When she returned to Paris in September of 1897, the Prince of Wales was waiting for her. “He was surprisingly virile and generous,” but he had to stand her up one night in London when his official mistress, Lillie Langtry, arrived unexpectedly.
The Khedive of Cairo saw her perform and, after three torrid days in his palace, gave her a 10-carat diamond ring with a setting of 12 pearls worth half a million francs at the time.
On a visit to Monte Carlo in 1905, Otero “deflowered” 19-year-old King Alfonso XIII of Spain. “He was rather aloof at first,” she remembered, “but I taught him how to relax.” In 1913, at the age of 27, he set the 44-year-old Otero up in Madrid in the last apartment she would ever occupy courtesy of a royal client.
Otero’s 40th birthday had found her with a new lover, Aristide Briand, who would become one of France’s greatest statesmen and win the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize. Otero must have sensed his coming greatness, because his appearance did not foretell such a future: “He was … hideously ugly. He was fat. He dressed like a slob—often there’d be remains of an omelet on his vest, his nails were black, but there was a fascination to him I never found in any other man.” He could only afford “an occasional cheap jewel and flowers,” Otero recalled. “Once … he made love to me eight times before morning. And he was 50 years old at the time.” Their affair lasted 10 years.
When La Belle Otero retired in 1914, she had amassed a fortune, and for a while the money kept coming, occasionally from secret benefactors. In 1935, at age 66, she was still beautiful, but age eventually crept up on her, and her money disappeared in the casinos. She was alone when she died of a heart attack at age 96 in Nice, France, but she never had any regrets about her life.
HER THOUGHTS: “I have been a slave to my passions, but never to a man.”
—A.L.G. and L.S.
Uncultured Pearl
CORA PEARL (1835-July 8, 1886)
HER FAME: Despite her poor manners, incomprehensible French, and penchant for cruel practical jokes, Cora Pearl enjoyed a long reign as the most popular courtesan in the Paris of Napoleon III.
HER PERSON: Cora was born Emma Elizabeth Crouch to a family of 16 children in Devonshire, England. Her father was a musical director and the composer of “Kathleen Mavourneen,” a popular ballad of the time, which he sold for £20 to a publisher who earned £15,000 from it. Cora, however, did not sell her wares so cheaply, and the time came when a single night with her cost 10,000 francs.
The age at which Cora began her mercenary career is uncertain, but she was apparently young enough to be lured into a low-class pub by promises of sweets. There, a merchant gave the naive girl her first taste of gin. When she woke up in his bed the following morning, he compensated her with a £5 note. Thus, she had inadvertently begun her career. That same day she left home and soon began an apprenticeship in a London brothel. From there she moved to Paris, where she worked independently. Among her customers were the wealthiest and most powerful men of her day, whom she collectively called her “Golden Chain” of lovers. Later in life, Cora wrote her memoirs and sent excerpts to former clients, offering to delete certain parts in exchange for money. The extortion scheme was apparently a success, for the published version made dull reading.
Cora was fond of practical jokes. She once lured a prominent Parisian into a compromising position in her bedroom, only to throw open the closet doors and reveal a contingent of his friends. Another time Cora hosted a dinner party at which she was brought out naked on a silver platter in order to win a bet. She had wagered that she could serve “a meat nobody could cut.”
Her face was plain, but she had beautiful skin and hair and her body was one of the most perfect in France. With it she earned a vast fortune. Ironically, when Cora died of cancer at the age of 51, she was penniless and alone.
SEX LIFE: Cora arrived in Paris in 1858 with the proprietor of the Argyle Rooms, a seedy London brothel where she had perfected her bedroom skills. The trip was for pleasure rather than business, but duty eventually called and Cora’s patron returned to England without her. She took up with a sailor for a while, and when he shipped out she was fortunate enough to meet a mysterious man known as “Roubisse,” who procured for her the first in her golden chain of clients.
