​“It is impossible, even in New York, to be of the social elect if you are happily married and without money. With such a hopeless burden one is instantly useless, or, if not exactly useless, certainly ordinary.”
 
Richard Barry, New York Times, 1913

Harry Lehr was a popular bon vivant in Gilded Age New York City, but alas, lacking a fortune. In a twist out of Edith Wharton, he resolved his predicament by marrying an heiress, Elizabeth Drexel. Theirs was not an ideal relationship, as his sexual interest fell into the "love that dare not speak its name" category. It was a fraught but durable marriage, ending with his death three decades hence.

​Elizabeth Drexel Lambert drew upon her deceased husband's personal diaries to write this account of their life together, "King Lehr" and the Gilded Age. A copy signed by her is available via the Nick Harvill Libraries store. 

Image Credit: "King Lehr" and the Gilded Age

“A movie star of Marilyn’s magnitude is obviously no longer human, but what she is instead is hard to define without calling up the supernatural; she is a form of longing in the public’s imagination, and in that sense godlike.” 

Arthur Miller, on His Second Wife, Marilyn Monroe, Timebends, A Life

A copy of Timebends, A Life warmly inscribed by Arthur Miller to his agent, Bridget Aschenberg, is available via the Nick Harvill Libraries store. 

Image Credit: Face of the World

“[A] problem you’ll have when you read my advice is that you may get mixed up, because it is not always logical and consistent. Don’t worry, though. Advice that’s not logical and not consistent is the very best kind.”
 
Zsa Zsa Gabor, How to Catch a Man

“... I believe that out of the whole body of our past, out of our differences, our quarrels, our many interests and directions, something has emerged that is itself unique in the world: America—complicated, paradoxical, bullheaded, shy, cruel, boisterous, unspeakably dear, and very beautiful.”
 
John Steinbeck, America and Americans 

​

“Looking back, every life-altering decision I’ve ever made has seemed, at first blush, misguided, misjudged, or plain foolish—and ultimately turned out to be the opposite: every seemingly wrong person I’ve fallen for, every big trip I’ve splurged on, every great apartment taken that I could not realistically afford.”
 
Bill Hayes, Insomniac City

“There are four kinds of wealth that make up glamour and the beautiful people. They are social, monetary, physical, and psychological. [Jacqueline Onassis] has all four and that is why she is the most glamorous women in the world.”
 
Ron Galella, Jacqueline

Image Credit: Jacqueline

A copy of Jacqueline signed by Ron Galella is available via the Nick Harvill Libraries store.

“I don’t think women should be allowed to marry before they reach 25, men at 30. I really believe this. At that point the mind and lifestyle and sexuality should have developed to a degree that establishes their compatibility.”
 
Joan Crawford, Conversations with Joan Crawford

Joan Crawford's negative opinion of early marriage was garnered from the school of hard knocks. When she was in her mid-twenties, she wed the nineteen-year-old, dazzlingly handsome Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. The son of screen idol Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. and stepson of America's Sweetheart Mary Pickford, he was the original crown prince of Hollywood. Neither Doug Sr. nor Mary was pleased with the match, and Crawford felt unwelcome at Pickfair, Doug and Mary's (then) world-famous estate in Beverly Hills.

The marriage would not have lasted even absent the haughty in-laws, but that certainly did not help. In any case, a friendship did survive. In later years, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Joan Crawford spoke well of each other. 

Image Credit: The Fairbanks Album

Diana Vreeland, the legendary Vogue editor, always had something original or thought-provoking to say. Her deathbed was no exception. What were this extraordinary woman’s last words?

• “The wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. Either it goes or I do.”
• “A party! Let’s have a party.”
• "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow."
• “Don’t stop the music or I’ll tell my father!”​ 

​The answer is after the JUMP.

“One’s salvation cannot possibly be achieved in Paris; the soul is too distracted.”
 
Jean Cocteau, The White Paper

Image Credit: The Happy Years, Diaries: 1944-48

“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.”
 
G.K. Chesterton, Sidelights on London and Newer York

Image Credit: Vanity Fair, Photographs of an Age, 1914-1936