1. Perle Mesta was the inspiration for Irving Berlin's musical Call Me Madam, which starred Ethel Merman as the character based on Mesta in both the Broadway play and the movie.
21 Facts About Perle Mesta
1. 2.
Perle Mesta appeared on the March 14,1949, cover of Time.
3.
Perle Mesta was the title character played by Shirley Booth in the Playhouse 90 feature "The Hostess with the Mostess" in 1957.
4.
Perle Mesta was born Pearl Skirvin in Sturgis, Michigan, a daughter of William Balser Skirvin, an original '89er who became a wealthy Oklahoma oilman and founder of the lavish Skirvin Hotel located in downtown Oklahoma City.
5.
Perle Mesta's younger sister was a silent-film actress, Marguerite Skirvin Tyson and her younger brother was an oil man, rancher and investor, Oren William Skirvin.
6.
Perle Mesta married Western Pennsylvania steel manufacturer and engineer George Perle Mesta in 1916, but was widowed in 1925; she was the only heir to his $78 million fortune.
7.
Perle Mesta settled in Newport, Rhode Island, but moved to Washington, DC in 1940.
8.
Perle Mesta maintained a home in the Pittsburgh suburb of West Homestead, Pennsylvania, the location of her late husband's Mesta Machinery plant and headquarters, but spent little time there, as she felt largely unaccepted by the Pittsburgh social scene.
9.
Four years later, Mesta changed the spelling of her first name to Perle.
10.
Perle Mesta was active in the National Woman's Party and was an early supporter of an Equal Rights Amendment.
11.
Perle Mesta switched to the Democratic Party in 1940 and was an early supporter of Harry S Truman, who rewarded her with an ambassadorship to Luxembourg.
12.
Perle Mesta is most noted for her festive parties, which brought together senators, congressmen, cabinet secretaries and other government figures in bipartisan soirees of high-class glamour.
13.
Invitation to a Perle Mesta party was a sure sign that one had reached the inner circle of Washington political society.
14.
Perle Mesta's influence peaked during the Truman era; being an old friend of the Eisenhowers, she maintained her social position throughout the 1950s despite her support of the Democratic Party.
15.
Perle Mesta's power waned significantly with the rise of the Kennedys in 1960.
16.
Perle Mesta was in fact a friend of Rose Kennedy, but a generation gap between her and Jacqueline Kennedy had made it impossible for her to stay relevant during the Kennedy era.
17.
Perle Mesta was apparently the inspiration for the Black Russian cocktail when the bartender at the Hotel Metropole in Brussels decided to make a signature drink for her.
18.
Lesch directed a documentary film about Perle Mesta's stay in Luxembourg titled Call Her Madam.
19.
Perle Mesta died on March 16,1975, aged 92 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
20.
Perle Mesta is interred with her late husband in the nonsectarian Homewood Cemetery in Pittsburgh.
21.
Perle Mesta is the namesake of the Perle Mesta Park neighborhood in Oklahoma City.