Outlaw Marriages (11 page)

Mendl fit the bill as a potential husband on several counts. He dressed impeccably, was well-mannered, and possessed a great deal of charm. What's more, the two negatives de Wolfe uncovered—that he was a womanizer and wasn't very bright—were irrelevant to what she had in mind. Most important, she learned that Mendl had expensive taste but little money, so he might be interested in marrying a woman who could pay his bills.
51

De Wolfe wasn't positive that her partner of three decades would go along with her plan, so she made sure that Marbury knew, from the start, that her proposed marriage was merely a business arrangement. That is, Mendl would give the title of “Lady” to de Wolfe in exchange for her paying him a monthly allowance. De Wolfe also made it clear that the marriage wouldn't include any physical contact, that she and Mendl wouldn't live together, and that the arrangement wouldn't disrupt her romantic relationship with Marbury.
52

After absorbing this information, Marbury gave the marriage her blessing—another example of the “husband” indulging his spoiled “wife.” De Wolfe and Mendl's wedding then took place in March 1926. After a brief honeymoon, he returned to his Paris apartment, and she—now Lady Mendl—resumed
her life at Villa Trianon. The couple saw each other only on weekends when Mendl participated in his wife's social events, while de Wolfe and Marbury continued their outlaw marriage.
53

In the late 1920s, de Wolfe suffered the first of several challenges when the Great Depression drastically reduced the number of people who could afford to decorate their homes. She recovered by expanding her business into hotel decorating. Leaving her husband in France, she spent months at a time in New York, first reworking the interior of the Savoy-Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue and then doing the same for the Hotel Pierre, St. Regis Hotel, and Essex House.
54

Part of the reason de Wolfe took on the hotel projects was that her lengthy stays in Manhattan allowed her to spend time with Marbury, who was happy to provide the decorator with a place to stay—and to continue their intimate relationship.
55

The next setback was one that even the indefatigable de Wolfe couldn't do anything about. For in January 1933, Marbury suffered a heart attack. This crisis wasn't a complete surprise, as Marbury's obesity had led to various health problems in previous years. This time, however, the results were more serious, leading to the seventy-six-year-old woman's death. Of the many newspapers that published obituaries, only the
New York Times
mentioned de Wolfe, stating that she and Marbury had jointly owned a home in France.
56

Yet another regrettable event that wasn't within de Wolfe's control came in 1940 when the German army marched into France, forcing her to relocate to New York, this time with her husband in tow, until the end of World War II.
57

When de Wolfe returned to France in 1946, she found her home in shambles. She devoted the next three years to restoring the villa to what
Architectural Digest
would later call “its fabled glory,” while at the same time resuming her legendary entertaining.
58

She also agreed to undertake a few decorating projects for select friends. Most notable among them were England's Duke and Duchess of Windsor. De Wolfe's friendship with Wallis Simpson had begun in the early 1930s and continued during the American divorcée's courtship by the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII. After the king abdicated in 1936 and the couple married, de Wolfe decorated their mansion in Paris and their chateau near Cannes.
59

Meanwhile, de Wolfe's marriage of convenience to Sir Charles Mendl was still working after more than two decades. He had dutifully obeyed the boundaries she'd set for him—if he wanted to enter her bedroom, for example,
he had to ask the butler in advance to get her approval. Proof that the rules had been followed came when Mendl told friends, during the 1940s, “For all I know, the old girl's still a virgin.” Mendl, now in his mid-seventies, continued to have affairs. De Wolfe didn't object to the liaisons, encouraging her husband to bring the attractive young women to Villa Trianon so she could admire them, too.
60

In 1950, however, the eighty-four-year-old de Wolfe was confined to a wheelchair because spinal problems made it impossible for her to walk. Mendl knew the end was near when his wife ordered stationery from Cartier that she told him to use when responding to the many letters of condolence she knew he'd receive after her death. That day came in July.
61

In her will, de Wolfe left the bulk of her estate to a foundation providing scholarships to design students, while she gave Mendl only a modest annual allowance.
62

America's leading newspapers published obituaries reporting de Wolfe's death, along with tributes praising her extraordinary achievements. The
Los Angeles Times
, for example, stated, “She was our best-known decorator, and homes throughout the country will forever stand as beautiful monuments to her good taste.” Only the
New York Times
made any mention of the woman who'd been in an outlaw marriage with de Wolfe for forty-one years. The
Times
said, “For many years, Lady Mendl was associated with the late Elisabeth Marbury.”
63

Taking the Art of Illustration to a New Level

…

During the early decades of the twentieth century, J. C. Leyendecker was the nation's most popular and most successful illustrator. Hundreds of his hand-painted images appeared on the covers of such leading magazines as
Collier's, Vanity Fair
, and the
Saturday Evening Post
. Adding to Leyendecker's fame were the myriad high-profile advertisements he created for a long list of companies—the most significant of them were for Arrow shirt collars.

