Sunday, December 23, 2012
The Mystery of Love
In 1890 a book was written called "The Mystery of Love, Courtship and Marriage Explained." It was intended to be a guide for young men and women, primarily women, that would educate them in the "science" of love. I stumbled across a picture of the cover in another blog and decided to read it for myself. While looking at it I suddenly realized that this would be the kind of reading that a young woman in the 1900's would peruse. The copy I found on line was a 1920's reprint so it was still in use at that time. Agnes was a forward thinking woman and I am sure she would have taken it upon herself to learn the things she should know about life. However, a learning experience is only as good as the information one can obtain. Agnes studied biology and was undoubtedly aware of the nature of human reproductive mechanics but what biology couldn't teach her were the mechanics of emotions, feelings, urges and how to act on them. She came from a religious environment that viewed sex as original sin. She lived in an emotionally dysfunctional environment that taught the value of abstinence, virginity and the sanctimony of matrimony and yet her life was an emotional roller coaster probably because she spent it attempting to reconcile her feelings with her spirituality. I thought we should take a walk through this manual and see how it compared with Agnes.
Flirtations
"Prudery and Flirtation are both equally culpable, but between these two extremes there is a happy medium. Neither religion nor the properties of life require a young lady to be ascetic and disagreeable; and if she has recourse to prudery as a safeguard she must be strangely afflicted with that weakness of conceit..." This is a lesson that Agnes learned well. You can watch nearly any of her movies made in the 1940's or 1950's and see how well she mastered it. She used flirtation in a way the majority of people cannot. Throughout her career most of her die hard fans were women. She learned the power she had and she used it. It flowed off the screen and into the audience where young women became enraptured by this powerful woman. Agnes managed to find the midpoint between prudery and flirtation. She was skillful at figuring out how to broadcast those intentions that were never made clear via scripting and she captured her audience with them. She openly flirted with women especially as she aged because the intentions were so well hidden that only people looking for it would find it. To her dying day the majority of her fans were women and still are.
How To Know That You Are Really In Love
"Many young people, particularly the male kind, imagine themselves in love when in truth they are not." A lesson not well learned by Agnes. She never learned how to trust someone enough to truly love them. Perhaps it was her dual nature and the fact that she was very aware that behavior that does not conform to societal norms is dangerous. She admitted herself that she had never sought love out and it would have to have come to her. I don't think if love had driven up in a bus marked love she would have really trusted it to be what it said it was. An interview in the 1960's revealed her opinion of people, she said that they always let you down and you cannot trust them. She loved her sister and her sister left her. She loved, worshiped, her father and he left her. Love was never something she was going to find because she didn't look for it she hid from it.
Flattery
"This is a powerful weapon in the art of making love." Agnes mastered flattery the minute she learned that a look was powerful beyond words. Any glance at a photo of a young Agnes Moorehead shows you that she knew this device and knew how to use it.
Pet Names
Bobby...enough said.
The Love Code
Art 1: The source of love lies in two of the purest sentiments admiration and hope.
I think Agnes understood this and I think it is why she never sought love after the death of her sister. I think Agnes loved her sister in the purest way, admiration, however, I also think that her sister's betrayal of that pure love is what drove her away from actively seeking someone to love her as purely. Agnes knew that her sister understood her, hence the reference to "you have never loved a man like I have," in her postmortem letter to her sister. Agnes loved on a different level and like every close set of siblings she discussed it with her sister. Her sister used her trust as a weapon when they fell out over it the year before Peggy's death. Agnes' ability to trust anyone died right along with Peggy. Without trust there can be no admiration or hope.
Art 2: Love is difficult to define; what we can say is, that in the soul it is a ruling passion, in the mind a lively sympathy, and in the body it is only a secret and delicate desire of possessing the object beloved, after many mysterious preliminaries.
Agnes believed that a woman loved on a different plane than a man. That she could love someone who was "this or that, male or female" and that it went far beyond the "mysterious preliminaries" referred to above. In her mind love was empathic and came from the soul not from the body.
Art 3: Love is like a fever; it begins and ends without volition having the least part in the matter.
