The recent death of Beryl Gillespie Slocum Powell, a wonderful woman I had the honor of calling a friend, prompts me to post this chapter from one of my favorite Providence Journal series. It also became the basis for one of my documentary films, Behind the Hedgerow. This installment of the series was published on July 4, 2000.
7.4.2000
Midsummer Nights
Eileen Slocum talks with G. Wayne Miller about
conflicts created this season by too many parties, not enough time.
To listen, you'll need the RealPlayer plug-in
It's eight o'clock on Saturday night, July 10, and women in evening
gowns and men in tuxedos are
streaming into Eileen Slocum's Bellevue Avenue residence. Eileen greets her guests in the front hall and
introduces them to her granddaughter, her granddaughter's fiancé, and
the fiancé's mother. I proceed down the receiving line and on through the drawing room onto the crowded south terrace, where I
order champagne.
Aeriel Frazer Eweson has accepted the
invitation of her old friend Eileen, and I spot her sitting under the canopy.
We chat for a few minutes and then I move along to a lovely older couple I met
recently at Bailey's Beach. This older woman's daughter once was an actress,
and we are discussing the difficulties of making it in Hollywood
when a middle-
Click photos to see enlargements.
aged man I've not met joins us.
He acts pleasantly tipsy -- animated
and eager for an audience. Hearing us discuss Hollywood, he feels compelled to
confide that his mother, who would be in her 90s
Loraine
McMurrey, whose son will marry Eileen Slocum's granddaughter later in the
summer, at one time dated Ted Turner and is
known in Houston for her lavish parties.
Ruth Orthwein
if alive, once told him that
she had slept with both Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. We all laugh,
nervously.
At nine o'clock, word ripples
through the crowd that it's time to be seated.
My wife and I recheck our place cards
and confirm that we
are indeed at different tables.
Eileen personally determines the
seating at all her dinner parties, sometimes
laboring hours to get it just right -- and always
observing the rule that spouses
should never dine together, for spouses presumably know each other intimately
and much of the adventure of a dinner party derives from new
partners. Still, a good hostess must
never be too presumptuous, and thus while Eileen endeavors to place a
fresh face on one side of every guest, she also strives for a familiar
(albeit unrelated) face on the other. "I try to put one they know very well on one side in case they haven't approved
of my choice on the other side," Eileen explains.
Nothing ruins a dinner party like cold-shouldered disinterest.
Parting company with my wife, I find
my table in the main dining room,
one of three rooms pressed into service
for tonight's nearly 100 guests. I know neither of
Hugh D. Auchincloss III
Laurence
and Judy
Cutler
Eleanor
Young
the women to my left and right -- but I
recognize the man across from me: former Rhode Island Gov. Bruce Sundlun, a friend of Eileen's.
Sundlun is absorbed with the ladies
next to him, and so, as uniformed
waitresses with Irish accents serve a
cold cream soup and a waiter offers red or white wine, I introduce myself to the middle-aged woman on
my left. Her name is Maureen Donnell and she arrived in Newport
relatively recently, although she has long been a fixture
in Palm Beach and Ohio, home of Marathon
Oil Company, source of her husband's considerable wealth. Maureen
is a terribly attractive woman, as Eileen would
say -- a formidable conversationalist
and hostess as well. Where other outsiders
have floundered, Maureen has
prospered not only because of her
money but because she entertains so well.
To my other side is Louise
Grosvenor, an equally attractive woman of about Maureen's age whose family and husband's family have much deeper
roots in Newport and also ties to New York. Like
Maureen, Louise is endowed with charm and wit,
and before my wine glass requires refilling, I am deeply engaged in three- way conversation. For the three of us, at least,
Eileen has created
a bit of chemistry, which of course is why she labors so on
her guest list and seating.
Coming from the world
of journalism, where the art of small talk is uncelebrated, I am surprised at how smoothly the
evening progresses. My new companions listen
raptly to stories of my journey so far through their shuttered
world, and I in turn entice them
to share something of themselves. I find myself laughing when appropriate and serving up witticisms
that draw laughter in return. I make
a mental note to write letters
thanking Maureen and Louise for the pleasure
of their company -- and soon enough, the tenderloin of beef with roasted vegetables has been served and eaten, our
wine glasses have been refreshed
several times, and we are admiring
the peach chiffon.
