Pauline de Rothschild
Encyclopedia
Pauline de Rothschild was a writer, a fashion designer, and, with her second husband, a translator of both Elizabethan poetry and the plays of Christopher Fry
. She was the only woman named to the International Best Dressed List
Hall of Fame in 1969, alongside Douglas Fairbanks
, Dean Acheson
, Angier Biddle Duke
, Cary Grant
, and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
.
to wealthy expatriate American parents of Protestant background. Her mother was Gwendolen Cary, a great-grand-niece of Thomas Jefferson
and a distant cousin of Britain's Lords Falkland and Cary
. Her father was Francis Hunter Potter, a playboy who was a grandson of Alonzo Potter
, an Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania, and a nephew and great-nephew of successive Episcopal bishop
s of New York
, Horatio Potter
and Henry Codman Potter
.
Pauline Potter was a member of several families that were prominent in the American South since the 17th century. She was a great-great-granddaughter of Francis Scott Key
and a direct descendant of Pocahontas
. Her grand-aunts Jennie and Hetty Cary
(wife of the Confederate general John Pegram
) were well-known figures during the Civil War, known as the "Cary Invincibles" and considered heroines for sewing battle flags. It was Jennie Cary who put the words of James Ryder Randall
's poem "Maryland, My Maryland" to the German folk song "Lauriger Hortius", thereby creating what would become the state song of Maryland
. Her mother's cousin and sometime guardian Constance Cary Harrison
was one of America's best-known women in the late 19th century, a prominent novelist and social reformer. Another cousin, Francis Burton Harrison
, served as Governor General of the Philippines
and was a Democratic
candidate for the U.S. presidency.
Due to her parents' frequent separations and subsequent divorce and their later marital and romantic entanglements and custody disputes, she was brought up in varying degrees of poverty and luxury in New York City, Paris, Biarritz
, and Baltimore
. She was educated at a private finishing school in Groslay
, a town north of Paris, as well as schools and tutors elsewhere in France and Maryland, but her formal education was effectively over by the age of 16.
By her father's second marriage to Clara Waterman Knight Colford (formerly Mrs. Sidney Jones Colford), a Philadelphia sugar and utilities heiress, she had two stepsisters, Clara and Dorothy.
(a Prime Minister of Belgium), film director John Huston
, American diplomat Elim O'Shaughnessy, French horticultural heir André Levesque de Vilmorin, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovitch Romanov of Russia (one of the assassins of Rasputin), and producer-director Jed Harris
.Philippe de Rothschild and Joan Littlewood, Milady Vine: The Autobiography of Philippe de Rothschild (London: Jonathan Cape, 1984) For a period of years she also was the lover of Isabelle Kemp, an heiress to a New York drug-store and real-estate fortune.
in London and Paris and often was seen in society columns dressed in the firm's latest creations.
In the early 1940s, she and a friend, Louise Macy, a former editor of Harper's Bazaar
, opened Macy-Potter, a short-lived fashion house, in New York City. The firm was bankrolled by a monetary settlement from Macy's former lover, millionaire John Hay Whitney
, a.k.a. Jock Whitney, who had left her to marry Betsey Cushing, a former daughter-in-law of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Though Macy-Potter's first (and only) collection was a critical and financial disaster, Potter went on to design a collection for Marshall Field and later to direct the custom-fashion division of Hattie Carnegie
, the New York fashion company, succeeding Jean Louis
, who left in 1943 to become chief fashion designer for Columbia Pictures
.
She remained at Hattie Carnegie for nearly a decade and was known professionally as Mrs. Fairfax Potter. Philippe de Rothschild and Joan Littlewood, Milady Vine: The Autobiography of Philippe de Rothschild (London: Jonathan Cape, 1984) Among her clients were the Duchess of Windsor, automotive heiress Thelma Chrysler Foy, actress Gertrude Lawrence
, actress Ina Claire
, and prominent others. She also designed the women's costumes for John Huston's Broadway 1946 production of No Exit
by Jean-Paul Sartre
, starring Ruth Ford
and Annabella. The gown she designed for Ford is in the collection of the Museum of the City of New York
.
Potter also worked briefly as an uncredited fashion model. One assignment for Harper's Bazaar had her posing in the latest Grecian-style gowns for the photographer Louise Dahl-Wolfe
.
, a noted playboy and poet who was the owner of the fabled French winery Château Mouton Rothschild
. The baron's previous wife, Elisabeth Pelletier de Chambure
, died in 1945 in Ravensbrück concentration camp
.
By this marriage, she had one stepchild, Philippine de Rothschild
(born 1935).
and the stories of Danish writer Isak Dinesen), and she hoped to make her mark as a writer. Her articles about fashion, travel, and other subjects were published in Harper's Bazaar
and Vogue (the latter's editor in chief, Diana Vreeland
, was a distant cousin). In 1966, Harcourt Brace published her only book, The Irrational Journey, a brief, atmospheric memoir of a trip she and her husband took to the Soviet Union in the dead of winter.
