Interview with Paula Uruburu
Nonfiction Book Reviews

Nonfiction Book Reviews: A Conversation with Paula Uruburu

It was the crime of the century but, sadly, by today's standards it's a common happening. We would just look at it as another murder triangle made popular by the press. Would you consider Evelyn's story the first of its kind that was followed so closely by the public?

In a word – absolutely.

Evelyn's status as an "overnight success" – as a celebrity – was the result of a culture ripe for someone whose image could capture the national identity – it was unprecedented and set the stage for several years before the murder in the theater at Madison Square Garden. It certainly helped that innovations in technology made her photograph available everywhere and in a variety of forms – on everything from sheet music to compact mirrors to beer trays. Once she was "discovered" at 14, it was apparent Evelyn's extraordinarily natural beauty ran completely against the naughty nineties hourglass figure and more mature faces of that time. It was the New Century in search of symbols to represent the age and she was "It." Nonetheless, no one, not even the "glittering model of Gotham" was prepared for the media feeding frenzy and "orgy of misplaced sentimentality" that took place literally overnight with the news of Stanford White's murder. And as the New York Times said, she was "the cause of it all."

Nonfiction Book Reviews: A Conversation with Paula Uruburu

Nonfiction Book Reviews: A Conversation with Paula Uruburu

Considering the magnitude of the wealthy New Yorkers at the turn of the century and the excess of frivolities, do you think Stanford White thought that certain privileges were his for the taking?

Without a doubt! As I say in the book, White was part of a small powerful clique of men who ran not only the city but the country (think of the names of the robber barons and tycoons we still know -- J.P. Morgan, John Jacob Astor, John. D. Rockefeller, etc.) These were men of staggering untaxed wealth and a number, like White, acted with complete impunity. White felt that he was shielded by his wealth and connections to influence and avenues of power not available to the common man. He was, as Evelyn called him, a "benevolent vampire."

Nonfiction Book Reviews: A Conversation with Paula Uruburu

Nonfiction Book Reviews: A Conversation with Paula Uruburu

There were children working in factories and some married as early as 13 years old. Was Evelyn Nesbit behaving like an adult at 16 after meeting Stanford White, living the life of pampering and riches. Do you think her relationship was so "lurid" considering her sexual relationship with Stanford became one of mutual consent?

I think the events surrounding Evelyn's "seduction" by White, which was in fact statutory rape, is one of the reasons why the story still fascinates and shocks us, especially since she became White's mistress after the fact.

But as I point out in the book, what options did she have at the time? She was a "ruined" girl with no money or education or power or parental guidance. While I don't want people to think of her as a mere victim, I did feel when I began writing the need to establish fact versus fiction in terms of Evelyn's reality as opposed to the mythology that has grown up round her, her relationship with White, and her subsequent infamy as the girl in the red velvet swing.

She was a 16 year old with little parental guidance from an impoverished background. Stanford White was a forty-something rich and powerful man whom I call "The Pharoh of Fifth Avenue." That already speaks volumes about my feelings as to whether or not she was responsible for what happened (think in terms of that old Eve syndrome of blaming the woman.) While I believe Evelyn when she says that "Stanny" was the only man she ever truly loved – I would leave it to the psychologists to offer a more expert opinion on whether or not Evelyn had an Electra complex. I do think that there was some fusion (or more accurately confusion) of daughter-love with what became a sexual relationship once White crossed the line with Evelyn. But the blame has to be laid at the feet of the adults who consistently betrayed her trust in them.

Nonfiction Book Reviews: A Conversation with Paula Uruburu

Nonfiction Book Reviews: A Conversation with Paula Uruburu

Was Evelyn Nesbit so different from today's young starlets?

Sadly not at all – she is in fact the poster girl as the first in a pattern we have seen with young starlets ever since. I only wish that the young girls (not women) who are already in the harsh cynical light of celebrity-fueled fire – with names like Miley, Britney, Lindsey, Mary-Kate and Ashley – or those contemplating fame based on such fleeting things as beauty or the whims of a fickle public, read Evelyn's story and learn something from it. It is of course doubly difficult when, like Evelyn, virtually all of today's teen-aged femme fatales are placed in harm's way by parents with dubious motivations and atrocious parenting skill -- and that we are still a culture which delights in watching young women crash and burn for its own titillation and entertainment. As I say early in the book, those who don't learn from history's sins are doomed to repeat them -- and 100 years later NOTHING has changed.

Nonfiction Book Reviews: A Conversation with Paula Uruburu

Nonfiction Book Reviews: A Conversation with Paula Uruburu

You did some extensive research into the personalities of the 3 main characters. In your opinion, what psychological disorders would you peg Harry Thaw with, other than the obvious obsessive compulsive disorder?

