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this episode contains descriptions of sexual violence and may not be appropriate for everyone please use
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discretion the only thing worse than modeling or it may be equivalent to would have been
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acting going on the stage as a as a disreputable kind of morally questionable occupation and of course
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her mother allowed her to do both Evelyn Nesbitt has one of the most famous faces
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in the world but these days not many of us remember her name you know this is the the age where a glimpse of stalking
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was shocking and as her mother said my daughter never modeled in the altogether in the late 1800s an organization called
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the New York Society for the suppression of Vice was in full swing it was founded
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by a man named Anthony Comstock and Anthony Comstock was upset about sex the Civil War had just ended and
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soldiers had gotten their hands on so much pornography people were finding it littered all over the ground
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Comstock wanted to criminalize erotic pictures along with erotic fiction songs depictions of women on sheet music and
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playing cards anything quote calculated to carry impure ideas and a lot of people agreed with him in
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1873 Congress passed the Comstock act prohibiting the transportation of obscene materials through the mail
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including information about contraception but people still wanted to look at pictures of naked women there
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was a burgeoning underground industry of uh I guess if you want to call pornography and art pictures were
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included in that art studies and the way that of course artists fine artists got
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around that was by saying that these were mythical figures like psyche or Aphrodite so that you
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would use they would turn to mythology as a way of justifying having women in these sort of antique you know
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diaphanous robes and gowns and things and uh between that and then the kind of costumes that chorus girls wore also
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which were considered shocking at the time and here is Evelyn she's inhabiting both of these worlds at the
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same time and she's just barely 16. I mean everything about her life from the moment that she was discovered as a
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model her life was unusual Evelyn Nesbitt was born on Christmas day in 1884. in a small Pennsylvania town
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outside of Pittsburgh the local paper reported she was the most beautiful baby ever born in the
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county we're hearing about her from Paulie uriburu professor of English and film at
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Hofstra Evelyn's father died unexpectedly leaving Mrs Nesbitt with two small children and no idea what to do it was
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the classic it was like something out of a Charles Dickens novel where they were
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the sheriff came and put the eviction notice on the house and all of that and the mother had no idea what how to deal
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with the finances and so for a while they went from family member to family member and then eventually I think a
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year later her mother because she knew housekeeping decided she would try to run a boarding house
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um for a time the boarding house wasn't doing well because Evelyn was so beautiful her
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mother made her go door to door to try to collect rent from the men living there
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then Mrs Nesbitt tried to make money as a seamstress moving her children to Philadelphia where she hoped someone
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would hire her in Philadelphia Evelyn was discovered it sounds like the typical sort of Hollywood scenario but
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Evelyn was discovered on the street actually by a woman artist who thought that she was extraordinarily beautiful
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and wanted to use her as a model for painting she was a a fine artist and Evelyn's mother agreed to let her pose
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and then one after another other artists in the community there started to hear about this model and then she that was
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the start of her modeling career soon after the family moved to New York where Evelyn modeled for artists and
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appeared in ads for toothpaste face creams fur coats and Whitman samplers she was so sought after that she was
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paid twice what other models made her mother was happy to let her do it because they needed the money
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she came to New York just when the technology makes it possible for them to now reproduce photographs because prior
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to that women's ads for example in the ladies magazines they were illustrations but once
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Evelyn's picture gets reproduced that's when things changed and you know her face became recognizable as the the it
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girl she's the first it girl before people knew what it was Evelyn was cast in the most popular play
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on Broadway the floradora about young women in the South Pacific making perfume and being pursued by British
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aristocrats the show's most famous song was called tell me pretty Maiden [Music]
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like you do one of the most influential and glamorous architects in New York City
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went to see the show over and over some say he went 40 times because he was obsessed with the new girl
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his name was Stanford white Sanford white was uh this sort of this Dynamo and he was somebody who had a vision for
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New York and he wanted to transform it I mean he was sort of an amazing figure he
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managed to have a one foot in the world of the 400 and Mrs Astor and the robber barons and the extremely wealthy whereas
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at the same time he was a Denizen of Broadway and friend of the artist in the Bohemians he designed mansions for the
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Vanderbilts the Tiffany's he designed the original Madison Square Garden with a giant naked statue of the Goddess