Coffee has been served
when we hear the tinkle
of myriad spoons on
glass. Someone is proposing a toast --
the stepfather of Eileen's granddaughter Sophie Trevor, in fact. The stepfather is followed by Sophie's mother,
artist Marguerite Slocum Quinn,
whom friends call Margy. Now comes Sophie's
fiancé, Louis Girard, who wells up describing how he fell for his bride-to-be virtually
the moment he set eyes on her, during
a Texas debutante party. And now comes Louis's mother, Loraine McMurrey, whose family's fortune
was made in gas and oil: tall, blond, and perfectly
proportioned for the décolleté outfits she fancies, Loraine counts Ted Turner among her ex-suitors. She certainly knows how to host
a party: her awe-inspiring extravaganzas rated a glowing
tribute in the 1990 tell- all, Texas Big Rich. Loraine looks around this room filled with
authentic New England blue bloods and jokes about these Texans "steppin' up," what with her son marrying so well. Laughter
fills Eileen's house.
The final toast belongs to Eileen, who presides over the
head table, as befits the matriarch. Standing, her glass uplifted, Eileen
pays tribute to loved ones, singling out
family and three old friends: Aeriel, Jane Pope Ridgway and Betty Brooke Blake,
whom friends still call Betty Boop. Former Glamour
Girls all, and all here
tonight.
***********
Unbreakable commitments have
kept several friends from joining Eileen at her resplendent black-tie dinner party.
Candy Van Alen would have come but for tonight's
International Tennis Hall of Fame enshrinement
dinner honoring John McEnroe.
The dinner is the crowning event of Tennis Week, a sentimental favorite of Candy's by virtue of her late husband,
Jimmy Van Alen, whose long support of
the game earned him a bronze statue outside
the hall of fame's entrance.
Among Candy's houseguests this week are noted sportswriter and broadcaster Bud Collins and his wife. In a brief
telephone conversation, Candy (who has just returned
from an overseas visit to her
friend Princess Tassilo von und zu "Titi" Furstenberg, a noted
Picasso collector), reports feeling
somewhat "swamped" by the demands of Tennis Week -- the many
matches and parties, not to mention the presence
of houseguests, who, no
matter how welcome, require the ongoing attention of staff and hostess.
And Dodo Hamilton and Oatsie Charles
might have attended Eileen's party --
but this weekend, the busiest so far of the young summer, finds them at the
Newport Flower Show dinner. Last night was the show's Preview Cocktail Party,
held at Rosecliff and open to the public. I attended.
Events such as this that allow
the masses to mingle with the more
socially advantaged are enormously popular in Newport, and a line of expectant
commoners who paid $125 apiece extends into the mansion. I enter, stopping
briefly to exchange pleasantries with Dodo, dressed all in yellow and receiving
guests in her official capacity as show chairman. Then I walk through Rosecliff
to the lawn out back, crammed with display booths and tents sheltering champagne bars and tables with all manner
of hors d'oeuvres.
I chat with Oatsie, then Bettie
Bearden Pardee, co-chairman of the flower show's Artistic Entries committee
whose new French country-style house on Bellevue
Bettie Pardee,
above, television personality and columnist for Bon Appetit, recently built a French
country-style house on Bellevue Avenue. Below is Ruth Orthwein, who had planned
to throw a roaring '20s birthday party for her
daughter on July 10,
but canceled when the date became overbooked with other parties,
most importantly, Eileen Slocum's black-tie dinner.
Avenue is nearly finished.
Judging took place earlier today, and Dodo takes the podium to announce
this year's winners.
I recognize the names of only two: Bettie,
who took second place in an artistic category, "Dinner at 8," circa 1980, a functional dinner tableau for 6 guests
; and Dodo herself, who won the
Green Animals Topiary Award and the Preservation Society of Newport County
Award. Hard work reaps rewards.
Dodo and Bettie are surrounded
by admirers, and so I drift
back to one of the tents, where I
run into Laurence and Judy Cutler.
In Newport only a few
months, the Cutlers are causing a bit of a stir. They have bought Vernon
Court, one of the grand old Bellevue
Avenue mansions, and they
are refurbishing it with the intention of opening a museum for their extensive collection of art by famous American
illustrators, such as Norman Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish.
