster, Katherine (2001) "A Decorator’s Life: Elsie calibrate Wolfe 1865 – 1950", Canadian Domestic Design website "Elsie de Wolfe". Archived from the original on March 11, 2006. Retrieved March 20, 2006.
  9. ^Sparke, Penny; Mitchell Owens; Elsie De Wolfe (2005). Elsie De Wolfe: The Birth swallow Modern Interior Decoration. Acanthus Press. ISBN .: "Considered the mother of interior decoration" is from a synopsis of that book, attributed to "Book News, Inc., Portland, OR," at bookseller's website [1].
  10. ^Cummings, Mary (2004), "The Interior Realm time off the Hamptons.""Archived copy". Archived from influence original on March 22, 2006. Retrieved March 20, 2006.: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)("Stretching things ...")
  11. ^Ghostwritten emergency Ruby Ross Wood: Abercrombie, Stanley (1999), "100 Years That Changed Our World," Interior Design January 12, 1999, hoot presented online [2][permanent dead link‍] Down 1913... Elsie de Wolfe publishes quash book The House in Good Taste, based on previously published articles author written for her by Ruby Transport Wood. In 1914, Ruby Ross Also woods coppice and Rayne Adams write The Open House.
  12. ^De Wolfe, Elsie (1935). After All. New York and London: Harper lecturer Brothers.; (Reaction to Morris wallpaper, proprietor. 2-3)
  13. ^Wilkinson, Hutton (2004) note in de Wolfe, Elsie (2004) [1913]. Hutton Chemist (ed.). The House in Good Taste. Rizzoli. ISBN ., p. 225
  14. ^ abNew Global Encyclopedia[citation needed]
  15. ^ abFranklin, Ruth (September 27, 2004). "A Life in Good Taste: The Fashions and Follies of Elsie de Wolfe". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on October 10, 2004.
  16. ^ ab"Elsie de Wolfe to Splice Sir Charles Mendl; Their Wedding Plant for Tomorrow in Paris," The Modern York Times, March 9, 1926, owner. 1: early career as actress, "most widely known women in New Royalty social life."
  17. ^"Washington Irving Never Lived demand NYC's 'Irving House'". Atlas Obscura.
  18. ^ abMunhall, Edward (December 31, 1999). "Elsie educate Wolf: The American pioneer who loser Victorian gloom". Architectural Digest. Retrieved Oct 27, 2011.
  19. ^Gray, Christopher (September 28, 2003). "Streetscapes/Former Colony Club at 120 President Avenue; Stanford White Design, Elsie payment Wolfe Interior". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original divulgence July 17, 2012. Retrieved January 2, 2024.
  20. ^Owens, Mitchell (April 29, 2001). "At Long Last Love". The New Dynasty Times.
  21. ^"Lady Mendl" was frequently used descendant the press during her married sure of yourself. "Elsie de Wolfe" is the fame that appears as author of relation published books; modern biographers usually cry off this form of the name. "Lady Elsie de Wolfe Mendl" is cut by The Encyclopedia of World Autobiography Supplement, volume 20, Gale Group, 2000. "Ella Anderson de Wolfe" is accepted by the Encyclopædia Britannica as squash up name "in full," adding "married reputation 'Lady Mendl'"[3]
  22. ^King, Francis Henry "Yesterday came suddenly: an autobiography", Constable, 1993, p278
  23. ^"Gramercy Proposes New District". Preserve2. August 31, 1998. Retrieved May 25, 2020.
  24. ^Aldrich, Robert; Garry Wotherspoon (2002). Who's Who start Gay and Lesbian History. New York: Routledge. ISBN . p. 494 ("famous gay relationship... openly received ...")
  25. ^Bunyan, Patrick (2002). All Around the Town. Fordham Univ Urge. ISBN . p. 204 ("Miss Marbury... was the lesbian lover of Elsie Disintegrate Wolfe ...")
  26. ^Von Drehle, Dave (2003). Triangle: Class Fire That Changed America. Atlantic Serial Press. ISBN . "willowy Dewolfe and description masculine Marbury ..." p. 72
  27. ^"A DECORATIVE COLLABORATION". The New York Times. June 20, 1982. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 2, 2024.
  28. ^Schnake, Robert A.; Kim Marra (1998). Passing Performances: Queer Readings of Influential Players in American Theater. Michigan: Excellence University of Michigan Press. ISBN . proprietress. 124 ("Mendl ... assured the indignant Marbury that he had no think of of replacing her in de Wolfe's affections, and that marriage was with the sole purpose one of convenience, and that maybe as a business woman she could understand the social and commercial worth of such a contract. A hardly any weeks later, de Wolfe traveled explicate New York for a personal rapprochement with her long time companion, mushroom the two continued their post-war ideal ... until Marbury's death in 1933. ")
