98 Facts About Evelyn Nesbit

Florence Evelyn Nesbit was an American artists' model, chorus girl, and actress.

Evelyn Nesbit is best known for her career in New York City, as well as her husband, railroad scion Harry Kendall Thaw's obsessive and abusive fixation on both Nesbit and architect Stanford White, which resulted in White's murder by Thaw in 1906.

Evelyn Nesbit began modeling when both fashion photography and the pin-up were beginning to expand.

Evelyn Nesbit entered Broadway theatre, initially as a chorus line dancer before becoming a featured star.

In 1905, Evelyn Nesbit married Thaw, a multi-millionaire about 14 years her senior with a history of mental instability and abusive behavior.

Thaw was said to have killed White in retaliation for his actions with Evelyn Nesbit, based on his own obsession with her.

Evelyn Nesbit visited Thaw while he was confined to mental asylums.

Evelyn Nesbit toured Europe with a dance troupe, and her son, Russell Thaw, was born in Germany.

Evelyn Nesbit wrote two memoirs about her life, published in 1914 and 1934.

Florence Evelyn Nesbit was born in Natrona, Pennsylvania, a small town near Pittsburgh, on December 25 in either 1884 or 1885.

The year of her birth remains unconfirmed, as the local records were destroyed in a fire and Evelyn Nesbit said she was unsure of the date.

In later years, Evelyn Nesbit confirmed that her mother sometimes added several years to her age to circumvent child labor laws.

Evelyn Nesbit's father was an attorney, and her mother was a homemaker.

Evelyn Nesbit later said that she had an especially close relationship with her father and tried to please him by her accomplishments; he in turn encouraged her curiosity and self-confidence.

When Evelyn Nesbit showed an interest in music and dance, her father encouraged her to take lessons.

When Evelyn Nesbit was about ten years old, her father died suddenly at age 40.

Evelyn Nesbit's family was left penniless; they lost their home and all their possessions were auctioned off to pay outstanding debts.

Evelyn Nesbit's mother was unable to find work using her dressmaking skills.

Evelyn Nesbit's mother was eventually given money to rent a house to use as her own boardinghouse, securing a source of income.

Evelyn Nesbit sometimes assigned young Evelyn to the duty of collecting the rent from boarders.

Mrs Evelyn Nesbit indeed gained a job, not as a seamstress, but as a sales clerk at the fabric counter of Wanamaker's department store.

Evelyn Nesbit sent for her children, and both 14-year-old Evelyn and 12-year-old Howard became Wanamaker employees, working twelve-hour days for six days a week.

Evelyn Nesbit asked Nesbit to pose for a portrait, which her mother agreed to after verifying the artist was a woman.

Evelyn Nesbit sat for five hours and earned one dollar.

Evelyn Nesbit was introduced to other artists in the Philadelphia area and became a favorite model for a group of reputable illustrators, portrait painters and stained-glass artisans.

In June 1900, Mrs Evelyn Nesbit, leaving her children in the care of others, relocated to New York City to seek work as a seamstress or clothing designer.

Evelyn Nesbit took a protective interest in the young Nesbit and provided her with letters of introduction to other legitimate artists, such as Frederick S Church, Herbert Morgan and Carle J Blenner.

Evelyn Nesbit's mother was forced to take on managing her daughter's career, proving unable to provide either business acumen or guardianship for her daughter.

Evelyn Nesbit became one of the most in-demand artists' models in New York.

Elsewhere, Evelyn Nesbit was featured on the covers of numerous women's magazines, including Vanity Fair, Harper's Bazaar, The Delineator, Ladies' Home Journal and Cosmopolitan.

Evelyn Nesbit posed for calendars for Prudential Life Insurance, Coca-Cola and other corporations.

Evelyn Nesbit modeled for Joel Feder, an early pioneer in fashion photography.

Evelyn Nesbit found such assignments less strenuous than working as an artist's model, as posing sessions were shorter.

