Savage Grace - Natalie Robins (23 page)
Brooks Baekeland
I had Dylan Thomas in my house. I was supposed to keep him while he was in New York. He was a great poet but I bounced him out. He took a Huntsman’s shirt of mine with him—much too big for him. My house was always buzzing with beautiful, silly, tipsy people.
James Kingsland
They entertained constantly. At the time we were all much younger and one didn’t think of them in terms of, you know, being marvelous parties—one just used to go there and get mildly smashed, have a good time, and go home. Later on, I think, Barbara realized that she was giving good parties and became more self-conscious, and that’s when you started seeing the likes of Salvador Dalí and stuff like that around, which I personally didn’t find as amusing. I think she became very conscious of who people were in the public eye. There were also a number of foreigners coming through, with handles of one sort or another.
It all goes back to the thing of people’s weaknesses, and social climbing was certainly a
faiblesse
of the Baekelands’. These days they call them alpinists. Brooks I think had less social pretentions than Barbara—well, obviously, because he had the advantage there with her.
Elizabeth Archer Baekeland
She came to a party of ours once—at the time, I was married to John Squire, my third husband, and we lived in a fifth-floor walkup. When I called to invite them, Barbara said, “Well, if you want us to come to a party, you have to ask us at least two weeks in advance.” So I set a date a few weeks after that, and Barbara called up the day of the party and said, “I’m terribly sorry but we were out until three this morning and we’re going to have to leave your party early tonight.” So I said fine, I didn’t see anything wrong with that. But John was furious, he said it was rude, that if she wanted to leave early she should just leave, but don’t call and say it’s because she was out too late at somebody else’s party—as if ours wasn’t important.
Anyway, they came, and it turned out that a friend of John’s who was with Pan American in Lisbon came with his wife, a Portuguese countess who was absolutely stunningly beautiful. And Barbara was galvanized. And then Muriel Murphy arrived with some man—none of us knew who he was and we didn’t really catch his name. And when he left we all said, What beautiful shoes, did you ever
see
such beautiful shoes! That was all anybody noticed. Somebody finally realized it was Stanley Marcus of Neiman-Marcus. Anyway, Barbara was having a ball—she was dancing around with candlesticks. And at one point later on she was sitting on the floor, and I remember John suddenly reached out his hand to her. He said, “Barbara!” She thought he wanted to dance with her so she jumped up, and then he just escorted her to the door, saying, “It’s eleven o’clock, you’re going home.” She said, “But I don’t
want
to go,” and he said, “Oh no, you’re very tired, you stayed up so late last night.
You’re
going
home!”
And he put the coat on her. I was dying of embarrassment. The next day I called and apologized, but Barbara said how impressed she was by John—she said she hadn’t known he had that kind of guts.
Later that day the countess called to thank us and mentioned that Barbara had called and asked her to lunch—I mean, not even asking John and me! It was then I began to really see the light with Barbara.
I’ll tell you another thing. I hadn’t seen them for a long time, and I was at some opening at the Metropolitan Museum and I saw Brooks, and he said, “Barbara’s upstairs,” and I said wonderful as Brooks and I hugged, and I dashed all around till I finally found her, and we kissed—you know, a peck on the cheek, the way you do. And then suddenly I saw her face go completely blank on me, and she’s looking over her shoulder at Janet Gaynor and her husband, the costume designer Adrien, who were arriving—can you imagine! I mean, she dropped me like a hot potato and went right over to them—never thought of introducing me. I was left just standing there, so I just turned on my heels and walked away. After that, I didn’t even really want to talk to her. I was sorry at losing her friendship, but she had gone on to things that I wasn’t willing to follow.
Helen Delaney
Have you ever heard of Sarah Hunter Kelly? She was a famous decorator, and she and her husband lived next door to Brooks and Barbara on Seventy-first Street. What divided them was a wall—luckily a thick wall, so Sarah never heard all the hollering and screaming that went on, and that’s why they were able to remain friends. It was Sarah Kelly who introduced Barbara to Europe, and of course Barbara became a Francophile—she had what you might call terminal Francophilia.
From the
New York Times,
“A Lifelong Taste for Good Taste,” Jane Geniesse, April 9, 1981
I was absolutely determined to go to France,” said Mrs. Kelly. Visits from a dashing cousin who lived in France, she said, set her on her “grand plan.” “I thought she was immensely elegant and I wanted to live just like her,” Mrs. Kelly said.
But if she liked living well—which fortunately she and her husband had the means to do—Mrs. Kelly also attached great importance to the cultivation of creative people. “I liked the writers and artists and I liked to paint. But I also had this yen for houses and fixing them up,” she added.
The Kellys were soon part of the same group of young Americans as Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and Sara and Gerald Murphy.
Nina Daly
Mrs. Kelly used to come over to Barbara’s house. I’ve been over there to her place and the inside is just like a museum. Barbara always called her her second mother.
Brooks Baekeland
Sarah was like a second mother to
both
Barbara and me, and Barbara always behaved very well in front of her, as she did in front of
my
mother, who had heard about but never saw the “other” Barbara. Sarah and Tom Kelly and Barbara and I once talked about building a communicating door between our houses, we were that close. We often spent weekends with them in Connecticut—we were in and out of each other’s houses and lives for years, and that relationship lasted as long as we lived in America.
Letter from Barbara Baekeland to Nina Daly, June 1
,
1954
Portofino
Dearest Mother,
You seem awfully far away and by the end of the summer I suspect I will be glad to get home. Europe has charms but traveling certainly gives one a certain perspective and a realization that we’re a pretty wonderful country after all.