Leyendecker didn't make his achievements entirely on his own, as his same-sex partner of fifty years, Charles Beach, played an enormous role in his success. Beach began supporting Leyendecker by serving as the strikingly handsome model for many of the illustrator's images. As time passed, Beach gradually made more and more of the decisions that resulted in the artist's work expanding in new directions. Indeed, Beach's creative and farsighted
ideas ultimately succeeded in transforming a talented illustrator with limited aspirations into a wealthy and widely celebrated artist who succeeded both in the magazine and advertising worlds.

Joseph Christian Leyendecker was born in 1874 in the village of Montabour in southern Germany. His father made his livelihood as a coachman, and his mother took care of the couple's three children.
1

When Joe was eight years old, the Leyendeckers emigrated to the United States in search of a more prosperous life. They settled in Chicago where the head of the household took a job with a brewing company.
2

Leyendecker's interest in art surfaced soon after the family arrived in America. “I was eight at the time and was already covering schoolbooks with rudely colored examples of my work,” he later recalled. “At home I kept myself busy with more pretentious paintings which, for want of canvas, were done on oilcloth of the common kitchen variety.”
3

When Leyendecker turned sixteen, he became an apprentice with an engraving firm that produced line drawings for Bibles and religious pamphlets. He proved highly adept at the work and began creating images that were much more intricate than those of his fellow illustrators. Eager to progress, he enrolled in evening classes at the Art Institute of Chicago.
4

Charles Beach was born in Ontario, Canada, in 1886. Few details about his early childhood have been documented beyond the fact that he received very little formal education.
5

One fact that's known about the boy's teenage years is that he developed into an extraordinarily handsome young man. Beach left Canada at the age of sixteen and moved to New York City, hoping to parlay his good looks into a career in the theater.
6

Beach suffered something of a setback when a series of producers rejected him for starring roles he auditioned for, each of them telling him he had no talent. The young man's efforts weren't in vain, however, as he was cast in minor roles in a number of plays, solely because he looked good on stage. Beach also began applying for jobs as a model.
7

Early in 1896, J. C. Leyendecker received the first public recognition for his creative work when he won a contest to design a cover for
Century
magazine. His entry, in keeping with the Art Nouveau style popular at the time, featured a woman in a loose-fitting white gown, her eyes closed and her long hair flowing into a field of red poppies. In addition to the image being published on the magazine cover, it was also issued and sold as an art print.
8

Leyendecker's share of the profits from selling copies of the image were sizeable enough that he was able to quit his job at the engraving firm and move to Paris, the center of the international art world, in the fall of 1896. Twenty-two-year-old Joe took his younger brother, Frank, five years his junior and also interested in art, with him to Europe. Both men enrolled at the prestigious art school Académie Julian.
9

Joe showed immediate promise and received special attention from the faculty. Less than a year after he arrived in Paris, a French publishing house commissioned him to paint a promotional poster, which meant the image he created, which featured a woman lounging on a sofa, was emblazoned on the walls of buildings along the Champs d'Elysées. Several of Leyendecker's paintings of Paris street scenes also appeared in a one-man show in the city.
10

When the exhibition closed, the Leyendecker brothers returned to the United States, both of them having completed the full curriculum of course-work at the art school. The men then opened a studio in downtown Chicago.
11

Leyendecker soon became frustrated with his and his brother's failure to secure commissions. He decided the problem was their Chicago location, as all major projects were going to artists located in New York City, the center of American publishing.
12

And so, in 1900, Leyendecker relocated to Manhattan and rented a studio on East 32nd Street. This time, he took along not only his brother but also his sister, Mary, who agreed to cook for her brothers and clean the town house near Washington Square that Joe rented for them. After the three Leyendecker siblings settled in, their parents moved into the town house as well.
13

Once in New York, Joe and Frank Leyendecker both received a steady stream of commissions for oil illustrations that were published either in magazines or books. They often worked as a team, with Joe coming up with the concept for an image and then the two of them doing the sketching and painting. Frank frequently lost interest in projects, however, and Joe then had to finish them on his own.
14

Despite Frank's shortcomings in the partnership, in 1901 he did something that changed Joe's life forever: he hired Charles Beach.
15

Joe Leyendecker happened to be away from the studio on the day that Frank, in need of a young male model for a particular commission, interviewed and then offered the job to the seventeen-year-old Beach.
16

It was Beach's physical attributes that caused Frank to hire him. Famed illustrator Norman Rockwell, a great admirer of J. C. Leyendecker's work,
would later describe Beach as “tall, powerfully built, and extraordinarily handsome—looked like an athlete from one of the Ivy League colleges.” Rockwell also said that Beach “was always beautifully dressed. His manners were polished and impeccable.” One of Leyendecker's biographers added more specifics to the description of Beach, calling him “confident and charming” and going on to say, “He stood about six feet two inches tall and had an Adonis-like figure with a narrow waist and a flat stomach.”
17

Beach was a dramatic contrast to Joe Leyendecker, both in appearance and in how he carried himself. The illustrator was five feet six inches tall and skinny, with nondescript facial features and what one biographer called “an unnaturally sallow complexion and a weak jaw.” He also was described as being socially awkward and so painfully shy that he stuttered when any person of authority asked him to speak.
18