Harry's impressive laundry list of mental disorders would also include delusions of grandeur, sadism, manic-depression, infantilism, narcissism, a god-complex, and probably what we would term schizophrenia. He was the perfect sociopath.

Nonfiction Book Reviews: A Conversation with Paula Uruburu

Nonfiction Book Reviews: A Conversation with Paula Uruburu

Is the mother, Evelyn Nesbit Sr.( if you will,) in your opinion an absentee figure in her daughter's life?

Well, as I say in the book, initially I was sympathetic to the plight of Evelyn's mother, a woman left a widow with two children and no social programs or avenues of help at the time when Evelyn's father died suddenly. But then, the more research I did and the more I learned the more critical I became of her maternal efforts. She sent her daughter to collect rents from shady boarders at age 12, then pose as a model for artists at 14 then go on the stage at 16 –- all of these had significant potential for danger for a young beautiful girl and Mrs. Nesbit seemed content to sit back and live off the money Evelyn made for her, never once attempting to find a job for herself. Then, after tacitly promoting the relationship with White, she left Evelyn to crazy Thaw in Europe and eventually married a wealthy man, essentially abandoning Evelyn completely before she turned 18.

Nonfiction Book Reviews: A Conversation with Paula Uruburu

Nonfiction Book Reviews: A Conversation with Paula Uruburu

I suppose this was all so scandalous at the time, but in our society now doesn't this sort of thing happen all the time?

Well, as I say in the book, the more I learned, the more I saw a number of key figures as "monsters in human form," adults who surrounded the teen-age Evelyn and betrayed her trust. People need to realize that not all monsters are easily recognizable as such, which makes them all the more insidious and dangerous. I say this now very deliberately in light of those contemporary parents of young girl-celebrities or wannabes -- whose astounding lack of guidance and poor judgment seems apparent in the crass exploitation of their own children for mere profit or publicity. Sadly, Evelyn may have been the first but she was not the last in a long line that very few can seemingly escape successfully – Jodie Foster and Brooke Shields come to mind as two who did rise above circumstances– and of course they went to Yale and Princeton respectively. Somehow, I don't see college in the future of the Lindseys, Britneys, and Mileys who dominate the current pop culture scene. With the world at their feet and global information at their fingertips, it's hard for me to see young women squandering the opportunity to do something significant and lasting with their lives. As Jack Kerouac wrote, "Fame is yesterday's newspaper blowing down Bleecker Street."

Nonfiction Book Reviews: A Conversation with Paula Uruburu

Nonfiction Book Reviews: A Conversation with Paula Uruburu

What, if any, remains of the original Madison Square Garden? What happened to the famous statue of Diana at the top of the tower?

Sadly, nothing remains of the magnificent building that occupied an entire city block across from Madison Square; it was torn down in 1925. The famous (or infamous) Diana now stands serenely in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and a slightly smaller version is on view in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Nonfiction Book Reviews: A Conversation with Paula Uruburu

How are Stanford White's architectural feats looked at by today's New York Architect?

That's probably a question better answered by an expert in the field but my sense of his legacy a century later (in a post-modern world) is that he is still considered an inspired artist and "aesthetic prophet," an "apostle of beauty" who certainly helped transform New York from a dingy brownstone city to the glittering metropolis it became in the Gilded Age. His innate eye for the gorgeous and his ability to procure rare art objects, as well as his knowledge of and execution of classical design, is still very much in evidence. I recently visited Rosecliffe, the marvelous "summer cottage" he designed in Newport for one of his many wealthy clients and it remains a breathtaking structure.

Nonfiction Book Reviews: A Conversation with Paula Uruburu

Were you able to contact any living relatives of Evelyn Nesbit, i.e. Harry Thaw or Stanford White, during your research?

I did. When I first contacted the person I thought was Evelyn's son, Russell, it turned out to be her grandson, also named Russell (her son had passed away in 1984.) Russell was initially reluctant to talk to me, having been burned in the past by unscrupulous collectors and "just plain kooks" every time Evelyn resurfaced in the popular culture. But I eventually gained his trust and he then invited me to visit, to look through family artifacts, home movies, photos, etc. I also spoke to his mother, whom Evelyn lived with for twenty plus years, and his sister, who was very close to her grandmother in Evelyn's last few years. I have also met with and appeared on several panels with Suzannah Lessard, Stanford White's great-grand-daughter. We were both consultants for the PBS American Experience show on the murder and she has been very gracious and supportive of my book. I had some brief contact with relatives of Harry Thaw (great grand-children and grand nephews/nieces) who were intrigued with the story; they said they looked forward to my book as the means to learn the facts that the family had buried for years in their desire to distance themselves the scandal.