Eva Le Gallienne was a well-known actress, producer, and director, during the first half of the 20th century. She was of Anglo / French descent and she made her stage debut at the age of 15 in a 1914 production of Maurice Maeterlinck's Monna Vanna and went on to become a Broadway star in several plays.
She almost completely avoided
film and TV during her lengthy career, however, toward the end of her life, she did appear in a 1977 stage version of "
The Royal Family" on TV, and she received an Oscar nomination for performance as Ellen Burstyn's grandmother in Resurrection (1980).
She had a
number of lesbian affairs and never hid her lesbianism inside the acting community, but allegedly was never really comfortable with her sexuality, struggling privately with it ... reportedly telling a female neighbor "
If you have any thoughts about being a lesbian, don't do it. Your life will be nothing but tragedy." ..... she was very worried about this side of her life going public.
However, girls can use their tongues for a number of things, and gossiping is one of them
...... so we now know via the memoirs of
Mercedes de Acosta that her lovers included the great actress
Alla Nazimova, who was at her height of fame, and who at that time wielded much power in the acting community. The affair ended reportedly due to Nazimova's jealousy.
Around 1920, she became involved with writer
Mercedes de Acosta, with the latter making quite a nuisance of herself over the next several years. She and de Acosta began their five year affair shortly after de Acosta's marriage to Abram Poole. They vacationed and traveled together often, at times visiting the salon of famed writer and socialite Natalie Barney. De Acosta's possessive and jealous nature brought the affair to an end. De Acosta would go on to become involved in a long affair with actress Greta Garbo, with whom she would become completely obsessed.
Le Gallienne was also involved for some time with actresses
Tallulah Bankhead,
Laurette Taylor and
Beatrice Lillie amongst others during her lifetime. In early 1927, Eva was involved with married actress
Josephine Hutchinson. Hutchinson's husband started divorce proceedings and named Le Gallienne in the divorce proceedings as "co-respondent". The press began accusations that named Josephine Hutchinson as a "shadow actress", which at the time meant lesbian. The resultant publicity caused Le Gallienne to drink heavily for a time after the 'scandal'. Both actresses somehow survived the scandal and carried on with their respective careers.
Her only known heterosexual affair was with actor Basil Rathbone ... she was 'outed' with the publication of De Acosta's controversial autobiography 'Here Lies the Heart'. Published in 1960 its revelations, though highly sanitized, effectively 'outed' scores of "Sewing Circle" gals, in both Hollywood and Broadway .... causing much anger, embarrassment, and outrage.
Eva Le Gallienne told anyone who would listen that she thought the book should have been called "
Here the Heart Lies and Lies and Lies" ....
She
has a thread here, with two posts so just a few illustrative pictures here.
Trivia:
She was portrayed in a one act play as
having been raped in her dressing room in October 1923, during the Broadway run of Liliom, a play in which she performed the role of Julie Jordan, the battered girlfriend of an abusive, alcoholic carousel operator .... whether this based upon a 'real event' is not clear.
It was Nazimova who coined the phrase "
Sewing circles", to describe the intricate and secret lesbian relationships lived by many actresses of the day.
Pictures:
.