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Diana on the roof and he was famous for coming up with these wild over-the-top events filling the old Metropolitan
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Opera House with 15 000 white roses turning a restaurant into the court of Versailles
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for the Centennial of George Washington's inauguration he built an enormous ornate Arch the arch was so
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popular that New Yorkers raised the money to keep it around and it's there in Washington Square Park today
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he had red hair and a big red mustache newspapers described him as masterful and intense
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he had a lot of power in New York and his wife was from an important and Wealthy family too he was just sort of
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uh this Whirlwind figure who um who had uh at the same time an incredible appetite for beauty and
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beautiful objects which is where I think Evelyn fits him it was the beginning of a new world of
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celebrity money gossip Mark Twain called it the Gilded Age glittering and Beautiful on the surface and absolutely
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rotten underneath I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal seeing Evelyn perform night after night
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Stanford white arranged to meet her he managed to get one of his chorus girlfriends who befriended Evelyn to
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come to bring her to a luncheon at one of his apartments around the city that he kept for these purposes he called his
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snuggeries this particular Snuggery was a non-descript building on West 24th Street above a toy shop owned by FAO
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Schwartz when Evelyn and her friend got out of the cab she wanted to go in and look at
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the mechanical toys but her friend who'd been there before pulled her through a narrow door that opened automatically
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Evelyn later wrote the sudden plunge from that dingy Street entrance into this room was breathtaking the
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predominating color was a wonderful red heavy red velvet curtains shut out all the daylight there was a table set for
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four she liked the apartment but she did not like Stanford white she found him quote
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appalling and terribly old she was 16. he was 48. they were having this feast and he says I want to show
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you this room that I have upstairs and they went up a set of stairs and there in this room with the high ceiling was
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this beautiful red velvet swing that was attached to the ceiling and also attached to the ceiling was a Japanese
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paper parasol and he said to Evelyn you want do you want to ride on the swing and he put her on the swing and pushed
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her and encouraged her to go as high as she could to try to kick through the parasol and that was one of the
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afternoon's entertainment was to ride on the swing the famous red velvet swing after that first meeting Stanford white
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decided that everything about Evelyn was perfect except for one thing her teeth they were good but not as good as he
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wanted them to be he sent her to a dentist to as he said satisfy a purely aesthetic urge and he paid the bill he
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paid for a lot of things he began this sort of uh program of patronage of her she became his quote
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Protege he moved her and her mother into a beautiful apartment that he decorated
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specifically for her paying for her brother to go to school he sent her brother to Military Academy he visited
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Evelyn and her mother many mornings with gifts often books he wanted Evelyn to read he arranged for her to take piano
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lessons he made appointments for her to model for his friends real artists he said not the hacks she'd been posing for
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and he introduced her to an artist named Charles Dana Gibson she became one of Gibson's favorite models and the Gibson
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Girl today still you know when they had that series of stamps that came out about the century a while ago sure
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enough Evelyn's picture was the Gibson Girl stamp that they put out so it's such a it's such an iconic image of that
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Gilded Age and she's she is it what was a Gibson girl uh Gibson girl was really um Charles Dana Gibson took the idea of
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the new woman which was sort of threatening to the Old Guard but his idea of the American Girl if you want to
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use that term was she was tall and statuesque and she was seductive but without being it's actually realized and
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she was usually depicted in his illustrations as an heiress as being healthy as being participating in the
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newest trends whether it's riding a bicycle or playing tennis or Golf and they didn't need men necessarily they it
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was it was really kind of the ideal image of the new woman and that's what he created one of
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Gibson's most famous drawings of Evelyn Nesbitt is called the Eternal question it's a profile image and in it her hair
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is piled up on her head but also there are some curls that fall over her shoulder and it looks like a question
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mark and Freud famously says the Eternal question is what does a woman want and Gibson played on that idea what is this
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what is this creature what is this new woman how are we supposed to respond to her what does she represent and Evelyn
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is the Gibson Girl She is the Eternal question what does a woman want and and it's brilliant because you know in that
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period a girl wore her hair down in curls and then when she was 16 she lost the short skirts and wore long dresses
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and her hair then was put up to indicate that she was a woman now and what's brilliant about the Eternal question is
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that you have it both ways she's got her hair up and she's got it down so it's some some interesting transitional
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figure between the old and the new between the old and the young actually Stanford white continued to be a father
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figure to Evelyn and he became very close with her mother winning her trust completely he talked to Mrs Nesbitt
