Evelyn Nesbit
Listen to ArtMuse’s Three Part Episode on the artist’s model, chorus girl, actress, and bewitching beauty, Evelyn Nesbit, who was caught up in one of the most notorious murders in American history.
As author Paula Uruburu declared, “Much like Marilyn Monroe later in the century, Evelyn Nesbit was an icon of her age, created and consumed by the public's insatiable appetite for private sin and public scandal”. Evelyn’s story “has all the elements- sex and violence, love and betrayal, a teen-aged girl involved with a married man, an insanely jealous husband driven to murder…the fall of the rich and powerful, and the cult of celebrity.”
But Evelyn’s life story is also so much bigger than the scandal that plagued her life. In this episode we honor Evelyn as the remarkably resilient woman she was, as the ethereal beauty that captured the eye of some of the greatest artists of her day, as a talented actress and performer, caring and loving mother, and as a wanderlust spirit with an unbreakable curiosity for the world, even in the face of great tragedy and adversity.
This episode is produced by Kula Production Company.
REFERENCES
Uruburu, Paula. American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, the Birth of the "It" Girl, and the Crime of the Century. Riverhead Books, 2008.
Paul, Deborah. Tragic Beauty: The Lost 1914 Memoirs of Evelyn Nesbit. John Long Ltd, 2006 (originally published in 1914).
FURTHER READING
Baatz, Simon. The Girl on the Velvet Swing: Sex, Murder, and Madness at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century. Mulholland Books, 2018.
IMAGES
Ryland Phillips, Evelyn Nesbit, 1900.
James Caroll Beckwith, Portrait of Evelyn Nesbit, 1901.
James Caroll Beckwith, Portrait of Evelyn Nesbit, 1901.
Frederick Stuart Church, Portrait of Evelyn Nesbit, 1914.
Charles Dana Gibson, The Eternal Question (Evelyn Nesbit), 1901.
Evelyn on the cover of the Prudential Calendar in 1903.
The famed architect, Stanford White.
Gertrude Kasebier, Miss N, 1903.
Rudolf Eickemeyer, Evelyn Nesbit on a Bear Rug, 1903.
Evelyn as Vashti the gypsy in the 1902 production of “The Wild Rose.”
John Barrymore in 1919.
Harry Thaw in 1895, a few years before meeting Evelyn.
The Washington Times, front page story covering the murder of Stanford White.
Evelyn on the witness stand during Thaw’s murder trial.
Evelyn Nesbit outside the courthouse.
Evelyn Nesbit in 1914.
Advertisement for the film Redemption (1917), which starred her and her son Russell.
Evelyn Nesbit in the silent film Thou Shalt Not (1919).
Evelyn Nesbit and her second husband Jack Clifford.
Promo for a show featuring Evelyn Nesbit and her second husband Jack Clifford.
Poster for The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, 1955, a film based off of Evelyn and the murder of Stanford White.
Evelyn Nesbit with actress Joan Collins, who played Evelyn in The Girl in the Velvet Swing, 1955.
Evelyn Nesbit in her late age, when she was an art teacher in California.
Evelyn Nesbit in her late age, when she was an art teacher in California.