Judy, a Manhattan art dealer who counts
George Lucas and Steven Spielberg among her clients, and Laurence, an
architect, businessman, and former
Harvard professor, expected Newport would welcome them -- and the community at
large has. But citing fears of increased traffic and the
presence of a "commercial" enterprise in a largely residential
neighborhood, a small group of Bellevue
Avenue neighbors disapproves -- and has
hired lawyers to try to stop the Cutlers. Among the opponents are Bettie Pardee
and her husband, Jonathan, whose new
house is a block from Vernon Court.
I have met the
Cutlers, and found them to be intelligent, funny, and determined to
have their nonprofit museum -- which, they claim, would attract only small numbers of
well-heeled patrons. Self-made people
who have amassed a collection
worth many millions, the Cutlers
would seem an attractive if unobtrusive addition to Bellevue Avenue, home to
Preservation Society mansions that draw hundreds of thousands of tourists every year, far more than the Cutlers desire.
And yet in my travels I hear an undercurrent of suspicion regarding
these ambitious newcomers. What's the
real purpose of this nonprofit
corporation of theirs? What are their
true intentions -- a museum
or something intolerable, a commercial bed and breakfast or hotel?
The Cutlers bring me up to speed on the legal battle, which so far is going
against them (but which they ultimately will win). This only energizes
Laurence, who is perplexed by the
fuss.
"I still don't
understand it," he tells me later. "I had these guests from overseas -- three
different couples from three different countries -- and all said if it was a collection of such import in their countries, the head of state would be
demanding it be in the national capital." Adept in the public
arena, Laurence has won the
strong editorial endorsements of the local and statewide daily newspapers.
I wonder if his penchant
for publicity lies at the bottom of things: Laurence disdains the rule of only three
newspaper appearances per lifetime. Perhaps it's his stubborn resolve, or
his self-made status, which qualifies him as new money, or maybe it's his
seeming indifference to such distinctions as membership at Bailey's.
"The food's terrible," Laurence says. "I belong to a lot of clubs and I don't need
any more clubs, to tell you the truth."
***********
By this point in the summer, someone is hosting a lunch, cocktail
party or dinner virtually every day. Although it might seem some master
scheduler determines the calendar
after carefully assessing everyone's desires and needs, in truth, dates are grabbed on a catch-as-catch-can basis.
And the choicest dates, such as July
10 this year, go very early, as Ruth Orthwein,
ex-wife of brewery heir James Busch Orthwein, must surely know.
"I love to give roaring '20s
parties," says Ruth. This spring, for example, she decided to give one at the Clambake Club for her daughter's 40th
birthday.
"I thought, 'We'll put this
all together. It's July 10, it's my birthday and her birthday's the eighth --
we'll just do it, no problem.' There was so much going on,
as you know, that week that I
could not have a party. And I started a couple of months ahead."
Stymied, Ruth had to reschedule.
"I had to cancel the
orchestra, I had to cancel the Clambake
Club -- I said, 'I'm so sorry, but I won't be able to get
a soul.' It's insane."
After the date and the guest
list, food is the paramount consideration for anyone planning to host a lunch
or dinner. Large gatherings usually require an outside
Louis Gerard,
above, heir to Texas gas and oil money, fell
in love with his bride-to-be, Sophie Trevor, at a Texas debutante party.
Below, his fiancée is the focus of attention throughout the summer.
chef, even for those with a cook on staff -- few
cooks, no matter how talented, can
single-handedly feed 100 or more in
style. And like the choicest dates,
the best outside chefs are booked well ahead.
Eileen Slocum prefers Newport's
Michael Dupre, the man behind her July 10 black-tie
dinner.
"He's just simply wonderful," Eileen says.
"I feel he must have made
a fortune because many people have Michael booked up two or three months in
advance -- I mean, practically from where they are in winter they will call him up and ask him
if he will save the night before the
Fourth of July or something. He makes the most beautiful
desserts anybody has ever seen."
While some leave the menu to a secretary or professional party
planner, Eileen entrusts it to no one. Even
in daily living, Eileen's maid cooks -- but
Eileen sets the menu and buys the ingredients herself, "every single loaf of
bread that comes into the house." When I ask why, she
says: "Because it's the most important part of
my house. I don't want the shelves to get clogged up with things
like corn starch that I feel
shouldn't be in menus."
For her black-tie dinner, Eileen
had to take into account her tastes, Michael
Dupre's strengths, and the
enormous Vulcan stove in her massive kitchen where the meal was actually cooked.
"I
usually start by saying, 'Michael, I
do have in mind rare roast beef and
corn pudding for this dinner.