, Bordeaux
, France, beneath a translucent tomb made of Lalique glass and marble. The monument also contains the remains of her second husband and his parents, Mathilde and Henri de Rothschild.
Christopher Fry
Christopher Fry was an English playwright. He is best known for his verse dramas, notably The Lady's Not for Burning, which made him a major force in theatre in the 1940s and 1950s.-Early life:...
. She was the only woman named to the International Best Dressed List
International Best Dressed List
The International Best Dressed List was founded by fashionista Eleanor Lambert in 1940 as an attempt to boost the reputation of American fashion at the time.People who have been on the list include from A to Z:-The International Hall of Fame: Women:...
Hall of Fame in 1969, alongside Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro....
, Dean Acheson
Dean Acheson
Dean Gooderham Acheson was an American statesman and lawyer. As United States Secretary of State in the administration of President Harry S. Truman from 1949 to 1953, he played a central role in defining American foreign policy during the Cold War...
, Angier Biddle Duke
Angier Biddle Duke
Angier Biddle Duke had a career which included being a diplomat in the United States foreign service.-Biography:Angier Biddle Duke was born November 30, 1915 in New York City....
, Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
, and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh is the husband of Elizabeth II. He is the United Kingdom's longest-serving consort and the oldest serving spouse of a reigning British monarch....
.
Birth, family, and childhood
She was born Pauline Potter at 10 rue Octave Feuillet in the Paris neighborhood of PassyPassy
Passy is an area of Paris, France, located in the XVIe arrondissement, on the Right Bank. It is traditionally home to many of the city's wealthiest residents.Passy was formerly a commune...
to wealthy expatriate American parents of Protestant background. Her mother was Gwendolen Cary, a great-grand-niece of Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
and a distant cousin of Britain's Lords Falkland and Cary
Viscount Falkland
Viscount of Falkland is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created in 1620 for Sir Henry Cary, although he was actually English and had no connection to Scotland. He was made Lord Cary at the same time, also in the Peerage of Scotland. His son, the second Viscount, was a prominent statesman...
. Her father was Francis Hunter Potter, a playboy who was a grandson of Alonzo Potter
Alonzo Potter
The Right Reverend Alonzo Potter was an American bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States who served as the third Bishop of Pennsylvania.-Early life:...
, an Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania, and a nephew and great-nephew of successive Episcopal bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
s of New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Horatio Potter
Horatio Potter
The Right Reverend Horatio Potter , was an Episcopal Bishop in the Diocese of New York.The youngest brother of Bishop Alonzo Potter, he was born near Beekman , Dutchess County, New York on 9 February 1802, to Quaker farmers Joseph and Anne Potter...
and Henry Codman Potter
Henry Codman Potter
Henry Codman Potter was a bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States. He was the seventh Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York.-Life:...
.
Pauline Potter was a member of several families that were prominent in the American South since the 17th century. She was a great-great-granddaughter of Francis Scott Key
Francis Scott Key
Francis Scott Key was an American lawyer, author, and amateur poet, from Georgetown, who wrote the lyrics to the United States' national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner".-Life:...
and a direct descendant of Pocahontas
Pocahontas
Pocahontas was a Virginia Indian notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter of Chief Powhatan, the head of a network of tributary tribal nations in Tidewater Virginia...
. Her grand-aunts Jennie and Hetty Cary
Hetty Cary
Hetty Carr Cary was the wife of CSA General John Pegram and, later, of pioneer physiologist Henry Newell Martin. She is best remembered for making the first three battle flags of the Confederacy...
(wife of the Confederate general John Pegram
John Pegram (general)
John Pegram was a career soldier from Virginia who served as an officer in the United States Army and then as a brigadier general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. He became the first former U.S...
) were well-known figures during the Civil War, known as the "Cary Invincibles" and considered heroines for sewing battle flags. It was Jennie Cary who put the words of James Ryder Randall
James Ryder Randall
James Ryder Randall was an American journalist and poet. He is best remembered as the author of "Maryland, My Maryland".-Biography:Randall was born on January 1, 1839 in Baltimore, Maryland....
's poem "Maryland, My Maryland" to the German folk song "Lauriger Hortius", thereby creating what would become the state song of Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
. Her mother's cousin and sometime guardian Constance Cary Harrison
Constance Cary Harrison
Constance Cary Harrison , was a prolific American writer. She was also known as Constance Cary, Constance C. Harrison, and Mrs. Burton Harrison, as well as her nom de plume, "Refugitta." She was married to Burton Harrison, a lawyer and American democratic politician...
was one of America's best-known women in the late 19th century, a prominent novelist and social reformer. Another cousin, Francis Burton Harrison
Francis Burton Harrison
Francis Burton Harrison was an American statesman who served in the United States House of Representatives and appointed Governor-General of the Philippines by President of the United States Woodrow Wilson...