This baffles me honestly. Yes love is fickle but I believe it stems from the lack of true connection on a spiritual level with the person you love. I think Agnes thought that as well. She commented in an interview with Boze Hadleigh that she didn't want people peering in on her love life because she didn't want them to misunderstand what was "beautiful and even spiritual."
Art 4: The deepest love betrays itself by the most ridiculous appearances; by extreme timidity, for example, or awkward bashfulness.
In other words don't let your feelings show in untoward ways. People will know how you feel and whom you feel it about. Mask your feelings and show them privately. Agnes took this to heart and learned to spend her entire life masking her feelings.
Art 5: The lover is near happiness who begins to doubt of the bliss which he had promised himself and reflects most severely upon the reasons he had seen for hope.
Question your bliss and look for what you hoped you might have. I cannot say if Agnes really took this to heart, but, I suspect she might have understood it. She lived with Jack Lee for nearly twenty years and that is something she could never had done if she hadn't hoped for something else.
Art 6: In love contrary to almost all other passions the memories of the past are always superior to the hopes of the future.
Agnes lived on her memories in her later years. She clung to them and used them as strength to carry on in solitude. Even though she protested to need a certain amount of solitude her reference to beautiful and spiritual love shows that she had some type of relationship that she deemed worthy of living for.
Art 7: The moment most fatal to love is when the lover finds himself treated with contempt and when he must destroy the beautiful chimera, which he has taken so much pain to construct.
I found the definition of chimera to be most interesting, especially when used in this context and very illuminating on Agnes' view of herself. The definition of chimera is " A chimera or chimaera is a single organism that is composed of two or more different populations of genetically distinct cells that originated from different zygotes involved in sexual reproduction."
A chimera is by its very nature duel. Agnes had a duel nature she admitted it freely during the Hadleigh interview. I think this may be how she saw herself. A single individual made of two or more entirely different things.
Tomorrow the remaining Arts...and their interpretation......Merry Christmas.
Flirtations
"Prudery and Flirtation are both equally culpable, but between these two extremes there is a happy medium. Neither religion nor the properties of life require a young lady to be ascetic and disagreeable; and if she has recourse to prudery as a safeguard she must be strangely afflicted with that weakness of conceit..." This is a lesson that Agnes learned well. You can watch nearly any of her movies made in the 1940's or 1950's and see how well she mastered it. She used flirtation in a way the majority of people cannot. Throughout her career most of her die hard fans were women. She learned the power she had and she used it. It flowed off the screen and into the audience where young women became enraptured by this powerful woman. Agnes managed to find the midpoint between prudery and flirtation. She was skillful at figuring out how to broadcast those intentions that were never made clear via scripting and she captured her audience with them. She openly flirted with women especially as she aged because the intentions were so well hidden that only people looking for it would find it. To her dying day the majority of her fans were women and still are.
How To Know That You Are Really In Love
"Many young people, particularly the male kind, imagine themselves in love when in truth they are not." A lesson not well learned by Agnes. She never learned how to trust someone enough to truly love them. Perhaps it was her dual nature and the fact that she was very aware that behavior that does not conform to societal norms is dangerous. She admitted herself that she had never sought love out and it would have to have come to her. I don't think if love had driven up in a bus marked love she would have really trusted it to be what it said it was. An interview in the 1960's revealed her opinion of people, she said that they always let you down and you cannot trust them. She loved her sister and her sister left her. She loved, worshiped, her father and he left her. Love was never something she was going to find because she didn't look for it she hid from it.
Flattery
"This is a powerful weapon in the art of making love." Agnes mastered flattery the minute she learned that a look was powerful beyond words. Any glance at a photo of a young Agnes Moorehead shows you that she knew this device and knew how to use it.
Pet Names
Bobby...enough said.
The Love Code
Art 1: The source of love lies in two of the purest sentiments admiration and hope.
I think Agnes understood this and I think it is why she never sought love after the death of her sister. I think Agnes loved her sister in the purest way, admiration, however, I also think that her sister's betrayal of that pure love is what drove her away from actively seeking someone to love her as purely. Agnes knew that her sister understood her, hence the reference to "you have never loved a man like I have," in her postmortem letter to her sister. Agnes loved on a different level and like every close set of siblings she discussed it with her sister. Her sister used her trust as a weapon when they fell out over it the year before Peggy's death. Agnes' ability to trust anyone died right along with Peggy. Without trust there can be no admiration or hope.