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about her friends and family back in Pennsylvania he said it was important not to lose touch and encouraged her to
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go home for a visit and her mother was didn't want to leave Evelyn by herself in the city at this point Evelyn is now
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modeling in the daytime and performing on Broadway at night and he says don't worry I'll take care of her and and her
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mother left her in the care of of white and he told Deb when he was going to be having a party at the Madison Square
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Garden Tower and that she should come when she arrived there was no one else there he said isn't it too bad all the
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others have turned us down he told her that they'd have their own party he gave her a gift a toy Bank he'd
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bought in London and a glass of champagne and then another and another up until this point he'd kept the close
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eye on her drinking never wanting her to have more than one glass but this night was different
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he took her up a staircase she'd never noticed before at the top a small Studio decorated with tapestries and mirrors
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and antiques he opened the tapestries to reveal an even smaller secret room with a four
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poster canopy bed surrounded by mirrors all around the top of the bed were light
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bulbs that changed colors she says uh though I like to use her description she says she went into the room of Virgin
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and she did not come out one uh and that was a night that um she woke up and she was basically nude
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next to a naked Stanford white and he says you're mine now and you're my kittens and it's awful
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she had no memory of what had happened when she woke up and saw her reflection in the mirrors she screamed
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before 1895 to prosecute someone for rape you had to prove a woman fought back after 1895 sex with anyone under 18
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carried a minimum sentence of 10 years Stanford white told Evelyn that nothing unusual had happened that everyone did
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it and that quote a girl must never talk he'd remind her of this sing simply don't talk Evelyn
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I mean you have to try to remember that she's 16 when she meets white she had been living after her father died she
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was living in extreme poverty and living from hand to mouth and suddenly she's with one of the most dynamic Attractive
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people in New York you know white was somebody that men and women found you know sort of irresistible in terms of
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his personality in terms of his charm the way she describes it in her letter she said it was like the force of an
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earthquake you know it was a seismic force that he had and uh and as I said everybody
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anybody who knew white um whether it was as the artist or as the entrepreneur or as the art
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connoisseur he was just this magnetic figure and so probably in her naivete as a 16 year old she thought oh he's he's
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gonna maybe leave his wife for me which he never intended to do so yeah it was a very um uneven
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relationship to say the least foreign [Music] for Evelyn's 17th birthday Stanford
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white filled his Madison Square Garden apartment with flowers covering every inch of the place and he covered the
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flower petals with confectioner's sugar to make them look like they've been dusted by snow
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and he was just getting started her birthday gifts included two diamond solitaire rings a large Pearl on a
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platinum chain a set of white fox Furs and a ruby and diamond ring she called him Stanley Claus
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she was thrilled to be the center of his attention he would pinch her shoulders and say he
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was feeling for her wings neither of them had any idea they were being watched Evelyn had been cast in a musical called
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The Wild Rose and a strange man attended dozens of performances he always sat in
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the front row following almost exactly in the footsteps of Stanford white the strange
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man asked one of the girls in the play to bring Evelyn to lunch so he could meet her
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Evelyn agreed the man called himself Mr Monroe he met her he he got down and grabbed the Hem of her dress and kissed
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it and he said do you know you're the most beautiful girl in New York and she was actually horrified
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about a week later at a pre-show dinner Evelyn ran into Mr Monroe again they were seated next to one another which
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was not a coincidence this time very theatrically the man told her that his name was not Mr Monroe he
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revealed his real identity the heir to a 40 million dollar Fortune Harry thaw Harry was this incredibly spoiled and
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apparently very unstable young man who then uh wanted to become sort of uh you know the
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toast of the town and came from Pittsburgh to New York and because he was so odd and because he
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was let's face it he was from Pittsburgh okay I didn't want to catch this person
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on Pittsburgh but the New York crowd considered him just a sort of insane sort of Outsider who did things like
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ride a horse up the steps into the Union club and used to show off by lighting his cigars with hundred dollar bills and
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things like this so he was um he had been kicked out of Harvard he'd been kicked out of law school it didn't
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actually matter he didn't need to work his mother gave him a monthly allowance of eighty thousand dollars which would
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be about two million dollars a month today he spent his time traveling around the
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world getting into fights and asking his mother to bail him out like Stanford white Harry thaw was
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obsessed with young and beautiful Broadway actresses and specifically he was obsessed with their virginity he
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would actually run ads and have young girls come to his apartment with the idea that he was