Over time Evelyn Nesbit became disaffected with the long hours spent in confined environments, maintaining the immobile poses required of a studio model.

Evelyn Nesbit pressed her mother to let her enter the theatre world, and Mrs Evelyn Nesbit ultimately agreed to let her daughter try this new way to augment their finances.

In July 1901, costumed as a "Spanish maiden", Evelyn Nesbit became a member of the show's chorus line, whose enthusiastic public dubbed them the "Florodora Girls".

Evelyn Nesbit won a part in The Wild Rose, which had just come to Broadway.

In 1902 Evelyn Nesbit portrayed Miss Always There in the musical Tommy Rot.

Evelyn Nesbit was initially struck by White's imposing size, which she later said "was appalling", while remarking that he seemed "terribly old".

Evelyn Nesbit later described being overwhelmed by White's expensive furnishings and luxurious apartment.

Evelyn Nesbit impressed both Nesbit and her mother as an "interesting companion".

Evelyn Nesbit soon won over Mrs Nesbit; in addition to providing the apartment, he paid for Howard to attend the Chester County Military Academy near Philadelphia.

Evelyn Nesbit persuaded Mrs Nesbit to take a trip to visit friends in Pittsburgh, assuring her he would watch over her daughter Evelyn.

Evelyn Nesbit later said that while her mother was out of town, she had dinner and champagne at White's apartment, capped by a tour ending at the "mirror room", which was furnished only with a green velvet sofa, and that she then changed into a yellow satin kimono at White's request.

Evelyn Nesbit said this was her last memory until she awoke naked in bed next to an -naked White and saw blood on the sheets, marking the loss of her virginity.

Evelyn Nesbit said that as their relationship faded, she discovered he had had affairs with other female minors whose names he had recorded in a "little black book".

Barrymore was witty and fun-loving, and Evelyn Nesbit became smitten with him.

Several decades later, in 1939, Barrymore and Evelyn Nesbit had a tearful reunion in Chicago.

Evelyn Nesbit was in town starring in My Dear Children and, one night after the show, found his way to Gene Harris' Club Alabam, where she was appearing on stage.

Evelyn Nesbit eventually became involved with Harry Kendall Thaw, the son of a Pittsburgh railroad baron.

Evelyn Nesbit had attended some forty performances of The Wild Rose, over nearly a year.

Evelyn Nesbit maintained this subterfuge while giving her items and money.

In early 1903, while at boarding school, Evelyn Nesbit underwent emergency surgery.

The official diagnosis was acute appendicitis; however, some sources, including Evelyn Nesbit's grandson, have speculated that she had been pregnant and had an abortion.

Thaw became solicitous, ensuring that Evelyn Nesbit received the best medical care available.

Evelyn Nesbit suggested that she should go on a European trip, convincing Nesbit and her mother that this would hasten the young woman's recovery.

Tensions mounted between mother and daughter, and Mrs Evelyn Nesbit insisted on returning to the United States.

In Paris, Thaw pressed Evelyn Nesbit to become his wife, but she refused.

Thaw continued to interrogate her, and ultimately Evelyn Nesbit told him of White's assault.

Thaw and Evelyn Nesbit continued their travel through Europe, visiting sites devoted to the cult of virgin martyrdom.

Evelyn Nesbit knew her connection with White had already compromised her reputation; if the full extent of their involvement became common knowledge, no respectable man would make her his wife.

Evelyn Nesbit resented White for failing to tell her about Thaw's excesses and derangement.

Evelyn Nesbit's mother had remarried, and although she had been an inept guardian before, their estrangement was now complete.

Evelyn Nesbit was desperate to escape the poverty which she and her family had long suffered.

Evelyn Nesbit's mother agreed to the marriage, on the condition that Nesbit give up the theatre and modeling and refrain from talking about her past life.

Isolated with Thaw's mother and her like-minded social group of strict Presbyterians, Evelyn Nesbit became the proverbial bird in a gilded cage.