Art 2: Love is difficult to define; what we can say is, that in the soul it is a ruling passion, in the mind a lively sympathy, and in the body it is only a secret and delicate desire of possessing the object beloved, after many mysterious preliminaries.
Agnes believed that a woman loved on a different plane than a man. That she could love someone who was "this or that, male or female" and that it went far beyond the "mysterious preliminaries" referred to above. In her mind love was empathic and came from the soul not from the body.
Art 3: Love is like a fever; it begins and ends without volition having the least part in the matter.
This baffles me honestly. Yes love is fickle but I believe it stems from the lack of true connection on a spiritual level with the person you love. I think Agnes thought that as well. She commented in an interview with Boze Hadleigh that she didn't want people peering in on her love life because she didn't want them to misunderstand what was "beautiful and even spiritual."
Art 4: The deepest love betrays itself by the most ridiculous appearances; by extreme timidity, for example, or awkward bashfulness.
In other words don't let your feelings show in untoward ways. People will know how you feel and whom you feel it about. Mask your feelings and show them privately. Agnes took this to heart and learned to spend her entire life masking her feelings.
Art 5: The lover is near happiness who begins to doubt of the bliss which he had promised himself and reflects most severely upon the reasons he had seen for hope.
Question your bliss and look for what you hoped you might have. I cannot say if Agnes really took this to heart, but, I suspect she might have understood it. She lived with Jack Lee for nearly twenty years and that is something she could never had done if she hadn't hoped for something else.
Art 6: In love contrary to almost all other passions the memories of the past are always superior to the hopes of the future.
Agnes lived on her memories in her later years. She clung to them and used them as strength to carry on in solitude. Even though she protested to need a certain amount of solitude her reference to beautiful and spiritual love shows that she had some type of relationship that she deemed worthy of living for.
Art 7: The moment most fatal to love is when the lover finds himself treated with contempt and when he must destroy the beautiful chimera, which he has taken so much pain to construct.
I found the definition of chimera to be most interesting, especially when used in this context and very illuminating on Agnes' view of herself. The definition of chimera is " A chimera or chimaera is a single organism that is composed of two or more different populations of genetically distinct cells that originated from different zygotes involved in sexual reproduction."
A chimera is by its very nature duel. Agnes had a duel nature she admitted it freely during the Hadleigh interview. I think this may be how she saw herself. A single individual made of two or more entirely different things.
Tomorrow the remaining Arts...and their interpretation......Merry Christmas.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
December 23, 1956
Agnes Moorehead sent her friends old English style mistletoe balls, 15 inches in diameter trimmed in red velvet ribbons and antique ornaments. This is the seventh year she has followed this custom.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Through The Mirror of The Mind
A man named Eric Hoffer once said, " With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves." I was watching a clip of Agnes performing a piece taken from Marcel Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" in which she talks of Madame Swann the former Odette de Crecy. She recounts the reaction of Odette to different men in the crowd and how regal she was. She also mentions Odette's fondness for the color mauve. Agnes wore mauve or lavender every opportunity she got. What is never mentioned in the piece is something I'm sure that Agnes herself was very aware of having read Proust's works, Charles Swann suspects Odette of liaisons with other women. It struck me that like Odette Agnes observed life from a distance and like Odette she was quite the chameleon adapting to every situation presented to her with great aplomb. Like Odette she lived beyond the bounds of accepted sexuality. It made me sit back and take a look at the people Agnes often spoke of or performed works by or even idolized as a teenager. It proved to be quite an interesting and illuminating exploration.
La Duse
Let us begin with the actress that idolized as a teenager, Eleonora Duse. La Duse was one of the greatest actresses of her time. She played many Shakespearean roles. She portrayed heroines from nineteenth-century French dramas. She also introduced the drama of Ibsen and d'Annunzio to the stage. She was an incredible woman. She was also equally well known for her love affairs with men but she was infamous for her affairs with women. In 1909, La Duse began an affair with a feminist named Lina Poletti. Lina dressed as a man. The affair was an intense romantic inferno that consumed Duse. Aside from Lina Duse was involved with Isadora Duncan as well as several young actresses she mentored among them Emma Grammatica and a singer named Yvette Guilbert. As a young girl Agnes wrote Eleonora a letter and asked for a signed picture which she ultimately received. It became her most treasured possession. Ultimately Agnes ended up naming one of her beloved dogs Duse in homage to the woman herself.
