Elsa MAXWELL (1881- 1963)- Part One - 18+
THREAD 👇
Maria Callas/Hollywood Parties/Robert Maxwell & Connections
1. Robert and Ghislaine Maxwell were connected to Epstein..
Are we looking at Spying and Blackmail Operations of a similar nature to The Robert Maxwell Spy Empire/Network going way way back?
Elsa Maxwell - Did she fit it?..🤔
2. ‘Elsa Maxwell (May 24, 1883 – November 1, 1963) was an American gossip columnist and author, songwriter, screenwriter, radio personality and professional hostess renowned for her parties for royalty and high society figures of her day.’
Maxwell was ‘fond of costume parties, often requiring her males and female guests to wear costumes of the opposite gender.’
Maxwell is credited with the introduction of the scavenger hunt and treasure hunt for use as party games in the modern era.’
Who else had this job description? ..🤔
3. Nice spotty scarf 🙄.
4. ‘Elsa Maxwell was the frumpy queen, the dowdy denizen of high society, a woman who had neither looks nor pedigree, yet all of white-gloved society bowed to her for an invitation to one of her outrageous soirees.
Earls and dukes hobnobbed with Cole Porter and Marilyn Monroe at her events, which ranged from murder-mystery parties to barnyard-themed hoedowns on Park Avenue…’
Who does she look like?..🤔
5. 'Maxwell sums her own childhood up in one neat sentence: “A short, fat, homely piano player from Keokuk, Iowa, with no money or background who decided to become a legend.” '
6. It was claimed that ..Elsa Maxwell ‘fell obsessively in love with Maria Callas, 40 years Maxwell's junior.’
7. Some say that Maria Callas was a Maxwell and there is a likeness to Ghislaine Maxwell. There is also the spirit cooker Marina Abramović…
Marina Abramović | Royal Academy of Arts
royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/mar…
8.
9. Elsa Maxwell threw a party for her friend Maria Callas in Venice.
Maria Callas…(below)
10. Interesting jaw and hands!
11.
12. Maria Callas at La Scala, La sonnambula 1955.
gramilano.com/2017/09/maria-…
13.
14. Strange photograph … (Maria Callas and Elsa Maxwell).
15.
16. Re Elsa Maxwell - ‘The fame-maker who introduced Rita Hayworth to Ali Khan and Maria Callas to Aristotle Onassis had managed to become famous herself and remained known as the ‘Hostess with the Mostest’. ’
Hostess with the Mostest ...
nypost.com/2012/10/21/hos…
17. Elsa Maxwell..
18. Maria Callas: Today interview with Barbara Walters (New York, April 15, 1974) - YouTube
A very deep voice and large ears… 🤔
19.
21. Mickey Mouse ..
23. Elsa Maxwell - IMDb
imdb.com/name/nm0561696/
24.
25. Elsa Maxwell ‘only spent a little over a year of her toddler life in Iowa. Shortly after her christening in 1882, her family moved to San Francisco and never returned to the Midwest.’
In San Francisco, Elsa Maxwell’s father sold insurance and did freelance writing for the New York Dramatic Mirror.’
26. Elsa Maxwell ‘would later recall, her family would not be invited to events because as her mother put it, “We weren’t rich enough.”
This was Maxwell’s tragedy, one that she would make good: “Some day I would give parties — big parties, expensive parties — to which no rich people would be invited. That is, of course, unless they happened to be nice people or talented people as well,” Maxwell said in a 1941 interview.
She got another nudge toward the pursuit of her unique version of the high life from her father on his deathbed.
“It won’t be easy for you after I’m gone,” he told his daughter. “You are plain and plump, and as time goes by you will get plainer and plumper. You can turn your looks into an asset because no woman will be jealous of you and no man will be suspicious of you.” '
27. ‘One party — a murder mystery set in London — in particular propelled her into fame. The hostess (who was in on the gag) pretended to be worried about her houseguest Zita Jungman, a young model, who had not arrived to be seated for the dinner.
Maxwell gathered the guests to search Zita’s room and found the model’s “dead” body on the bed, complete with a “bloody wound” through the chest. As people screamed and panicked, the butler corralled the party into one room where “detectives” arrived and pinned the crime on the Duke of Marlborough.
Once the farce was revealed, the Duke was a good sport about being a murder suspect. The headline in the paper the next day: “Mayfair Party ‘Murder.’ Girl ‘Stabbed’ to Death”
Maxwell held a hoedown at the Waldorf, where women were rounded up for cow-milking contests. One party even featured a troupe of trained seals.