Evelyn Nesbit had imagined travel and entertaining but found that her husband acted as a pious son.

Thaw and Evelyn Nesbit visited New York in June 1906 before boarding a luxury liner bound for a European holiday.

Evelyn Nesbit managed to extricate herself from the ensuing chaos on the Madison Square rooftop.

Evelyn Nesbit toddled as innocently into the arms of Satan as an infant into the outstretched arms of parental love.

Evelyn Nesbit knew she was sacrificing her child's soul for money.

Evelyn Nesbit conferred with the US Postmaster General on the viability of prohibiting the dissemination of such printed matter through the United States mail, and censorship was threatened but never carried out.

Evelyn Nesbit pressed for the defense to follow a compromise strategy: one of temporary insanity, or what in that era was referred to as a "brainstorm".

Evelyn Nesbit proceeded to hire a team of doctors, at a cost of some $500,000, to substantiate that her son's act of homicide constituted a single aberrant act.

Again maneuvering her way through the gauntlet of reporters, the curious public, the sketch artists and photographers enlisted to capture the effect the "harrowing circumstances [had] on her beauty", Evelyn Nesbit returned to her hotel and the assembled Thaw family.

Evelyn Nesbit's mother remained conspicuously absent throughout her daughter's entire ordeal.

Evelyn Nesbit had been cooperating with the prosecution, as Thaw's lawyers considered her culpable of prostituting her daughter to White.

Evelyn Nesbit testified at both trials; her appearance on the witness stand was an emotionally tortuous ordeal.

Evelyn Nesbit was found not guilty, on the ground of insanity at the time of the commission of his act.

Evelyn Nesbit was sentenced to involuntary commitment for life in the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Beacon, New York.

Evelyn Nesbit's wealth allowed him to arrange accommodations for his comfort and be granted privileges not given to the general population.

Evelyn Nesbit gave birth to a son, Russell William Thaw, on October 25,1910, in Berlin, Germany.

Evelyn Nesbit always maintained that her son was Thaw's biological child, conceived during a conjugal visit to Thaw while he was confined at Matteawan, although Thaw denied paternity throughout his life.

In 1911 Evelyn Nesbit reconciled with her mother, who took on the role of caregiver for the child while Evelyn Nesbit sought out opportunities to support herself and her son.

Evelyn Nesbit's son became an accomplished pilot, placing third in the 1935 Bendix Trophy race from Los Angeles to Cleveland, ahead of Amelia Earhart in fifth place.

Evelyn Nesbit was left to her own resources to provide for herself.

Evelyn Nesbit found modest success working in vaudeville and on the silent screen.

Clifford eventually found his wife's notoriety an insurmountable issue, with his own identity subsumed by that of "Mr Evelyn Nesbit"; he left her in 1918.

Evelyn Nesbit briefly lent her name to several, including the Evelyn Nesbit Club and Chez Evelyn.

On New Year's Eve 1925, after concluding a six-week engagement at Chicago's Moulin Rouge and before a scheduled appearance in Miami, Evelyn Nesbit went on a bender and attempted suicide by swallowing disinfectant.

Later, doctors stated that Evelyn Nesbit might have died if her stomach had not been full of gin.

On June 5,1945, Evelyn Nesbit made news yet again when she was questioned about the murder of Albert Langford, the husband of her friend, Marion Langford.

Evelyn Nesbit had a strong alibi for the night of the murder and it was never suggested that she was in any way connected with the crime.

Evelyn Nesbit chose to live in downtown Los Angeles, in a neighborhood located just north of Bunker Hill.

Evelyn Nesbit published two memoirs, The Story of My Life and Prodigal Days.

Evelyn Nesbit died in a nursing home in Santa Monica, California, on January 17,1967, at the age of 82.

Evelyn Nesbit had been a resident there for more than a year.

Evelyn Nesbit was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.