Book Reviewed: Sappho goes to Hollywood: The Girls, by Diana McLellan
This is a highly readable book and the author has way with words when she describes feminists of 1920s Hollywood who were redefining sexuality and marriage. The so called sewing circle consisted of a significant number of Hollywood elite who chose and practiced their sexuality openly and lavender marriages, supported by studios, were accepted with grace. It was a daring practice of post-WWI feminism.
The author focusses on three major stars who were notorious bisexuals with large preference for women, namely, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Tallulah Bankhead. The greatest “conqueror” of sewing circle was probably poet and playwright Mercedes De Acosta who had numerous gorgeous ladies in her count, from Europe to California. Her affairs with some of the well-known ladies like; Great Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Alla Nazimova, Eva Le Gallienne, Ona Munson, Natacha Rambova, and Lilyan Tashman. She was an obscure writer but rose to prominence to enjoy the brightness of life for 40 years. She used creative methods to conquer ladies. Sometimes Mercedes would use her husband’s art studio, get models into the studio for painting and then would seduce them. In this manner she managed to make love to Helen Menken, Charlotte Monterey, Greta Cooper, Valentina Schlee, and Katherine Cornell. Alla’s marriage with actor Charles Bryant; Mercedes De Acosta with Abram Poole; Lilyan Tashman with Edmond Lowe, and Rudolph Valentino with Jean Acker and later with Natacha Rambova were well-known examples of lavender marriages.
In the vanguard of lesbian/bisexual chic included Libby Holman, DuPont heiress Louisa Carpenter, Joan Crawford, Estelle Winwood, Blythe Daly, Barbara Stanwyck, Marjorie Maine, Jean Acker, singer Libby Holman, comedienne Bea Lillie, Isabell Hill, Louise Brooks, Gladys Calthrop, Mimsey Duggett, Katharine Hepburn, Salka Viertel, Dorothy Azner, Natacha Rambova, Patsy Kelly, Kay Frances, Dolores Del Rio, Ona Munson, Jazz singer Billie Holiday, Josephine Baker and many more.
Lesbian love walked into New York stage when Edouard Bourdet’s play, “The Captive” premiered on Broadway in 1927 and Helen Menken (wife of Humphrey Bogart) plays lesbian woman who receives amour nosegays of violet, used as a symbol of lesbian love, from her lover. Menken received many warm missives from deans of several women’s colleges across United States. Radclyffe Hall’s 1928 lesbian novel, “The well of loneliness” had torn the veil of silence and Mary Casals autobiography, “The Stone Wall” about lesbian love were adding substance to the myth.
The author reveals a well-known secret about Garbo and Dietrich who claimed to be lifelong strangers, but actually they had met in Berlin and Vienna at lesbian hangouts in 1920s. In the movie, “Joyless Street” produced in 1925 casted both women. The book shows still photographs from the movie to prove this point. Garbo was well known for being secretive and went to extraordinary length to protect her privacy.
Lilyan Tashman was a highly skilled missionary for the joy of lesbian sex. Women were warned of avoiding trip to the powder room with Lilyan because she would corner any attractive woman and plunge her to highly skilled lovemaking. She boasted that she can steal any woman from any man. Her bathroom advances were so overt that Irene Selznick said that she hasn’t seen anything like her overtures. Ann Warner, wife of Jack warner seduced by Marlene Dietrich when she was in Paris and she showed the lesbian hangouts and private rooms at the famous Sphinx Club. Later Ann Warner becomes a full pledged member of sewing circle. When Marlene did the movie “A Foreign Affair” costarring Jean Arthur and directed by Billy Wilder, Marlene reportedly had affairs with everyone from the set from stand-ins and secretaries to stuntmen and didn’t give a damn about the gossip. Tallulah Bankhead sought sex of every variety constantly, hungrily, loudly, candidly and without reservation. Once she told Joan Crawford that she had sex with her husband Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and she will be next. Tallulah adored Marlene Dietrich even though they preyed on same women and men.
Not everything is sex; the last few chapters discuss the work done by the leading ladies of Hollywood on USO tour and other wartime services for the troops both in United States and Europe. Notable work was done Marlene Dietrich who was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the civilian equivalent of Congressional Medal of Honor.
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