She threw a “Come as Your Opposite Party” at the Ritz-Carlton in New York — George Gershwin came as Groucho Marx; Fanny Brice dressed as Tosca; Cole Porter arrived as a football player; and Virginia Fair Vanderbilt came as Elsa Maxwell herself.
She also threw a “Come as You Were” party in Paris in 1927, requiring all attendees to arrive in the state of dress that they were when the invitation arrived. (Invitations were sent at all odd hours of the day and night.) Women wore slips; men arrived without pants. One artist even arrived in a dressing gown with a telephone on one ear and shaving cream smeared on half of his face.’
‘Yet the parties are what made her famous — infamous really. She released her own perfume line, at $40 an ounce the most expensive ever yet marketed, called Joy.’
28. Is there a connection to Robert Maxwell, who was involved in pension fraud, The Mirror Group and spying 🤔
Robert Maxwell- Ghislaine
29. Ghislaine Noelle Marion Maxwell a British former socialite and ‘convicted sex offender. In 2021, she was found guilty of child sex trafficking and other offences in connection with the deceased financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In June 2022, she was sentenced in federal court in New York City to twenty years' imprisonment.’
‘Maxwell worked for her father until his death in 1991; she then moved to New York City, where she continued living as a socialite and had a relationship with Epstein.’
30. How Isabel Maxwell, 71, has stood by sister Ghislaine during sex trafficking trial.
dailymail.co.uk/femail/article…
31. 'Ghislaine Maxwell’s Twin Sisters Have Their Own Wild Stories. '
thecut.com/2019/08/ghisla…
32. Back to Elsa Maxwell..
Vanderbelt divorcee and Rothschild wife Mrs Alva Belmont and Millicent Hearst footed her bills...
33. ‘Her radio program, Elsa Maxwell's Party Line, began in 1942; she also wrote a syndicated gossip column. She appeared as herself in the films Stage Door Canteen (1943) and Rhapsody in Blue (1945), as well as co-starring in the film Hotel for Women (1939), for which she wrote the screenplay and a song.’
34. Internet Archive is down at the moment so I can’t open the link. (yesterday)
35.
36. Inventing Elsa Maxwell: How an Irrepressible Nobody Conquered High Society, Hollywood, the Press, and the World.
Sam Staggs
books.google.co.uk/books/about/In…
36. ‘With Inventing Elsa Maxwell, Sam Staggs has crafted a landmark biography. Elsa Maxwell (1881-1963) invented herself–not once, but repeatedly. Built like a bulldog, she ascended from the San Francisco middle class to the heights of society in New York, London, Paris, Venice, and Monte Carlo.
Shunning boredom and predictability, Elsa established herself as party-giver extraordinaire in Europe with come-as-you-are parties, treasure hunts (e.g., retrieve a slipper from the foot of a singer at the Casino de Paris), and murder parties that drew the ire of the British parliament.
She set New York a-twitter with her soirees at the Waldorf, her costume parties, and her headline-grabbing guest lists of the rich and royal, movie stars, society high and low, and those on the make all mixed together in let-'er-rip gaiety.
All the while, Elsa dashed off newspaper columns, made films in Hollywood, wrote bestselling books, and turned up on TV talk shows. She hobnobbed with friends like Noel Coward and Cole Porter. Late in life, she fell in love with Maria Callas, who spurned her and broke Elsa's heart. Her feud with the Duchess of Windsor made headlines for three years in the 1950s.’
37.
38. Written about Elsa Maxwell in the book…
39.
40. The Duke of Windsor put it, the “old battering-ram Elsa gives the best parties.”..
41. Hotel for Women - Wikipedia
Plot - ‘When she is jilted by her boyfriend, a young woman is encouraged to become a model by the women at the hotel where she is staying.’
What kind of ‘model’…🙄 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_for…
42.
43.
A scene from the 20th Century-Fox Production "Hotel For Women". Elsa Maxwell & Linda Darnell (film Beauty). September 25, 1939. (Photo by Stage).
44. Stage Door Canteen -
‘The film features many celebrity cameo appearances but primarily relates a simple drama set in the famed New York City restaurant and nightclub for American and Allied servicemen.’
Stage Door Canteen - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage_Doo…
45. Big Hat..spotty shirt..
46. DUKE AND DUCHESS OF WINDSOR WITH ELSA MAXWELL, WALDORF=ASTORIA HOTEL
Duke and Duchess of Windsor with Elsa Maxwell, Waldorf=Astoria Hotel · Host to the World () waldorfnewyorkcity.com
47.
48.
49.
50. RSVP, Elsa Maxwell's Own Story, Signed by Elsa Maxwell (nickharvilllibraries.com)
nickharvilllibraries.com/store/p1501/RS…
51.
52.
End Part One/
Thankyou for Reading.
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