Bernhardt
Another actress that Agnes speaks of and actually portrayed herself was Sarah Bernhardt. Sarah was a very vivid and complex individual. Her name became synonymous with glamor and drama. She was often called "the mother of all divas," Sarah was nearly as famous for her sumptuous, flamboyant style as she was for her skillful portrayals on stage. Sarah was so much more than just a stage personality. She was an accomplished painter, a sculptress, an outstanding business woman who ran her own theaters and acted as producer for her own plays. She wore pants. She played men on stage in many plays. She had numerous love affairs not only with men but with women. She was somewhat of a template for Agnes I think, right down to the hair color.
Landowska
One of Agnes' favorite musicians was the incredible harpsichordist Wanda Landowska. Agnes did a reading from a book by Landowska and it was televised. Many of us have seen it and it can be found on YouTube. Landowska herself was a lesbian. Landowska frequented the salon of Natalie Clifford Barney in Paris. Natalie was an expatriate American who held regular soirees at her salon in Paris and Landowska often played at these. The gatherings themselves were organized to promote the works of women writers. Landowska herself, like many of these women including Agnes, was well known for her exquisite dress and stage decorations. Her music was sublime as well. Landowska had a beautiful voice and it is said that many just wanted to hear her speak, especially when she spoke French with just a hint of her elegant Polish accent. Sounds a great deal like our Agnes doesn't it? In 1933 Landowska met a woman named Denise Restout. Restout would be her companion for the rest of her life.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
In her one woman show Agnes did a piece from one of her favorite writers, Edna St. Vincent Millay, called "The Ballad of the Harp Weaver." Millay was a free thinker. She published a book of poetry in 1922 called "A Few Figs from Thistles." In this book Millay put forth the idea that a woman has every right to sexual pleasure and no obligation to fidelity. Millay was very outspoken about her view of sexuality. In "Great Companions," Max Eastman tells a story that reveals something of Millay's attitude toward her own sexuality. While at a cocktail party Millay discussed her recurrent headaches and was asked by a psychologist, "I wonder if it has ever occurred to you that you might perhaps, although you are hardly conscious of it, have an occasional impulse toward a person of your own sex?" Millay responded with, "Oh, you mean I'm homosexual! Of course I am and heterosexual too, but what's that got to do with my headache?' Honestly it bears an overwhelming resemblance to Agnes' own statement of, "A woman may love a person who is this or that, male or female..."
In The End
As humans we tend to like the things that remind us of ourselves. We idolize the people we would like to emulate. Agnes was no different in most ways. She did isolate herself, her true self. She was more solitary than most in Hollywood but then she had more to loose if she exposed her true nature. Some folks are content to believe she had no idea, in the words of Debbie Reynolds, what the word lesbian meant. I think they are afraid to look at the big picture. They don't want to know that this brilliant, erudite woman was a free thinker, a person who had lived beyond the boundaries of what they perceive as normal. But she did and she did it so beautifully, so spiritually, so magnificently that it is a disservice to the woman not to recognize how complex and brilliant she was.
She is neither pink nor pale,
And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine.
She has more hair than she needs;
In the sun `tis a woe to me!
And her voice is a string of coloured beads,
Or steps leading into the sea.
She loves me all that she can,
And her ways to my ways resign;
But she was not made for any man,
And she never will be all mine.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
La Duse
Let us begin with the actress that idolized as a teenager, Eleonora Duse. La Duse was one of the greatest actresses of her time. She played many Shakespearean roles. She portrayed heroines from nineteenth-century French dramas. She also introduced the drama of Ibsen and d'Annunzio to the stage. She was an incredible woman. She was also equally well known for her love affairs with men but she was infamous for her affairs with women. In 1909, La Duse began an affair with a feminist named Lina Poletti. Lina dressed as a man. The affair was an intense romantic inferno that consumed Duse. Aside from Lina Duse was involved with Isadora Duncan as well as several young actresses she mentored among them Emma Grammatica and a singer named Yvette Guilbert. As a young girl Agnes wrote Eleonora a letter and asked for a signed picture which she ultimately received. It became her most treasured possession. Ultimately Agnes ended up naming one of her beloved dogs Duse in homage to the woman herself.