How does that suit you?' And
I have to suit him because
the stove is 120 years old... They
have to be very good chefs who know how to
work the little thermostat."
***********
Just about everyone except Judy
and Laurence Cutler is invited to
Jonathan and Bettie Pardee's housewarming four days after Eileen's black-tie
dinner. I turn off Bellevue and proceed up the Pardees' long, curved
drive, leave my car with a valet, and step into more than 5,000 square feet of
new splendor. Only the finest
fabrics, tiles, wood, stone, stucco
and slate have gone into this
house, built over the course of two years on one of the last
available lots (almost three
acres) in this enclave of high-society Newport.
I meet Jonathan, a venture
capitalist, only today -- but I have
already lunched with Bettie, who (with Jonathan and another couple) owns an 800-acre
game reserve in Georgia. Born
in Arkansas and raised in Beverly Hills, Bettie is multi-talented
-
- a floral designer, television
personality, contributing editor for Bon Appetit, and author of books,
including Great Entertaining: 1001 Party
Tips and Timesavers (Pardee Guide), described by her publisher like this:
"Writing in a breezy, accessible style, seasoned partygiver Bettie Pardee
incorporates tips, shortcuts, and timesavers for anyone who
Loraine
McMurrey, center, has been the houseguest of Eileen
Slocum, right, for much
of the summer as her son and Eileen's granddaughter will be wed in September. At left is Loraine's niece.
wants to entertain more
confidently." I envision Bettie as Newport's own Martha Stewart:
attractive and blond, a gifted conversationalist, she is decades younger than Eileen Slocum but every bit the
hostess.
Although finishing touches
remain on the Pardees' French country house, they decided to host a housewarming
without waiting; they wanted their party on July 14, Bastille Day, when France celebrates
its independence from the monarchy.
Even Bettie's invitations struck the French motif: long and narrow like a loaf of French bread, they arrived
in an envelope labeled "French 'Bred' " and urged
guests to wear "festive blue, white
and red," the colors
of France's flag. Feeling less adventuresome, I stick
to the basic Newport blazer, button-down
shirt, slacks, and loafers, sans
socks.
Inside the house, guests circulate through
the first-floor salon,
sunroom and library, and on into Bettie's pantries and kitchen
(where, for today at least, caterers and not the lady of the house hold court). In the backyard, bartenders serve drinks, servers bustle with trays of hors d'oeuvres, and a four-piece
band plays. Bettie and Jonathan are too busy mixing with their more than 200 guests for extended
repartee, so I talk with Helen and John
Winslow, Eileen Slocum, and Hugh D.
Auchincloss III, son of one of Newport's oldest families.
Bespectacled and fond of tweed, Auchincloss, 71, brings to mind a favorite
uncle.
Auchincloss is a rarity in this
world: like his friend Eileen, an outspoken Republican,
he does not scorn the public eye. Yusha, as he's known, ran unsuccessfully for state Senate several years ago as an independent, and he has just
announced his candidacy for Newport City Council ("A vote for Hugh
is a vote for you.") Educated at
Groton and Yale, a Middle East diplomat and then a New York management consultant before retiring, Yusha has been a board member or trustee of many nonprofit organizations,
including Save the Bay, the Naval War College Foundation, and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Newport County.
Yusha's public prominence
nettles some in Newport who take refuge in their monied anonymity, but Yusha
has long bloodlines and the courage of conviction and thus cannot be dismissed. Believing in civic-mindedness, he admires Bettie Pardee, a board
member of the Boys & Girls Clubs whose vigorous promotion of her cause
has been pooh-poohed in certain
drawing rooms.
This puzzles me. Why should goodness
engender criticism?
"You have to understand the mentality of the more insecure sort
of hostesses in this town," Yusha says. "They think it's pushy."
But virtue in this case was rewarded: when the Pardees'
candidacy for membership in Bailey's
encountered inside resistance, Yusha (a former Bailey's governor and son of the club's ninth president) came to the rescue, helping
win acceptance for the Pardees. And so he is
pleased at the wonderful turnout at
their Bastille Day housewarming -- and the notable presence of Bailey's president and his wife, the Winslows. Bettie and Jonathan have arrived.
