Outlaw Marriages (19 page)

De Acosta, by contrast, struggled financially because she was no longer able to work due to recurring problems with her vision. Those difficulties began when she accidentally poured cleaning fluid, thinking it was eyewash, into her right eye. She was living in a tiny rental apartment some twenty blocks from Garbo's lavish one.
61

The women's relationship careened from highs to lows, depending on what the famous partner wanted. In 1952, Garbo suggested that she and de Acosta should, after two decades of maintaining separate residences, set up housekeeping together. The actress never acted on that offer, however, and two years later she told a friend that she and de Acosta had “drifted apart” because her partner “needs to possess and envelop me, with marriage or the equivalent.” It was also in 1954 that Garbo told de Acosta that she was cutting off all contact between the two of them—including letters. But then, in 1958, Garbo tearfully pleaded with de Acosta to resume the intimacy of their early years, saying, “I have no one else to look after me.”
62

Desperate for money, de Acosta secured a contract to publish her autobiography, which she titled
Here Lies the Heart
. When the book was released in 1960, the reviews were excellent, with the
New York Times
calling it a “readable memoir of a quite extraordinary personality.”
63

Garbo, however, was livid. For thirty years, the actress had done everything in her power to keep her personal life out of the public eye, and now de Acosta had, in her book, published details about their holiday on Silver Lake in 1931. Indeed, de Acosta had even reproduced one of the topless photos of the actress that de Acosta had taken. And although the book made no specific statement about Garbo's sexual orientation, there were plenty of implications.
64

Shortly after the memoir was published, the author crossed paths with Garbo while they both were shopping at a health food store. When their eyes met, the actress said nothing, causing de Acosta to ask, “Aren't we on speaking terms today?” Garbo turned and left the store, without uttering a word. The next January, de Acosta phoned Garbo to wish her a happy new year, but
the actress hung up. That was the last communication the women ever had.
65

Medical problems, including brain surgery, continued to plague de Acosta, although royalties from her memoir lessened her financial difficulties somewhat. “As we grow older, life becomes increasingly sad and difficult,” she wrote a friend in 1964. “I never realized this when I was young, but now I do.”
66

Mercedes de Acosta died in 1968, at the age of seventy-five. Her
New York Times
obituary included the terse statement, “She was a close friend of Greta Garbo,” but included no details about their life together or de Acosta's contributions to the actress's success.
67

Greta Garbo lived her final two decades largely in seclusion. She stayed inside her apartment most of the time, with her only recurring guest being the niece who ultimately inherited her estate.
68

Garbo remained in good health for many years, dying in 1990 at the age of eighty-four. Her
New York Times
obituary, which appeared on the front page, stated that the paper was honoring her request for privacy by not reporting the cause of her death. None of the obituaries or numerous tributes that appeared in the nation's major publications made any mention of Mercedes de Acosta.
69

Inventing a Distinctly American Style of Music

…

Aaron Copland is widely acknowledged to be one of the most celebrated composers in this country's musical history. The winner of a Pulitzer Prize, an Academy Award, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom, Copland is credited with inventing a uniquely American style of music—simple yet memorable and inspirational—through such enduring works as
Fanfare for the Common Man
and
Appalachian Spring
. When he died in 1990,
USA Today
wrote:

Aaron Copland gave American music its identity. While previous U.S. composers sounded like their European elders, Copland broke free and created a sound of his own that suggested a land of endless expanse and limitless possibilities.
1

Music critics and historians who have looked closely at Copland's career,
however, have pointed out that his initial works were unremarkable and forgettable … until he met a free-spirited young violinist named Victor Kraft.

Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1900. His parents had immigrated from Russia in the 1870s to take advantage of the opportunities available in the United States. Aaron's father operated a neighborhood variety store, and his mother kept the books for the business while raising Aaron and his four siblings.
2

The boy began taking piano lessons at the age of seven and started writing his own music a year after that. During his teens, he advanced to private instruction in composing, and, when he was twenty-one, he moved to Paris and studied under the widely respected teacher Nadia Boulanger.
3

Unlike many expatriate Americans living in the French capital, Copland didn't choose a bohemian lifestyle. One biographer described him, during those days, as being “reserved” and “a model of propriety.” Copland recognized his attraction to men, but he didn't become sexually involved with anyone while living abroad.
4

After studying in Paris for three years, Copland returned to New York City and began, in earnest, to compose music.

Victor Kraft was born Victor Hugo Etler in rural New York state in 1915. The son of Russian immigrants, Victor attended public schools in New York City.
5

When he was an adolescent, the boy was identified as a violin prodigy. He gave solo concerts in various venues, and, at the age of ten, he was identified in a
New York Times
article as one of the city's most gifted young musicians. He was awarded a scholarship that allowed him to study at the prestigious Juilliard School in Manhattan.
6

By the age of sixteen, Victor had graduated from high school and had set his sights on becoming a professional violinist. He'd also, by this point, adopted his mother's maiden name, Kraftsov, and shortened it to Kraft.
7

Aaron Copland's career received a significant boost in 1924. Nadia Boulanger believed so strongly in her former student's potential that she persuaded the conductors of the symphony orchestras both in Boston and in New York to perform Copland's creations.
8