Bernhardt
Another actress that Agnes speaks of and actually portrayed herself was Sarah Bernhardt. Sarah was a very vivid and complex individual. Her name became synonymous with glamor and drama. She was often called "the mother of all divas," Sarah was nearly as famous for her sumptuous, flamboyant style as she was for her skillful portrayals on stage. Sarah was so much more than just a stage personality. She was an accomplished painter, a sculptress, an outstanding business woman who ran her own theaters and acted as producer for her own plays. She wore pants. She played men on stage in many plays. She had numerous love affairs not only with men but with women. She was somewhat of a template for Agnes I think, right down to the hair color.
Landowska
One of Agnes' favorite musicians was the incredible harpsichordist Wanda Landowska. Agnes did a reading from a book by Landowska and it was televised. Many of us have seen it and it can be found on YouTube. Landowska herself was a lesbian. Landowska frequented the salon of Natalie Clifford Barney in Paris. Natalie was an expatriate American who held regular soirees at her salon in Paris and Landowska often played at these. The gatherings themselves were organized to promote the works of women writers. Landowska herself, like many of these women including Agnes, was well known for her exquisite dress and stage decorations. Her music was sublime as well. Landowska had a beautiful voice and it is said that many just wanted to hear her speak, especially when she spoke French with just a hint of her elegant Polish accent. Sounds a great deal like our Agnes doesn't it? In 1933 Landowska met a woman named Denise Restout. Restout would be her companion for the rest of her life.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
In her one woman show Agnes did a piece from one of her favorite writers, Edna St. Vincent Millay, called "The Ballad of the Harp Weaver." Millay was a free thinker. She published a book of poetry in 1922 called "A Few Figs from Thistles." In this book Millay put forth the idea that a woman has every right to sexual pleasure and no obligation to fidelity. Millay was very outspoken about her view of sexuality. In "Great Companions," Max Eastman tells a story that reveals something of Millay's attitude toward her own sexuality. While at a cocktail party Millay discussed her recurrent headaches and was asked by a psychologist, "I wonder if it has ever occurred to you that you might perhaps, although you are hardly conscious of it, have an occasional impulse toward a person of your own sex?" Millay responded with, "Oh, you mean I'm homosexual! Of course I am and heterosexual too, but what's that got to do with my headache?' Honestly it bears an overwhelming resemblance to Agnes' own statement of, "A woman may love a person who is this or that, male or female..."
In The End
As humans we tend to like the things that remind us of ourselves. We idolize the people we would like to emulate. Agnes was no different in most ways. She did isolate herself, her true self. She was more solitary than most in Hollywood but then she had more to loose if she exposed her true nature. Some folks are content to believe she had no idea, in the words of Debbie Reynolds, what the word lesbian meant. I think they are afraid to look at the big picture. They don't want to know that this brilliant, erudite woman was a free thinker, a person who had lived beyond the boundaries of what they perceive as normal. But she did and she did it so beautifully, so spiritually, so magnificently that it is a disservice to the woman not to recognize how complex and brilliant she was.
Witch-Wife
From Renascence:She is neither pink nor pale,
And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine.
She has more hair than she needs;
In the sun `tis a woe to me!
And her voice is a string of coloured beads,
Or steps leading into the sea.
She loves me all that she can,
And her ways to my ways resign;
But she was not made for any man,
And she never will be all mine.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Friday, September 21, 2012
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Who Are You or Back to Body Language Basics
1. You see them in controlled situations portraying a character.
2. You see them in public situations portraying a character.
We have all come to "know" Agnes Moorehead as Endora. Have we ever seen Agnes Moorehead as Agnes Moorehead though? Yes we have but like so many things having to do with her we have had to learn to interpret what we are seeing. I've said before that the easiest way to know what she was really thinking was to look at her eyes. The eyes are, after all, the windows of the soul. Add to the windows the non verbal communication of the body and you may just have a reasonably clear picture of the woman.
From Head to Toe
Recently the picture above was posted to a blog I follow. The tag says 1972 but doesn't say where she was when this was taken or who she was talking to but the picture speaks volumes even without that information.