For six years she was the mistress of Victor Massena, third Duc de Rivoli. The staid aristocrat indulged her every whim, yet Cora later described Massena as “the man who received the least in return.” Throughout their relationship, which ended in 1869 when Massena drifted out of her life, she had many other lovers. One of these was 17-year-old Prince Achille Murat, a grandnephew of Napoleon I. While the young man was not rich, Cora helped him run through what money he did have. He fought (and won) a duel over Cora’s bills once, and got so badly into debt that Emperor Napoleon III sent him to Africa.
Once Cora herself fought a duel, with Marthe de Vère, a fellow courtesan, over a good-looking Serbian prince. Riding whips were used as weapons. Both Cora and Marthe remained in seclusion for a week to let the wounds on their faces heal. The prince, in the meantime, disappeared.
After Murat, the next link in Cora’s golden chain was William, Prince of Orange, heir to the throne of the Netherlands. The Prince of Orange had little to his credit besides money, and Cora found him tiresome. However, a woman who would bathe nude in a champagne-filled silver tub in front of her dinner guests might easily find many men tiresome.
Cora was ice-skating one day when she was picked up by the Duc de Morny, the second most powerful man in France, the emperor’s half brother. “Cora on the ice?” he said to her. “What an antithesis!” She replied, “Well, since the ice is broken, take me for a drink.” De Morny was a stepping-stone to Prince Napoleon, “Plon-Plon” to his friends, who fell madly in love with Cora. The prince installed her in a grand house and gave her a monthly allowance of 12,000 francs. But her barnyard manners and cockney-accented French annoyed the prince at times, as did her habit of entertaining hordes of men. During one party, when Cora was the only woman at a table full of male admirers, she coyly remarked, “There is only one of you with whom I am still a virgin.”
Although there is no conclusive evidence that Plon-Plon’s cousin, Napoleon III, was among Cora’s lovers, it is reasonable to assume that he was. It was a rare man indeed who did not sample Cora’s perfect body. She was a sexual common denominator, a conversation piece when men talked among themselves, and it is unlikely that the emperor overlooked her.
For a time all Paris was buzzing with the tragic story of one of Cora’s lovers, Alexandre Duval, a gentleman with a fortune of 10 million francs. Duval showered Cora with gifts of carriages, horses, jewelry, furnishings, and other expensive items. He once gave her a book, which she contemptuously tossed aside, not realizing that its 100 pages consisted of 1,000-franc bank notes. Despite the lavish presents, Cora treated Duval with disdain. And when he eventually shot himself in her house, Cora coldly remarked, “The dirty pig. He fucked up my beautiful rug!” Duval recovered at length from both the bullet wound and his near fatal devotion to Cora.
Cora’s spurned lovers might have been gratified to see her in her later years—hungry, homeless, hustling cheap tricks in the slums. An English journalist, Julian B. Arnold, stumbled upon Cora in Monte Carlo, where she sat weeping on a curbstone. Taking pity on her, Arnold took her home to his villa until he could arrange for her transportation to Paris. That night as Arnold sat reading in his study, Cora entered in a dressing gown. She let the gown fall to the floor and stood naked before him. “A woman’s vanity,” she said, “should be my sufficient excuse. I found it difficult to rest until I had shown you that, if Cora Pearl has lost all else, she still retains that which made her famous—a form of loveliness.”
HER THOUGHTS: “I may say I have never had a preferred lover…. A handsome, young, and amiable man who has loyally offered me his arms, his love, and his money has every right to think and call himself my favorite lover, my lover for an hour, my escort for a month, and my friend for
ever. That is how I understand the business.”
—M.S.
XVII
Everybody’s Doing It
Philosopher Of Love
NATALIE BARNEY (Oct. 31, 1876-Feb. 12, 1972)
HER FAME: The leading lesbian of her time, Barney was a writer of epigrams, memoirs, and poetry, but she was most widely known for her affairs and intrigues with beautiful, brilliant, and famous women, and for her salon, which was a meeting place for an international cultural elite for more than 60 years.