, served as Governor General of the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
and was a Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
candidate for the U.S. presidency.
Due to her parents' frequent separations and subsequent divorce and their later marital and romantic entanglements and custody disputes, she was brought up in varying degrees of poverty and luxury in New York City, Paris, Biarritz
Biarritz
Biarritz is a city which lies on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast, in south-western France. It is a luxurious seaside town and is popular with tourists and surfers....
, and Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
. She was educated at a private finishing school in Groslay
Groslay
Groslay is a commune in the Val-d'Oise department in Île-de-France in northern France. It is located 15 km north of Paris, the capital.-Boundaries:The commune is bounded with Montmorency, Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, Sarcelles, Deuil-la-Barre and Montmagny....
, a town north of Paris, as well as schools and tutors elsewhere in France and Maryland, but her formal education was effectively over by the age of 16.
By her father's second marriage to Clara Waterman Knight Colford (formerly Mrs. Sidney Jones Colford), a Philadelphia sugar and utilities heiress, she had two stepsisters, Clara and Dorothy.
First marriage
In 1930, in Baltimore, Maryland, she married Charles Carroll Fulton Leser (1900–1949), an art restorer, who was the younger son of a prominent judge and a grandson of one of the city's leading newspaper publishers. He also was an alcoholic and a homosexual. After moving to Majorca, Spain soon after their marriage, they separated in 1934, divorced in 1939, and had no children.Romances
After she and Leser separated, she was romantically involved with a number of prominent men, including Paul-Henri SpaakPaul-Henri Spaak
Paul Henri Charles Spaak was a Belgian Socialist politician and statesman.-Early life:Paul-Henri Spaak was born on 25 January 1899 in Schaerbeek, Belgium, to a distinguished Belgian family. His grandfather, Paul Janson was an important member of the Liberal Party...
(a Prime Minister of Belgium), film director John Huston
John Huston
John Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...
, American diplomat Elim O'Shaughnessy, French horticultural heir André Levesque de Vilmorin, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovitch Romanov of Russia (one of the assassins of Rasputin), and producer-director Jed Harris
Jed Harris
Jed Harris was a renowned Austrian-American theater producer and director, and writer of film.-Personal history:...
.Philippe de Rothschild and Joan Littlewood, Milady Vine: The Autobiography of Philippe de Rothschild (London: Jonathan Cape, 1984) For a period of years she also was the lover of Isabelle Kemp, an heiress to a New York drug-store and real-estate fortune.
Career
In the early 1930s, she worked as a personal shopper in New York City, acting as a fashion advisor to wealthy socialites too busy to shop and too unsure of their personal style. Later, after moving to Europe with her first husband, she operated dress shops on Majorca. She also worked for the couturier Elsa SchiaparelliElsa Schiaparelli
Elsa Schiaparelli was an Italian fashion designer. Along with Coco Chanel, her greatest rival, she is regarded as one of the most prominent figures in fashion between the two World Wars. Starting with knitwear, Schiaparelli's designs were heavily influenced by Surrealists like her collaborators...
in London and Paris and often was seen in society columns dressed in the firm's latest creations.
In the early 1940s, she and a friend, Louise Macy, a former editor of Harper's Bazaar
Harper's Bazaar
Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...
, opened Macy-Potter, a short-lived fashion house, in New York City. The firm was bankrolled by a monetary settlement from Macy's former lover, millionaire John Hay Whitney
John Hay Whitney
John Hay Whitney , colloquially known as "Jock" Whitney, was U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, publisher of the New York Herald Tribune, and a member of the Whitney family.-Family:...
, a.k.a. Jock Whitney, who had left her to marry Betsey Cushing, a former daughter-in-law of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Though Macy-Potter's first (and only) collection was a critical and financial disaster, Potter went on to design a collection for Marshall Field and later to direct the custom-fashion division of Hattie Carnegie
Hattie Carnegie
Hattie Carnegie was a fashion entrepreneur based in New York City from the 1920s to the 1960s. She was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary as Henrietta Kanengeiser....
, the New York fashion company, succeeding Jean Louis
Jean Louis
Jean Louis was a French-born, Hollywood costume designer and an Academy Award winner for Costume Design. Louis worked as head designer for Columbia Pictures from 1944 to 1960...
, who left in 1943 to become chief fashion designer for Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
.
She remained at Hattie Carnegie for nearly a decade and was known professionally as Mrs. Fairfax Potter. Philippe de Rothschild and Joan Littlewood, Milady Vine: The Autobiography of Philippe de Rothschild (London: Jonathan Cape, 1984) Among her clients were the Duchess of Windsor, automotive heiress Thelma Chrysler Foy, actress Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence was an English actress, singer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End theatre district of London and on Broadway.-Early life:...