The first thing to look at is the position of her head. A sideways tilt of the head demonstrates interest and an engagement in playful conversation with someone that is well liked. A sideways tilt with a smile indicates interest, playfulness and perhaps even flirtation. Tilting can also indicate curiosity, uncertainty or query, particularly if the head is tilted forward as if the person were trying to look at the subject in a different way in hope of seeing something new. The greater the tilt, the greater the uncertainty or the intent to send the signal of uncertainty. Simple and straightforward right? No, not really, because of the position of her hand. The proximity of her hand to her mouth indicates that she wants to say something but feels restrained from saying it and needs to hide it. It also may indicate that she is uncertain about something. Hands at the mouth can also be used as a cover for the neck, where blushing, swallowing and tension may be seen. It is also used as a method for controlling the hands preventing them from giving other non verbal clues. The placement of the hand on her cheek intimates that she is thinking and evaluating the situation. Typically if the head is propped up by the hand it indicates either tiredness or an expectation of continued interest. Touching the chin can indicate that thinking is taking place involving decision making and judging of others.
Moving to the eyes there two things that stand out.
1. She's winking.
2. She is looking directly at someone.
Winking is a very deliberate gesture. We rarely do it without some thought behind it. The two things that are repeated over and over again about winking are that it is a sign of flirtation and is often conspiratorial, meaning "You and I both understand but others do not!" Follow that with a direct gaze with a semi smile and you have her speaking with someone she is very, very interested in. The eyes can rarely be camouflaged well by even the most experienced individual.
Then we move to body position and we are right back in Contradictionville. When your first glance at the picture you see what appears to be a casual posture. You would be wrong. The posture from the shoulders down is far from casual. Every vulnerable part of the body below the shoulders is covered and protected. The heart is covered with the arm supporting the chin. The pelvis is closed by crossed legs and an arm placed squarely across the lap. The stomach is covered by the arms and bent inward. All of these total up to a closed body position. But then you look at the trunk of her body and you see it leans forward and sideways. When you lean forward toward the person you are talking to you tend to increase the verbal output of that person, but, when you lean sideways it tends to indicate that you are interacting with someone you see as being a lower status individual. On the other hand you have a body orientation that turns the shoulders and legs directly toward the other person indicating a supportive climate. What this is called is the adoption of non congruent posture indicating attitudinal and perceptual differences or relationship distance.
The Body of Work
This process has prompted me to go back, yet again, through my pictures looking for patterns and similarities. Another eye opening couple of hours for me I must say. It never ceases to amaze me how much you can interpret a person by simply looking at photographs of them. Real photographs where they display their true selves unwittingly to those taking those pictures.
Take these photographs for example. They have something very important in common. Hand position.
Then we take a wild jump to the other side of the chessboard with the two pictures below!
The position of her hand here, near and over the chest or heart area, indicates a desire to be believed as well as being protected.
T
A common public combination for her is covering her upper body in a posture of defense and crossing her legs toward someone else while tilting her pelvis toward them. There are easily 20 years between these two photographs yet her body posture and non verbal displays are nearly identical. Non congruent displays can be found in many of her pictures demonstrating her duel nature.
Bottom line is that Agnes was a woman of contradictions. Contradictions that are there for those willing to look, willing to see past the strong characters she often played, willing to look at the woman behind the face.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Robert REALLY
There are a couple of moments in the movie Beetlejuice that always makes me think of Robert Gist, "Hey, these aren't my rules! Come to think of it, I don't have any rules!" and when Adam asks Beetlejuice his "qualifications", "Ah. Well...I attended Julliard...I'm a graduate of the Harvard Business school. I travel quite extensively. I lived through the Black Plague and had a pretty good time during that. I've seen the Exorcist 167 times and it keeps getting funnier every single time I see it. Not to mention the fact that you're talking to a dead guy! Now what do you think!? You think I'm qualified?" Why, you may well ask, do these remind me of Robert Gist? Because my friends Robert and Beetlejuice have two very important things in common;
I have suspected for a long time that Gist was basically a beard, a bigamist and a gigolo. Well today while running through my family trees and updating things with the 1940 census stuff I came across a little tidbit that left me gob smacked. It turns out that Robert Gist's never discussed and never seen again first wife Louise Van Dyke is on the 1940 census in Chicago. That isn't the gob smacked bit...don't want you to think I'm easily excitable. This is the gob smacking bit of information...Louise is listed as a single woman of twenty years of age and head of her two person household and her partner, yes it says that on the census lest we think it is invention of the modern age, was a private nurse named E Lucinda Graves. E Lucinda Graves has an occupation but Louise doesn't and Louise is the head of the household. It seems that E Lucinda Graves was the sole earner in the apartment and Louise sat home doing what??? This set me off on a tangent to find both of these gals and see what they were about.