As things stand now we’re living quite cheaply but Paris was a lot more expensive than we’d figured and this apartment is not cheap.
But it is completely adorable. I wish you could see it. A tiny duplex where everything is perfection. You would love it and this village but we plan to take scads of pictures so that you’ll have a very good idea of what the place is like.
Tony seems to be very happy here and certainly enjoys our American-style breakfasts. Most evenings we eat out in the Square under trees where we can watch the life of the town as we dine. Then home to bed to read and sleep and to look forward to another day much like the one before. Tony and I have been going in the afternoons to a really sweet little beach called Paraggi where he occasionally meets other English or American children and has a happy time anyway collecting sea polyps—urchins and the like.
Brooks has settled down to a pretty good writing routine and I intend to start painting next week. This place is crammed with material and Tony’s fishing and bug hunting should afford me ample time.
All for now, dear. My how I do miss you. I’ll try and write at least once or twice a week.
Do write and soon—B
Letter from Barbara Baekeland to Nina Daly, July 7, 1954
Dearest Mother,
Well here we are in Austria and have been for some ten days and I with nothing whatever to do have just now found the time to write.
The country is really beautiful—idyllic. The village adorable with a really beautiful 15th cent. church and darling narrow winding streets with flower boxes everywhere and the traditional peaked roof that one always associates with Germany.
The service here is really first-rate. The hotel is run by a Countess
Schall and the
bar-man
is the son of the ex-Austrian chancellor so this will give you an idea of the level of taste. It is costing us about
$33.50 per week apiece for 3 meals and our beautiful room. And when I say the food is excellent I really mean it!
I am still in no mood to paint. I have all the wrong things with me and am enjoying too much all the leisure and relaxation. And as
I don’t know when or if ever I shall live in such ease again I am not going to create work for myself.
It rains heavily today but we are quite snug and content despite the weather.
Do write all your news. Love from all of us.
B
Letter from Barbara Baekeland to Nina Daly, July 27, 1954
Dearest Mamashka—
There has been such a deluge of mail coming from you these past days I can barely keep it all straight. This morning arrived your letter regarding windows, dirt, etc.
This will be extremely short as we were up until 5:30 a.m. with the
Archduke Franz Josef and Princess Martha and I wakened at 7:30 a.m. and as a result feel slightly shattered. They are delightful and we had a very happy time.
Tell Mimi Cohane that Nancy Oakes de Marigny is expected today. Also expected is Patino the South American tin financier whose daughter eloped a few months ago and then died in Paris of a cerebral hemorrhage. Tell Mimi I shall give her love to Nancy.
All for now. You’ve been an angel to do all those odd jobs in the house for me.
Love & kisses,
B
P.S. It won’t be long before we all see each other once again.
Letter from Barbara Baekeland to Nina Daly, August 9, 1954
Dearest Mum—
Just one quick last note to answer all your questions and then a silence until we see you at the dock as this last week will be hectic and during the sojourn in Venice and Florence we’ll not have time.
Have just had a final fitting on a tweed suit I had made here for the staggering sum of $36.00
including
a good English tweed. It’s very nice and will be very useful. Brooks has also had a jacket made.
It cost $28—in the same material though a darker shade.
I hope you will be able to come to Camp with us. You will need the change.
What would you like from Europe? We are bringing back very little but you are a must and I would like to get you something you would like.
Tony enjoyed having Daisy Hellman here but has made even better friends with a little English girl who is here for her health—ten years old and really a charmer. She reads 2 books a day and had taught herself to read by the time she was 3. A remarkable child with a mother who is completely a darling. I can’t bear to think of not seeing them all again.
The Archduke and Duchess have left after making me promise to call them in New York. They were both very taken by me and I liked them a lot.
We’ve had a very entertaining time here and it will be a real wrench to leave. I hope we shall be able to come back one day.
Tony is marvelous and has had the time of his life.
All for now. Love and kisses to you.
B
Brooks Baekeland
The summer of 1955 I rented Villa Balzac from Drue and Jack Heinz at Cap d’Antibes. Ben Sonnenberg came in his Rolls-Royce and spent some days with us there. We sat up all night long high up under a great moon in Drue and Jack’s ultra-Hollywood bathroom, which was the chicest room in the house and furnished like a living room, with a lovely terrace overlooking the mercurial sea. Ben got into the great autobiographical let-it-all-hangout story of his life, which I had the impression he had never done before but did for “two kids whom I love.” He called me “the remittance man.” There is a great link between divided generations—especially when there is no familial responsibility.
That summer our neighbor was André Dubonnet—of the drink—who was being robbed by one of his servants. My playmate was Freddy Heineken—the Dutch beer baron who was kidnapped and released a couple of years ago. Tony’s playmate was Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, the daughter of Rita Hayworth and Aly Khan, and his kindergarten was Eden Roc, where he was sometimes left for lunch and a swim on his own, cosseted by divorced and lonely ladies from Wallachia and Waldavia.
Somewhere—at Gil Kahn’s, I think—I had met Greta Garbo and was surprised, when I asked her to come to Villa Balzac for a drink, that she readily accepted. About fifteen others were to come, too.
She was asked for seven. At six, I remember, I was reading in a hammock and my maître d’hÔtel was in his shorts watering the garden—we had a cook and chambermaid, too—when someone came out to say that Mademoiselle Garbo was there, one hour ahead of time. Without her great friend George Schlee. Alone.