The Seductive Sapphic Exploits of Mercedes de Acosta - (Blood Moon's Magnolia House) by Darwin Porter & Danforth Prince (Paperback)

About the Book

A self-defined "seductress of beautiful women," lesbian activist de Acosta (born in 1892) was descended from Spain's Dukes of Alba and a beneficiary of the best education her parents' Gilded Age fortune could buy. From within the aristocracy of the Belle ƒpoque, and continuing as an arts-industry "swinger" until her death in 1968, she became notorious for seducing celebrities.

Book Synopsis

A self-defined "seductress of beautiful women" and the by-product of an immense fortune, lesbian activist Mercedes de Acosta (born in 1892) was descended from Spain's Dukes of Alba and a beneficiary of the best education and best social skills that her parents' Gilded Age fortune could buy. From her perch within the aristocracy of the Belle Époque, and continuing as an arts-industry "swinger" until her death in 1968, she became notorious for seducing-and describing to socialites on both sides of the Atlantic-at least a dozen women who fast-evolved into the most widely publicized and romantically "unattainable" celebrities in the world.

During her heyday-the sexually permissive "Pre-Code" free-for-all of the Silent Screen and Hollywood's early talkies-her lovers included the self-enchanted silent screen mogul, Nazimova; the "live fast and die young" tragedienne Jeanne Eagels; the blue-blooded aristocrat of the Jazz Age Broadway stage, Katharine Cornell; the most famous film goddess of the 30s and early 40s (Greta Garbo); and at least a dozen others. Within the deeply entrenched, phobically closeted lesbian circles of America's mid-century, Mercedes become quirkily famous as "Hollywood's Greatest Lover."

One of her paramours, the German-born bisexual Marlene Dietrich, put Mercedes' promiscuous indiscretions into context: "During Germany's Weimar Republic (1919-1933), in Paris, London, Berlin, and in the dives and cabarets of Hollywood and New York, promiscuity was rampant and without any particular preference for any specific gender."

In 1960, Mercedes published a "watered down" memoir (Here Lies the Heart) that instantly became notorious. In it, she "outed" many of her same-sex partners. A few years later-aging, crippled, blind in one eye, and desperately in need of money, she sold, for publication, some of the love letters addressed to her decades ago from, among others, Greta Garbo. And near the end of her life, within his home (historic Magnolia House on Staten Island), she was frank, unvarnished, and unapologetic during extensive interviews with film historian Darwin Porter, the co-author of this book.

Suspecting that one day he might pass on some of the secrets she revealed, she cautioned him, "Don't be vulgar, dear, and promise me that you won't publish anything while my friends are still alive."

Porter honored her request by waiting until 2020 to release this astonishing insight into the underground lesbian contexts of the stage, screen, and publishing scenes of the first half of "The American Century." No other book has ever interconnected so many dots. No one, until now, has ever had the courage.

Review Quotes

Blood Moon Productions has, for the past decade and a half, given the world a raft of unauthorized bios of the uber-famous of Hollywood, American politics, and pop culture, all with great admiration for their subjects' art and accomplishments, while not shying away from their more ignominious and often plainly degenerate proclivities. Darwin Porter knew many of these icons and raconteurs personally, and they had some stories to tell, believe you me. One such acquaintance was Mercedes De Acosta, who Porter met in her twilight years and was immediately fascinated by, not only for the stories she had to tell about quite literally anyone who was anyone in the first trimester of the 20th century, but for the sheer force of her personality and rapturous approach to life.

Mercedes had just written her 1960 memoirs, Here Lies The Heart, and in physical decline, but willing to share her often-beyond-belief experiences with the young writer. This is something of a departure from the usual Blood Moon offerings, as De Acosta is relatively obscure compared to the likes of Brando, Marilyn, Bogie, the Clintons, and the Kennedys, et. al., but this detailed and heavily illustrated tale is every bit as un-put-downable as any of Porter and Prince's other works.

Mercedes' sapphic dance card includes names like Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Tallulah Bankhead, Katharine Cornell, Isadora Duncan, both of Valentino's wives, and most notably, Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich. She certainly deserved to have her name be synonymous with unabashed, joyful and prolific sensual abandon like Casanova and Don Juan, and in a world where female sexuality is not defined by the male gaze, she certainly would be.

She was admittedly a bit of a groupie when it came to the artists of the Belle Epoque and the Roaring Twenties, but she definitely had taste. And keep in mind, this was when the famous were famous for actually doing something (sorry, Facebook/YouTube/Tik Tok "superstars"). She was the original Six Degrees of Separation, mingling with and inspiring everyone from Pavlova to Enrico Caruso to Puccini to Barrymore to Marie of Romania to the aforementioned legends of film and letters. Mercedes was herself a poet, playwright, and screenwriter, though never as well known as many of her vast circle of friends and lovers, but her life could certainly be considered a work of art at its purest and most outrageous. Someone please make a biopic or documentary about this woman now.

Maggie Bloodstone

Seattle Gay News