, actress Ina Claire
Ina Claire
Ina Claire was an American stage and film actress.-Career:Born Ina Fagan in 1893 in Washington, D.C., Claire began her career appearing in vaudeville...
, and prominent others. She also designed the women's costumes for John Huston's Broadway 1946 production of No Exit
No Exit
No Exit is a 1944 existentialist French play by Jean-Paul Sartre. The original French title is Huis Clos, the French equivalent of the legal term in camera, referring to a private discussion behind closed doors; English translations have also been performed under the titles In Camera, No Way Out...
by Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
, starring Ruth Ford
Ruth Ford (actress)
Ruth Ford was an American model and stage and film actress. Her brother was the bohemian surrealist Charles Henri Ford. Their parents managed the Tennessee Hotel in Clarksville, Tennessee.-Life and career:As a model she posed for Harper's, Town and Country and Mademoiselle...
and Annabella. The gown she designed for Ford is in the collection of the Museum of the City of New York
Museum of the City of New York
The Museum of the City of New York is an art gallery and history museum founded in 1923 to present the history of New York City, USA and its people...
.
Potter also worked briefly as an uncredited fashion model. One assignment for Harper's Bazaar had her posing in the latest Grecian-style gowns for the photographer Louise Dahl-Wolfe
Louise Dahl-Wolfe
Louise Emma Augusta Dahl was a noted American photographer. She is known primarily for her work for Harper's Bazaar, in association with fashion editor Diana Vreeland.-Background:...
.
Second marriage
On 8 April 1954, after several years as one of his several mistresses, she became the second wife of Baron Philippe de RothschildPhilippe de Rothschild
Baron Philippe de Rothschild was a member of the Rothschild banking dynasty who became a Grand Prix race-car driver, a screenwriter and playwright, a theatrical producer, a film producer, a poet, and one of the most successful wine growers in the world.-Early life:Born in Paris, Georges Philippe...
, a noted playboy and poet who was the owner of the fabled French winery Château Mouton Rothschild
Château Mouton Rothschild
Château Mouton Rothschild is a wine estate located in the village of Pauillac in the Médoc, 50 km north-west of the city of Bordeaux, France. Its red wine of the same name is regarded as one of the world's greatest clarets. Originally known as Château Brane-Mouton it was renamed by Nathaniel...
. The baron's previous wife, Elisabeth Pelletier de Chambure
Elisabeth de Rothschild
Elisabeth de Rothschild was a member by marriage of the wine-making branch of the Rothschild family....
, died in 1945 in Ravensbrück concentration camp
Ravensbrück concentration camp
Ravensbrück was a notorious women's concentration camp during World War II, located in northern Germany, 90 km north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück ....
.
By this marriage, she had one stepchild, Philippine de Rothschild
Philippine de Rothschild
Baroness Philippine Mathilde Camille de Rothschild is the owner of the French winery Château Mouton Rothschild. She also has acted under the stage name Philippine Pascale....
(born 1935).
Literary pursuits
Pauline de Rothschild admired the works of the Japanese novelist Yukio MishimaYukio Mishima
was the pen name of , a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor and film director, also remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku after a failed coup d'état...
and the stories of Danish writer Isak Dinesen), and she hoped to make her mark as a writer. Her articles about fashion, travel, and other subjects were published in Harper's Bazaar
Harper's Bazaar
Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...
and Vogue (the latter's editor in chief, Diana Vreeland
Diana Vreeland
Diana Vreeland was a noted columnist and editor in the field of fashion. She worked for the fashion magazines Harper's Bazaar and Vogue and the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Born as Diana Dalziel, Vreeland was the eldest daughter of American socialite mother Emily Key Hoffman...
, was a distant cousin). In 1966, Harcourt Brace published her only book, The Irrational Journey, a brief, atmospheric memoir of a trip she and her husband took to the Soviet Union in the dead of winter.
Death
Pauline de Rothschild died on 8 March 1976, of a heart attack in the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel, in Santa Barbara, California. She previously had been diagnosed with breast cancer and had undergone open-heart surgery for a deteriorated valve in 1975. Rothschild's health problems were exacerbated by Marfan's syndrome, a genetic abnormality.Burial
She is buried on the grounds of Château Mouton Rothschild in PauillacPauillac
Pauillac is a commune in the Gironde department in Aquitaine in southwestern France.-Population:-Wine:The commune consists of only 3000 acres of vineyards in the Haut-Médoc between the villages of Saint-Julien to the south and Saint-Estèphe to the north, but is home to three of Bordeaux's five...
, Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
, France, beneath a translucent tomb made of Lalique glass and marble. The monument also contains the remains of her second husband and his parents, Mathilde and Henri de Rothschild.