Edith Lucinda Graves was born in Iowa in 1916 and died in Texas in 1985. She never married, ever. Louise Van Dyke was born in Iowa around 1920. I have yet to find an exact birth date because apparently once Louise married Robert Gist on August the 18th 1943 she vanished off of the face of the earth. I found her on the 1930 census living in Chariton, Iowa with her parents and several sisters. Doesn't it just make you scratch your head? Aren't you just dying to know what ever became of Louise? Don't you wonder why in the world she married Robert when she was so comfortably settled with Lucinda? Me too!
I will tell you this much that in 1943, just as it is today, the military pays you more if you're married and supporting a spouse. We know from enlistment records that Robert joined the military on January 28, 1941 and that he had four years of college, was single and an actor. We assume that Robert was a gunnery officer during the Guadalcanal campaign during World War II, at least he says so in an article in the Hayward Review of 1944 as he went to New York to join the cast of Harvey, and that he came down with malaria forcing his discharge due to ill health. The battle at Guadalcanal ended February 8th, 1943. We also know that Agnes referred to Robert as the "Malaria Kid" in a communication with Paul Gregory which means either Robert did contract malaria or he was the consummate liar...take your pick and you'll likely be right either way. While wasting away from malaria Robert married Louise 6 months after the end of the battle of Guadalcanal. Robert allegedly survived 3 major engagements at Guadalcanal without a scratch and was felled by the common mosquito. Three engagements at Guadalcanal?? Really Robert, three and you're sticking to that are you? Kids, Guadalcanal lasted 6 months and basically was one long, very long engagement. The incubation time for malaria is 8 to 25 days. Six months is 180 days, give or take, and if he contracted malaria it would have most likely been toward the end of the battle. Which means he would have been hospitalized for recuperation and then discharged. Robert claims that he went from a weight of 175 to a weight of 128 while battling malaria and yet 6 months after the battle he marries Louise Van Dyke. What a guy, what a miraculous recovery, what a load of horse manure. I'm not saying he didn't contract the disease but do the math it just doesn't add up. By November first of 1944 Robert was on his way to Broadway and his lovely wife, well she just isn't there any more, no mention, not one little blurb, nothing. What inquiring minds want to know is whatever happened to Louise Van Dyke Gist?? HMMMM??
There is no evidence of a divorce, yet, and there is no documentation of a death. Louise just vanishes into air, into thin air. Robert wanders off in or around 1948 to 1949 and begins his courtship of Agnes. Hey know what I think? I think Robert never divorced Louise and I think Louise went on living with Lucinda and I think that Robert had stuff on Agnes and Agnes had stuff on him....explain away the five to six years it took for Agnes to divorce Robert if, as it was claimed during the proceedings, Robert urged Agnes to go to Mexico and obtain a quick divorce. Never happened..did it because in no book anywhere is five to six years of back and forth arguing about property, money, and everything else quick!!! It was scripted courtroom drama designed to distract the reader from the real question. Robert was a consummate professional who went into the relationship knowing it would never be a long lasting one and believe that having had one questionable marriage under his ever broadening belt that Robert documented everything. Agnes, on the other hand, was a little too trusting with this man and she got burned financially because of it but only because there was a whole lot more to her than anyone knew and Robert, gunnery officer at Guadalcanal, literally used it as a loaded weapon to hold her hostage until he got exactly what he wanted. None of it slowed him down one bit. Two "wives" and three children happened while he was still legally married to Agnes...not bad for a guy with malaria, huh?
- They're both ass hats.
- They both have no soul or conscience what so ever.