HER PERSON: Known as “l’Amazone” (“the Amazon”) because of Remy de Gourmont’s immortalization of her in his Lettres à l’Amazone, Natalie was raised in Cincinnati, O. She had an early predilection for all things French and could speak the language perfectly while still a child. Born into the “fabulous Barney fortune” (her grandparents on both sides were industrial magnates), Natalie was able to make trips abroad at an early age. At 11 she was placed in a French boarding school, where she realized she was a lesbian: “My only books / Were women’s looks.” Back in America, she was whisked around high-society circles in Washington, D.C., until she had made her debut and was free to settle in Paris. At 32 she bought the townhouse at 20 rue Jacob (the street on which courtesan Ninon de Lenclos had lived two centuries earlier) which was to become the most famous literary salon of her time. Known for its cucumber sandwiches and chocolate cakes, it boasted such regulars as Anatole France, Paul Valéry, André Gide, Gertrude Stein, and Ezra Pound. Once Mata Hari arrived, completely naked, on a bejeweled white horse. Though some of Natalie’s writing was favorably received, she was much like her friend Oscar Wilde, who said, “I’ve put my genius into my life; I’ve put only my talent into my works.” Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness , Liane de Pougy’s Idylle Saphique (“Sapphic Idyll”), and most of Renée Vivien’s poetry were but a few of the literary works Natalie inspired.
Barney (r) and friend
SEX LIFE: Composed, willful, and independent, Natalie Barney saw her life as a series of love affairs. Having learned to masturbate in the bathtub, she was a sensualist at an early age. As she put it: “Yes, at 12 I knew exactly what I liked and I firmly decided not to let myself be diverted from my tastes.” Though not conventionally beautiful, she was bewitching, with a head of long, untamed blond hair, small breasts, and piercing blue eyes. She wore long flowing gowns, which were usually white. Many men courted her assiduously, but Barney remained a “friend of men, lover of women.” She enjoyed feminine women, once remarking, “Why try to resemble our enemies?” She would have sex at any time, and often in unusual places or circumstances; in fields and streams, in theater boxes, or with two women at a time, and she had an unquenchable thirst for conquest. Sometimes when lovers became disgusted with Natalie’s unfaithfulness, they would try to resist her, but they rarely succeeded. As one ex-lover, who had sworn off lesbianism and married, said after seeing Natalie: “[For a few minutes] I committed the delicious sin of abandoning myself to her caresses.” The Amazon was notoriously good at what she did.
SEX PARTNERS: Barney’s liaisons numbered over 40, not including countless casual affairs. She had her first physical relationship when she was 16, and had several others before her first famous affair at 22, when she courted and won the fabulously beautiful Liane de Pougy. Liane was the most famous courtesan of the period, and the two women carried on a passionate affair in between Liane’s trips with princes and various nobility who required her services. Years after, when Liane had married a prince, she allowed Natalie to caress her only above the waist. Later Natalie was to say that Liane had been her “greatest sensual pleasure,” whereas Liane, turning pious, called Natalie her “greatest sin.” During one of Liane’s absences, Natalie met and fell in love with Renée Vivien, a brilliant poet who was morbidly obsessed with the idea of death. Renée could not tolerate Natalie’s promiscuity and eventually refused to see her anymore, whereupon Natalie resorted to such pranks as dressing in white and having herself delivered to Renée’s door in a white satin coffin. Renée came to be unaffected by such dramatics and died a few years later of what Colette termed “voluntary consumption” (she weighed 65 lb.), but by then Natalie had gained her reputation as a femme fatale.
After Renée Vivien, Natalie took a host of other lovers, who sometimes stayed simultaneously at 20 rue Jacob. Her greatest problem was keeping peace within the harem. Dolly Wilde, who in both looks and wit resembled her uncle Oscar, would shut herself up in her room with drugs and alcohol when Natalie betrayed her; once she slit her wrists and was nursed by Natalie’s maid. When in better spirits, Dolly enlivened Natalie’s salons with her witty remarks. Dolly was ousted, however, when Romaine Brooks, an American painter living in Paris, jealously ordered Natalie to get rid of Dolly. When Romaine spoke, Natalie obeyed.
