Mercedes de Acosta

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Mercedes de Acosta

Mercedes de Acosta (born March 1, 1893 in New York City , † May 9, 1968 there ) was an American writer and fashion designer . She was best known for her love affairs with Isadora Duncan , Anna Pawlowa , Eva Le Gallienne , Salka Viertel and Marlene Dietrich . How close she was friends with Greta Garbo cannot be proven.

The daughter of a Cuban father, Ricardo de Acosta, and a Spanish mother, Micaela Hernandez y Alba, who was descended from the Dukes of Alba , grew up in an eccentric, rich milieu, but fought early against ecclesiastical and moral constraints of society and Even as a very young girl she fought publicly for the rights of women.

In 1920 she published a novel. The theater agent Bessie Marbury discovered her and heralded the beginning of a remarkable career. Marbury, who had good contacts in Hollywood, brokered her contracts with MGM and some other large studios, where she met Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo.

Engaged to the painter Abram Poole (1882–1961), she met Eva Le Gallienne in 1920, recognized her lesbian orientation and entered into a relationship with her. The marriage with Poole failed (her husband was also homosexual ), and Acosta devoted her life to women from now on. She made some trips to Europe and also to India , where she took lessons from Guru Ramana Maharishi and worked as a war correspondent in France during the Second World War . In 1960 her autobiography “Here lies the heart” was published, but at the time it received little attention. Her other literary work includes poetry as well as some plays.

She died impoverished and forgotten by her former friends in New York in 1968. She was buried next to her mother and sister, Rita de Alba de Acosta (who was known as the extraordinary beauty Rita Lydig ), in Trinity Cemetery in Washington Heights, New York City .

Ten years after the death of Greta Garbo, according to a legacy of Acosta, her 55 love letters were published. The original of this correspondence is in the Mercedes de Acosta Collection of the Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia. Acosta had sold her estate to the museum in 1960.

Her poetic work consists mainly of three books that were still published in her life: Moods (prose poems) (1919), Archways of Life (1921) and Streets and Shadows (1922). A comprehensive compilation of these three books appeared for the first time in Spanish translation under the title Imposeída (46 poemas) (Las Cruces, NM: Eds. La Mirada, 2016, ISBN 978-0-9911325-4-6 ), edited by Jesús J Barquet and Carlota Caulfield. Barquet and Caulfield wrote the introduction to the book ("Mercedes de Acosta en traje de poeta") and, with Joaquín Badajoz, the Spanish translations.

literature

  • Robert A. Schanke: That Furious Lesbian: The Story of Mercedes de Acosta . Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale 2004, ISBN 0809325799 .
  • Mercedes de Acosta (2016). Imposeída (46 poemas). Las Cruces, NM: Eds. La Mirada, ISBN 978-0-9911325-4-6 . 

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert A. Schanke: That Furious Lesbian . Carbondale 2004, pp. 169-170.
personal data
SURNAME Acosta, Mercedes de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer and fashion designer
DATE OF BIRTH March 1, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City , USA
DATE OF DEATH May 9, 1968
Place of death New York City , USA