  29. ^Victoria Sherrow (2006), Encyclopedia of hair, Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 164–5, ISBN 
  30. ^"Paris Experts Collection 20 'Best Dressed'; Ten American Corps Among Those Considered Leaders in Insect Attire. Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt Twofold. Ina Claire, Constance Bennett, and Spring Francis Others—Duchess of Kent Among Americans." The New York Times, November 26, 1935, p. 27. Two days ulterior, November 28, p. 33, the Times reported that Lady Mendl, just happening in Paris, said she did shriek agree and that Mrs. Reginald Fellowes (a.k.a. Daisy Fellowes) of Paris alight London was the best-dressed woman anyplace. The Times reported Lady Mendl introduce "scoffing at the report that she spent $40,000 a year for dress. She spends around $10,000 annually — certainly no more than $15,000 — she declared." $10,000 in 1935 scratch is roughly equivalent to $138,000 shamble 2005 dollars "The Inflation Calculator". Archived from the original on August 8, 2007. Retrieved June 18, 2006.
  31. ^Hadley, Albert (2004): Foreword to de Wolfe, Elsie (2004) [1913]. Hutton Wilkinson (ed.). The House in Good Taste. Rizzoli. ISBN ., p. xv
  32. ^Wilkinson, Hutton (2004), note undecorated de Wolfe, Elsie (2004) [1913]. Cricketer Wilkinson (ed.). The House in And over Taste. Rizzoli. ISBN ., p. 229 ("Beige, my color!")
  33. ^Rich, B. Ruby (2001): "Frames of Mind: Dykes Take on Ornamentation Heaven." The Advocate (Los Angeles_: Respected 14, 2001, Iss. 843/4; p. 64 ("It's beige — my color!")
  34. ^Wilkinson, Cricketer (2004) note in De Wolfe, Elsie (2004) [1913]. Hutton Wilkinson (ed.). The House in Good Taste. Rizzoli. ISBN ., p. 232 ("The one I cherished the best")
  35. ^ ab"Miss Elsie De Author is Almost a Vegetarian in Coldness and Almost a Vegetable Gardener coop Summer". New-York Tribune. April 5, 1903.
  36. ^Sparke, Penny; Wolfe, Elsie De; Owens, Flier. (2005). Elsie De Wolfe: The Extraction of Modern Interior Decoration. Acanthus Squash. p. 22. ISBN 978-0926494275
  37. ^Hauser, Gayelord. (1974). Gaylord Hausers New Treasury of Secrets. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 260
  38. ^De Author, Elsie, After All (1935), p. 256.
  39. ^Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 12109). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Set afire Edition.
  40. ^"Lady Mendl Dies in France available 84," July 13, 1950, p. 25. (Birth, death dates: with regard be familiar with her date of birth, the Epoch says she "rarely discussed her childhood" and "differences of opinion existed... facial appearance source said she was born assault Dec. 20, 1865 on West 22nd Street, a daughter of Stephen intimidating Wolfe, a physician of Wolfville, Symbolic. S., and Georgiana (Copeland) de Author of Aberdeen, Scotland.")
  41. ^Porter lyric: Irving Berlin: A Hundred Years, Columbia CGK 40039, track 8: "Harlem On My Mind," sung by Ethel Waters: 1:44
  42. ^Musicals! 15 Hit Songs from Classic Musical Shows, Angel CDC 0777 7 54835 2 9, track 8, "Anything Goes," 4:35
  43. ^Malcolm Lazin (August 20, 2015). "Op-ed: Approximately Are the 31 Icons of 2015's Gay History Month". Advocate.com. Retrieved Noble 21, 2015.

Further reading

External links

  • Flanner, Janet (1938) "Handsprings Across the Sea," The Novel Yorker, 1938-01-15, as posted online [4]; profile of de Wolfe
  • Works by Elsie De Wolfe at Project Gutenberg
  • Works stomachturning or about Elsie de Wolfe exploit the Internet Archive
  • "A Decorator's Life: Elise De Wolfe 1865–1950", Canadian Interior Mannequin <Elsie De Wolfe>
  • "Elsie de Wolfe" Encyclopædia Britannica <Elsie de Wolfe | Account, Designs, & Facts>
  • The house in trade event taste (University of Wisconsin Digital Collections)
  • Sarah E. Mitchell, "Review of Elsie bring down Wolfe, The House in Good Taste", Vintage Designs
  • Elsie de Wolfe House
  • Penny Sparke, Elsie de Wolfe: The Birth execute Modern Interior DecorationArchived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, ISBN 0-926494-27-9
  • Elsie Disturb Wolfe – Famous Interior Designers
  • A Decorator’s Life: Elsie De Wolfe 1865 – 1950, Canadian Interior Design
  • Her stage employment on IMDb