Romaine was Natalie’s longest and most serious relationship. They met as both neared their 40s, and remained together—living sometimes apart, sometimes in adjoining houses—for over 50 years. But even as an octogenarian, Natalie had a wandering eye. At 82 she met and seduced a 58-year-old woman who was formerly the heterosexual wife of a retired ambassador. Romaine put up with this liaison for 11 years, and then the embittered woman of 94 refused ever to see Natalie again. That broke Natalie’s heart. Romaine died two years later, and in another two years Natalie followed suit. Her funeral, like all her salons, was on a Friday.
HER ADVICE: Natalie felt that sleeping in the same bed with a lover was a dangerous practice, leading to “the beginning of an end.” She wrote: “And how many lovers, even the most infatuated and tender ones, leave a stiffened arm under the other’s neck. One wakes up worrying about having snored. This forgetfulness of the other in sleep—whether by night or day—seems to me to be the greatest of discourtesies and dangers.”
HER THOUGHTS: “What did you love the most?”
“Love.
“And if you had to make several choices?”
“I would choose love several times.” (From Éparpillements [“Scatterings”].)
—J.H.
Uncle Miltie
MILTON BERLE (July 12, 1908-March 27, 2002 )
HIS FAME: A comedian and actor, Berle is perhaps best known for his major role in popularizing television during its infancy. His Tuesday night comedy and variety show, originally called Texaco Star Theater—which ran on NBC from 1948 until 1956—earned its star a 30-year contract with the network and the nickname “Mr. Television.”
HIS PERSON: Milton Berle, whose real name was Berlinger, was born in New York City. A precocious child, he began entering “Charlie Chaplin contests” at the age of six and usually won. He would sell the prizes, normally $2 loving cups, for 25¢. Not until his mother, Sarah, started managing his career did young Milton reap any worthwhile return for his efforts. Milton and Mom hit the vaudeville circuit, where she would sit in the audience and prompt laughter and applause. By literally growing up onstage, Berle honed his skills as a comedian, a film and stage actor, and a master of ceremonies, building a repertoire of comedy material that is today unparalleled. In the belief that all jokes are in the public domain, he has unabashedly collected material from other comedians, thus earning himself the sobriquet “the Thief of Badgags.” Berle’s own unique brand of no-holds-barred humor has continually won him new audiences. In 1980, 60 years after his Broadway debut in Florodora, Berle was back onstage in Guys and Dolls. At the age of 72 he finished a movie called Off Your Rocker. This endless activity has prompted his wife, Ruth, to comment, “I can’t wait until Milton gets old.”
SEX LIFE: Because Berle sometimes appeared in drag in comedy sketches, an insecure segment of the public has questioned his masculinity. In reply to those who suspected him of being a homosexual or transvestite, Berle wrote, “To the best of my knowledge, Milton isn’t. And so what? To me gay is just another way of life, not better, not worse. Just different.” On one occasion, he did dress in women’s clothing to achieve sexual gratification indirectly; he put on a dress so he could acc
ompany a girl to her room at the Barbizon for Women, a hotel where men were not allowed above the lobby floor. Mostly, however, he dressed in drag merely as a form of “low comedy.” His sex life, on the other hand, he has always taken quite seriously.
In November, 1920, Berle made his first Broadway appearance in Florodora, a show which marked another first in his life. One Saturday afternoon, after a matinee, he was ascending a staircase to his dressing room when he paused to ogle a scantily clad Florodora girl. Spotting the wide-eyed boy, the girl lured him into her dressing room; when he emerged, he was a man. The metamorphosis took only a few seconds: “One second her hand was undoing my buttons, the next she had me inside her—and from what I know now, there was room in there for the entire [Florodora] Sextet.” His second sexual encounter was with a member of the Mollie Williams Beef Trust burlesque show. He fondly recalled the episode as being “like a green pea going into the Holland Tunnel.” He had wisely shrouded his pea in a prophylactic, which a friend had given him, and he afterwards invested in his own tin of condoms. While prepared for any future tryst, he was not prepared for his mother’s reaction when the tin accidentally fell out of his pocket in front of her. After an uncomfortable moment, she responded with a tact rare in mothers of any generation. “Every time you go out,” she said, “make sure you use them.”
The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People Page 68