I have suspected for a long time that Gist was basically a beard, a bigamist and a gigolo. Well today while running through my family trees and updating things with the 1940 census stuff I came across a little tidbit that left me gob smacked. It turns out that Robert Gist's never discussed and never seen again first wife Louise Van Dyke is on the 1940 census in Chicago. That isn't the gob smacked bit...don't want you to think I'm easily excitable. This is the gob smacking bit of information...Louise is listed as a single woman of twenty years of age and head of her two person household and her partner, yes it says that on the census lest we think it is invention of the modern age, was a private nurse named E Lucinda Graves. E Lucinda Graves has an occupation but Louise doesn't and Louise is the head of the household. It seems that E Lucinda Graves was the sole earner in the apartment and Louise sat home doing what??? This set me off on a tangent to find both of these gals and see what they were about.
Edith Lucinda Graves was born in Iowa in 1916 and died in Texas in 1985. She never married, ever. Louise Van Dyke was born in Iowa around 1920. I have yet to find an exact birth date because apparently once Louise married Robert Gist on August the 18th 1943 she vanished off of the face of the earth. I found her on the 1930 census living in Chariton, Iowa with her parents and several sisters. Doesn't it just make you scratch your head? Aren't you just dying to know what ever became of Louise? Don't you wonder why in the world she married Robert when she was so comfortably settled with Lucinda? Me too!
I will tell you this much that in 1943, just as it is today, the military pays you more if you're married and supporting a spouse. We know from enlistment records that Robert joined the military on January 28, 1941 and that he had four years of college, was single and an actor. We assume that Robert was a gunnery officer during the Guadalcanal campaign during World War II, at least he says so in an article in the Hayward Review of 1944 as he went to New York to join the cast of Harvey, and that he came down with malaria forcing his discharge due to ill health. The battle at Guadalcanal ended February 8th, 1943. We also know that Agnes referred to Robert as the "Malaria Kid" in a communication with Paul Gregory which means either Robert did contract malaria or he was the consummate liar...take your pick and you'll likely be right either way. While wasting away from malaria Robert married Louise 6 months after the end of the battle of Guadalcanal. Robert allegedly survived 3 major engagements at Guadalcanal without a scratch and was felled by the common mosquito. Three engagements at Guadalcanal?? Really Robert, three and you're sticking to that are you? Kids, Guadalcanal lasted 6 months and basically was one long, very long engagement. The incubation time for malaria is 8 to 25 days. Six months is 180 days, give or take, and if he contracted malaria it would have most likely been toward the end of the battle. Which means he would have been hospitalized for recuperation and then discharged. Robert claims that he went from a weight of 175 to a weight of 128 while battling malaria and yet 6 months after the battle he marries Louise Van Dyke. What a guy, what a miraculous recovery, what a load of horse manure. I'm not saying he didn't contract the disease but do the math it just doesn't add up. By November first of 1944 Robert was on his way to Broadway and his lovely wife, well she just isn't there any more, no mention, not one little blurb, nothing. What inquiring minds want to know is whatever happened to Louise Van Dyke Gist?? HMMMM??
There is no evidence of a divorce, yet, and there is no documentation of a death. Louise just vanishes into air, into thin air. Robert wanders off in or around 1948 to 1949 and begins his courtship of Agnes. Hey know what I think? I think Robert never divorced Louise and I think Louise went on living with Lucinda and I think that Robert had stuff on Agnes and Agnes had stuff on him....explain away the five to six years it took for Agnes to divorce Robert if, as it was claimed during the proceedings, Robert urged Agnes to go to Mexico and obtain a quick divorce. Never happened..did it because in no book anywhere is five to six years of back and forth arguing about property, money, and everything else quick!!! It was scripted courtroom drama designed to distract the reader from the real question. Robert was a consummate professional who went into the relationship knowing it would never be a long lasting one and believe that having had one questionable marriage under his ever broadening belt that Robert documented everything. Agnes, on the other hand, was a little too trusting with this man and she got burned financially because of it but only because there was a whole lot more to her than anyone knew and Robert, gunnery officer at Guadalcanal, literally used it as a loaded weapon to hold her hostage until he got exactly what he wanted. None of it slowed him down one bit. Two "wives" and three children happened while he was still legally married to Agnes...not bad for a guy with malaria, huh?