***********
Of the many people I have met this
summer, no one tells a story surpassing Yusha's. Since spring, I
have visited him several times in his house on the periphery of Hammersmith Farm; we sit in his study, which features
a fireplace, an abundance of books, and cozy old furniture
--
and many framed
letters and
photographs
of his stepsister, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, and her first husband, John
Fitzgerald Kennedy. Jackie and JFK held their wedding reception at Hammersmith
after marrying in a Newport church; later, as president, Kennedy
used the estate
as a summer White House.
During my visits, Yusha tells me
about his own father, a lawyer,
banker, statesman and son of an old Newport family; and of his mother, the exotic Maya de Chrapovitsky, who was raised in luxury in turn-of-the-century Czarist Russia.
"She was a daredevil," Yusha says. "Adventuresome. Typical sort
of Russian excitable person. Very
emotional." Maya gave Yusha his nickname, supposedly a Russianization of "Hugh."
Maya almost died when Yusha was a baby.
"She got out of this small plane and
ran around the front of it to congratulate the pilot," Yusha
says. "She was just
going around underneath the wing when
the propeller started sputtering again. It kind of hit
her head, but she fortunately had a jewel -- the old
Russians, they had big jewels all over the place -- on her hat. The propeller hit the jewel so it went
into her head but didn't go
through." But Maya was forever changed --
moody and more excitable still. A few
years later, Yusha's parents divorced,
and his father
wed Nina Gore, mother of novelist Gore Vidal. That marriage ended, too, after less than six years.
Raised by a French governess,
the boy Yusha cherished his visits to Hammersmith's
main house, a shingled, nine-bedroom cottage set on some 95 acres of gardens and fields
overlooking the scenic mouth of Narragansett Bay. Built by Yusha's
great uncle during 1887 and 1888, Hammersmith was owned by Yusha's grandmother, who passed it on to
Yusha's dad when she died, in 1942.
That was the year Dad married his third wife, Janet Bouvier, mother
of Jackie.
Yusha and his new stepsister drew close almost immediately, and they remained dear friends until Jackie
died, in 1994. On one of my visits,
Yusha takes me to Hammersmith's main house, which is across
a field from his smaller
residence (and which is now
owned by investment banker Peter D.
Kiernan III). Yusha leads me through history,
his own and a piece of America's: the bedroom where his
father was born; the dining
room where a young president ate with his wife and two children, Caroline and John-John;
the simply furnished third-floor bedroom
where Jackie slept when she and Yusha were young
teens; and Yusha's own room,
adjacent to Jackie's.
"When
she became part of the family," says Yusha, as we stand in the teenaged Jackie's
room, "and my stepmother moved
up here in the summer of 1943, everything got moved around. I moved up from the room downstairs. Since I
was the eldest in the family, I had the first pick of the rooms.. Jackie was the second
oldest so she got the
second-best room, which is this room -- with its view of the Bay at sunset. She was always the room
next to me."
Long after they left childhood
behind -- after Jackie died -- Yusha sat by his fire, sipped Scotch whiskey,
took pen in hand, and let
his memory run free. He was
writing an article about his famous stepsister for Groton School Quarterly,
and he called on letters he'd saved from their youthful
correspondence.
"Her letters are a portrait of a sparkling, bright, amusing, talented,
and mischievous teenage girl," Yusha wrote in that article.
"They are perceptive, touching, original and caring. Some special qualities
of hers that come out in these early letters and were especially evident at the close of her too short life, are her courage, sense of
duty, selflessness, and patriotic
spirit. No matter how much pain she might feel
-- from a fall off her horse, a wisdom tooth operation (her decision was to have all removed
together) -- she wanted those around
her to feel comfortable."
***********
Still ahead
on the summer calendar is Coaching Weekend, a high-society pageant held but once every
three years -- and of course Eileen's
granddaughter's wedding. I have much
to look forward to.
But the past still beckons, and so one lazy
afternoon I call on Betty Blake -- forever
Betty Boop -- at her estate,
Indian Spring, which is near Dodo
Hamilton's place and around the
corner (as corners go in this part of
Newport) from Candy Van Alen's Avalon.
Patron of the arts, Christian Scientist, and teetotaler, Boop possesses an easy
humor. She married five times, losing one husband through early death from alcoholism, and the others through
divorce. Still attractive, like all the surviving former Glamour Girls I've encountered, she walks stiffly and is hard of hearing but neither condition
saps her vital essence; one need spend but a few minutes in her company to confirm
this is one of those vibrant young women in that photograph on the wall at Bailey's, more than half a century
ago. She has, however, no plans
for husband number six.