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going to be a dramatic coach and he would instead scald them in bathtubs and handcuff them and beat them with a dog
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Whip and tell them that they were bad he believed he was saving them in some way
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his mother spent tens of thousands of dollars paying them not to press charges Evelyn didn't know about any of this but
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she knew she was not interested when Harry thaw sent two dozen pairs of silk stockings to her house she sent
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them back he sent a Steinway grand piano she sent that back too he proposed she declined
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she was in love with Stanford white she believed they were going to be together forever and as she saw that he was
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paying attention to other chorus girls as well she didn't like that and I think she started to
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um it's she turned 17 she became maybe somewhat wiser or somewhat aware that she needed to do something and so that's
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when she started a relationship with John Barrymore I think to make white jealous in the
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hopes that he would leave his wife somehow Mrs Nesbitt had no problem with Evelyn spending many evenings with
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Stanford white but when she started spending time with someone age appropriate she panicked and sent Evelyn
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to boarding school she enrolled at the DeMille School run by Cecil B demille's mother
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Stanford white paid her tuition while she was at school she needed an emergency appendectomy
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Evelyn's mother couldn't reach Stanford white so she contacted that other wealthy middle-aged man hovering around
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her teenage daughter Harry thaw he sent one of the finest doctors in New York to operate on Evelyn and then
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offered to pay for recuperative trip to Europe for Evelyn and her mother and he would go along too
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early in the trip Evelyn and her mother were fighting so badly mostly about her mother spending Evelyn's money on
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clothes for herself that her mother insisted on going back to America and so Harry and Evelyn were alone they were in
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Paris and and here was this guy who was kind of weird and uh but he was constantly professing his love for her
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and how beautiful she was and then One Night in Paris he he sort of cornered her in her room and said
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tell me about Stanford way tell me what he did to you I know he did something to
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you and she told him and he broke down crying and hysterical and saying oh my God that's terrible terrible he began to
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cry and pressed her for more details and they stayed up all night talking Evelyn was moved by his reaction
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they continued to travel together and Harry would bring up Stanford white constantly when they visited the
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birthplace of Joan of Arc he wrote in the guest book she would not have been a virgin if Stanford White had been around
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they moved on to Germany where Harriet rented an old Gothic Castle secluded up a steep Mountain
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there were two servants in the castle and one night Harry thaw sent them both away
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Evelyn woke up to find him standing beside her bed naked with a whip he attacked her he tore a nightgown off
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and hit her and said things about Penance for her sinful Behavior he raped her the next day he behaved as if nothing
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had happened Evelyn asked to see a doctor she was badly injured and still recovering from the appendectomy
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he took her to a doctor who ignored the bruises and marks all over her body she was completely trapped
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eventually they went back to Paris where she ran into one of Stanford White's friends an older woman who got Evelyn
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out of there back home in New York she realized that she was completely on her own
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her mother wouldn't speak to her Stanford white was distracted she worried that at 17 she was perhaps
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already too old to keep his attention Harry thaw sent an entire florist shop of flowers to apologize
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when she refused to see him he sent others to apologize on his behalf he wrote her letters promising that if
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she'd only marry him things would be better he said he would be a different person he said he would be like a monk
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this went on for two years on April 5th 1905 they were married she wore black and
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for a brief time it seemed like maybe this was going to be okay and then of course he starts coming into her room at
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night and saying tell me again what Stanford white did to you tell me just and she realized that part of the reason
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why he married her was because he wanted to relive this experience over and over
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again about white he was so obsessed with him Harry thaw began to carry a gun in our next episode
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the story it was very clear that none of the people in the in the in the center of
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this tragedy neither Evelyn nor white nor thaw was exactly what they had been initially depicted as
00:25:21
criminalists produced by Lauren Spore Nadia Wilson and me audio mix by Rob Byers matild erfilino is our intern
00:25:29
special thanks to Mara Eakin Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal you can see
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them at thisiscriminal.com where on Facebook and Twitter at criminal show criminals recorded in the studios of
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00:26:18
about liberalism is the Nuance we got in the van and she was not speaking to us at that point which was kind of good
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because when we got gas she didn't scream I just have this weird compulsion to look up and affection I don't know if
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you can say this kind of stuff on the radio I'm just fascinated with things that are
00:26:42
what do you wish on your enemies there was nothing I could do or say to change the slow motion crash and I thought I am
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I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal foreign [Music]