The Barbizon by Paulina Bren (ebook reader browser TXT) 📕

front-desk employee: Nan Robertson, “Where the Boys Are Not,” Saturday Evening Post, October 19, 1963, 29.

Fire-hazard cooking appliances: Tupper, “The Barbizon—For Women Only,” 82.

The extent of Mae Sibley’s power: Robertson, “Where the Boys Are Not,” 29.

In the afternoons, free tea was served: Giles and Claxton, Bridesmaid’s Daughter, 14.

She lived there from 1947: “About Little Edie,” Grey Gardens Online, accessed May 30, 2017, http://greygardensonline.com/about-little-edie/.

Years later, she would write to a friend: Walter Newkirk, Letters of Little Edie Beale: Grey Gardens and Beyond (Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2009), 52.

It was only a week after arriving: Giles and Claxton, Bridesmaid’s Daughter, 16.

Much like his former boss: “Harry S. Conover, 53, Is Dead; Ran Model Agency 20 Years,” New York Times, July 25, 1965.

Her first serious job: Giles and Claxton, Bridesmaid’s Daughter, 23.

When she again encountered the photographer: Giles and Claxton, Bridesmaid’s Daughter, 32.

Residents’ frequent budgetary self-reprimands: Tupper, “The Barbizon—For Women Only,” 82.

Many residents were putting money: Tupper, “The Barbizon—For Women Only,” 82.

Barbizon manager Hugh J. Connor: Tupper, “The Barbizon—For Women Only,” 20.

She had left for New York: Tupper, “The Barbizon—For Women Only,” 82.

Natálie had started out in New York: Robert Lacey, Model Woman: Eileen Ford and the Business of Beauty (New York: Harper, 2015), 84.

And just as Natálie: Lacey, Model Woman, 83–84.

While the ideal Ford model: Lacey, Model Woman, 105.

Eileen took matters into her own hands: Giles and Claxton, Bridesmaid’s Daughter, 46–48.

When he said girls, he meant it too: Suzanna Andrews, “Hostage to Fortune,” Vanity Fair, December 2004.

The agency also caught the eye of Sherman Billingsley: Lacey, Model Woman, 109.

The Fords supplied their models: Phyllis Lee Levin, “A Fashion Model’s Face Is Still Her Fortune,” New York Times, February 10, 1958.

The blonde said her name: Janet Wagner Rafferty, A Model Life: Life Stories from My Youth (self-pub., CreateSpace, 2009), 50–55.

Betsy Talbot Blackwell was now: Neva Nelson, interview with the author, Cape May, NJ, May 21, 2016.

So there was Janet: Janet Wagner Rafferty, video interview with Melodie Bryant, October 14, 2012, generously shared with the author.

Eileen handed her a map: Lorraine Davies Knopf, telephone interview with the author, March 3, 2016.

Eileen thought there was: Giles and Claxton, Bridesmaid’s Daughter, 51.

As Eileen Ford would later pretend: Lacey, Model Woman, 106.

But in fact these were among Grace’s first: Giles and Claxton, Bridesmaid’s Daughter, 52.

She didn’t like that, and she rejected Dolores: Dolores Phelps, telephone interview with the author, March 22, 2019.

At five eleven and of Swedish stock: Douglas Martin, “Lily Carlson Is Dead at 85; One of First Models for Ford,” New York Times, December 24, 2000.

What Gita—whom Janet would soon refer: Janet Wagner Rafferty, telephone interview with the author, April 6, 2016.

Yet Grace Kelly: Michael Kilian, “Grace: The Steamy Sex Life of the ‘Ice Princess,’ ” Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL), May 11, 1987.

Formerly called O’Rourke’s: Malachy McCourt, interview with the author, New York City, April 15, 2016.

One final touch: Malachy McCourt, A Monk Swimming: A Memoir (Rockland, MA: Wheeler, 1998), 76.

In every bar in New York: McCourt, Monk Swimming, 75.

Soon after opening night: Malachy McCourt, video interview with Melodie Bryant, June 15, 2012, generously shared with the author.

At first, Malachy had thought: McCourt, interview with the author.

Even the Gibbs girls: McCourt, video interview with Bryant.

Sometimes, Malachy noted: McCourt, video interview with Bryant.

He was “on the booze then”: McCourt, interview with the author.

If they were telling the truth: Callahan, “Sorority on E. 63rd St.,” 172.

As for inviting them in: Callahan, “Sorority on E. 63rd St.” 172.

In 1958, the future actress: Colette Hoppman, “Who’s Game?” Mademoiselle, College Issue, August 1958.

Thinking back on the 1950s: Lisa Anderson, “In Happily Ever After? It Never Happened, Says a Bridesmaid of Princess Grace,” Chicago Tribune, June 15, 1989.

Lorraine Davies, Tangerine Queen and model: Lorraine Davies Knopf, A Good Name (self-pub., CreateSpace, 2014).

CHAPTER FIVE

“So I began to think”: Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (New York: Harper Perennial, 2005), 85.

In April, the College Board editor: Sylvia Plath to Aurelia Schober Plath, April 24, 1953, in The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume I, 1940–56, eds. Peter K. Steinberg and Karen V. Kukil (New York: HarperCollins, 2017), 596.

“I now have a white bag”: Sylvia Plath to Aurelia Schober Plath, April 30 to May 1, 1953, in Letters of Sylvia Plath, 606.

Sylvia arrived at Grand Central Terminal: Sylvia Plath to Aurelia Schober Plath, May 5, 1953, in Letters of Sylvia Plath, 609.

She wrote to her mother after receiving: Sylvia Plath to Aurelia Schober Plath, May 8, 1953, in Letters of Sylvia Plath, 613.

they warned (as if they already knew): Marybeth Little to Neva Nelson, May 5, 1953. From the personal archives of Neva Nelson [hereafter cited as NN], generously shared with the author.

Sylvia was twenty years old: Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953 (New York: Harper, 2013), 81.

The clothing expenses were justifiable: Sylvia Plath to Aurelia Schober Plath, May 13, 1953, in Letters of Sylvia Plath, 617.

Sylvia, excited for her brother: Sylvia Plath to Warren Plath, May 13, 1953, in Letters of Sylvia Plath, 621.

She was helped off the train: Sylvia Plath to Aurelia Schober Plath, June 3, 1953, in Letters of Sylvia Plath, 630.

Sylvia was delighted by her “darlingest single”: Sylvia Plath to Aurelia Schober Plath, June 3, 1953, in Letters of Sylvia Plath, 630.

In the center of the fifteenth floor: Neva Nelson, letter and sketched plan, May 24, 2016, NN.

There were twenty GEs in total: Diane Johnson, telephone interview with the author, November 27, 2018.

A young woman who had abandoned Wellesley College: Nan Robertson, “Where the Boys Are Not,” Saturday Evening Post, October 19, 1963, 30.

On the plane, during the last leg of the trip: Neva Nelson, interview with the author, Cape May, NJ, May 21, 2016.

In The Bell Jar, Sylvia would remake: Plath, Bell Jar, 6.

But Sylvia seemed more fascinated by rural Iowa: Laurie Levy, “Outside the Bell Jar,” in Sylvia Plath: The Woman & the Work, ed. Edward Butscher (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1985), 43.

When the “guest eds”: Levy, “Outside the Bell Jar,” 43.

Betsy Talbot Blackwell was in a black-and-white: Nelson, interview with the