"You couldn't pay me to
ever get married again," she
says. "But then of course I have been married enough!"
Boop was raised on the Philadelphia
Main Line by a father whose wealth came from steel and a mother previously married to William E.
Carter, whose loathsome conduct during the sinking of the Titanic
fueled a national
scandal and earned him
a lifetime of ridicule -- and a nickname,
Titanic Bill. Even today,
old-timers remember the infamous Titanic Bill,
alone and more likely than not inebriated, staring out at the ocean off
Bailey's Beach.
"When the iceberg
hit," Boop tells
me, "they knew the boat was
going down. So Mr. Carter went down
to the stateroom and said to my mother, 'Lucille, the boat is
sinking. Get the children up and get the children
into a lifeboat.' " And then
Titanic Bill disappeared, perhaps to
check on his precious dogs and horses,
or the motor car he'd had custom-built for him in Europe -- or, more likely, to find a lifeboat
before the ship went down.
Leaving his wife and two young children to their fate, he
made his way on deck. Given the universal rule of women and children
first, the scandal
mongers believed that Titanic Bill must have dressed
in women's clothing to secure his
seat in a lifeboat. But according
to Boop's mother, who managed to survive with her daughter and son (Boop's
step-siblings), Titanic Bill escaped in his own clothes.
Still, the women's clothing story stuck -- and regardless
of what he'd worn, Bill had proved
himself the worst sort of coward.
One can only imagine how Boop's
mother greeted her husband when they
were reunited on shore, but the net
result was divorce. "I mean," says
Boop, "I don't think you leave a woman to drown, with your two children -- they were his children. That's pretty
low. I mean, you wouldn't do that. Nobody would."
***********
I steer Boop
toward Eleanor Young, fellow Glamour Girl. "She
was very beautiful," Boop says. "Long, long dark hair."
Like all of the Glamour Girls,
Eleanor appealed to men -- and men desired
her. And like her friends, Eleanor aspired not to college or
career but to romance and marriage, so after a year in a Paris finishing school she returned to Newport for her debut, in 1936. The
teenaged Eleanor dated, but failing to find the right match in Newport, New York, or Palm Beach, she embarked on a nearly
year-long world cruise. And voilà -- in the summer of 1938, Eleanor met a wealthy Englishman in France.
"He has been so far
a confirmed bachelor but I am
hoping that he may weaken,"
Eleanor wrote to her parents. Less than three weeks later, the Englishman
indeed weakened, and Eleanor accepted
his proposal of marriage. Alas, he was insincere: Eleanor returned to America, planning
her wedding, but the Englishman failed to join
her. "The so and so hasn't even written me,"
Eleanor wrote to her mother
when almost a month passed without word.
But Eleanor did not lack for suitors. Twenty years old, she had become
a society- page fixture
-- regularly photographed outside
Bailey's in Newport,
and inside such ritzy
establishments as New York's Waldorf-Astoria hotel. Friends called her Cookie, a '30s' term for a vixen.
"She's a 'Glamour Girl' who is still surprised by it all, the only child of
doting parents [whose] every
wish is fulfilled in an Aladdin-like
manner," one newspaper declared in November 1938. "Won't get her to take 'showers,' but when she bathes
in the tub, Cleopatra in all her glory wasn't
more luxurious . . . expects to be
waited on and has a personal maid to
attend to her comfort."
And this is when the no-good Robert Ogden Bacon Jr. arrived on scene.
Son of a steamship company executive who lived in New York's
Plaza Hotel and
rented a summer place in Newport, Bunty
Bacon bore a passing
resemblance to a later movie star, Christopher Reeve. But Bunty was more than
tall, tanned, and ruggedly handsome -- he knew
how to charm the ladies. "Very, very sexy," Betty Boop tells me, "a very sexy and attractive
man. And that's all he had." Bunty was divorced from one of Eileen Slocum's friends when Cookie
fell for him, shortly before Christmas of 1938.
Robert and Anita Young strongly disapproved of their only child's choice:
Bunty had a young child from his first wife, another child he'd fathered with her had died under mysterious circumstances, and he drank to excess.
"Really
bad news," says Boop. But Eleanor wanted him.
After vacationing with Bunty in
Jamaica, she secretly married him, on April 5,
1939, in Warrenton, Va.
Soon, she was pregnant.
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