The concert-going public, however, didn't embrace his work. “Audience reaction to Copland's early music,” according to one biographer, “ranged from courteous applause to jeering sneers to catcalls and hisses.” Critics were equally harsh, with the
New York Herald Tribune
condemning the composer
for being “unimaginative.”
9

These negative reactions continued into the early 1930s. The
New York Times
dismissed the composer's music as “derivative,” and
Modern Music
magazine denigrated his work by calling it “ineffective and dull.”
10

Copland was also failing to succeed in his personal life. Part of the difficulty was that the only men he found appealing were significantly younger than he was. In the words of one of the composer's biographers, “Most of his lovers were in their late teens or early twenties when he took up with them.”
11

Adding to his difficulties was that the fledgling composer wasn't physically attractive. One biographer described Copland as “a Jewish Ichabod Crane—tall, gangly, careless about his clothes, with a face dominated by a large, curved beak, protruding teeth, and a receding chin.” He stood six feet tall and weighed 150 pounds. “When he was a young man,” another biographer wrote, “his spectacles, dark suits, and thinning brown hair made him look older than his years.”
12

Copland's first love was Israel Citkowitz, who was sixteen when he and the twenty-six-year-old composer met in 1926. Citkowitz was trying to succeed as a musician, and Copland offered the handsome lad professional advice. Knowing how much Nadia Boulanger had helped him, Copland advised Citkowitz to study with his former teacher, which the boy did. When the older man expressed his love for the younger one, however, Citkowitz made it clear that he had no romantic feelings for Copland.
13

Next came Paul Bowles, who met Copland in 1929—Bowles was nineteen, Copland was twenty-nine. The composer was immediately infatuated with the youthful musician, who was described as “exceedingly elegant and well-groomed.” Copland initially gave the youth daily lessons himself and later persuaded Boulanger to accept him as a student. As had been the case with Citkowitz, though, Bowles didn't have romantic feelings for his mentor. By 1931, Copland had given up any hope of Bowles becoming his lover.
14

In the fall of 1932, Copland went on a trip that changed both his music and his life. The journey came in response to an invitation from Carlos Chávez, a Mexican composer he'd met a few years earlier.
15

Victor Kraft entered Copland's life in the summer of 1932, after the composer had accepted Chávez's invitation but before he left New York. Once he met Kraft, Copland alerted his Mexican host that he'd be traveling with a guest. “I am bringing with me a young violinist who is a pupil,” Copland
wrote. “I'm sure you will like him.”
16

Kraft fit the profile of the kind of youth who appealed to Copland—the composer was thirty-two, the violinist was seventeen. One biographer described Kraft as “strikingly handsome, with wavy brown hair, piercing blue-gray eyes, a statuesque physique, and a deep, mellifluous voice.” At five feet eleven inches tall and weighing 165 pounds, Kraft was about the same height as Copland but had a much more muscular body.
17

The big difference between Kraft and the young men who previously had caught Copland's eye was that this one returned the composer's affections. Mutual friends observed that one trait, in particular, that the two lovers shared was a complete lack of guile.
18

When he'd accepted Chávez's invitation, Copland had made it clear that he planned to work the entire two months he'd be in Mexico City. After he and Kraft arrived, however, the younger man persuaded the older one to take a break from his composing and have a real holiday—the first one of his adult life.
19

At Kraft's suggestion, the two men spent many of their daytime hours on the beach near the capital city, sunning themselves and frolicking in the water. The playful, fun-loving teenager also enjoyed being photographed, and the smitten older man was more than willing to stand behind the camera as his winsome companion positioned himself in various nude poses.
20

They also took day trips to Cuernavaca and Xochimilco. Whether whiling away the day in the sun or visiting a small town, they always returned to Mexico City in time for an evening of drinking and dancing in various clubs, often not getting home until 5 in the morning. Between their various activities, the two men found plenty of time for sex, either in the bed at the apartment where they were staying or on the beach.
21

The only unpleasant moments during the trip came when Copland performed his work during a concert that Chávez had arranged. The Mexican audience didn't like the music any better than American ones had. “Some of the listeners began to hiss with characteristic Latin vigor,” Copland later wrote.
22

Other than during the concert, the composer's time in Mexico was the most enjoyable of his life. Indeed, the trip was so pleasurable that Kraft repeatedly talked Copland into extending it until a full five months had passed, including a visit to Acapulco so they could swim in the Pacific Ocean.
23

Copland's various biographers agree that the 1932 holiday with Kraft was the turning point in the composer's career. Once he was back in New York, he returned to his strict regimen of writing every day, but now his music reflected the simple, uncomplicated style of living that Kraft had exposed him to during
their time in Mexico.
24

The first tangible product of the change came with
El Salón México
, an orchestral piece by Copland that was inspired by a colorful nightspot of the same name where he and Kraft had spent many carefree hours. “My thoughts kept returning to that dance hall,” Copland later wrote. “It wasn't so much the music or the dancers that attracted me as the spirit of the place. Being there had given me a live contact with the Mexican ‘people'—that electric sense one gets sometimes in far-off places, of suddenly knowing the essence of a people—their humanity, their shyness, their dignity and unique charm.”
25