Evelyn Nesbit was a model and a performer that was mainly remembered for being "The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing." Her family lived in poverty before her fame. She was discovered in Philadelphia at the age of fourteen. She was found by the painter Charles Dana Gibson, and she supposedly inspired the famous "Gibson Girl." She moved to New York in 1900 at the age of fifteen as a model. She became an overnight sensation. Her mother gave up seam-stressing to live off her daughter's new found fame. She became a hit in the chorus of a musical as "Florodora." She modeled during the day, and performed at night. She was the icon of her age. She was the very first "It Girl." Her photographs changed the standards of beauty at the time. Despite her glamorous facade, she actually faced many hardships in a horrid love triangle that ended in quite the mess.
Nesbit quickly became enchanted by the charismatic architect, Stanford White. He created famous locations such as Columbia University's main campus, the James Farley Post Office, the Brooklyn Museum, the Morgan Library, Penn Station, the Washington Square Arch, and the classic Madison Square Gardens. He was the most distinguished architect of his time. But despite his business successes, he was a truly repulsive human being. He was a womanizer that seduced young women and also payed for their courtship. But that is not all. He grew fascinated with Nesbit's fame and needed to be a part of the new star's life. He rapidly took over, and never really left. He started out by fixing her discolored tooth as if she were some sort of porcelain doll that needed a touch up. Her mother was very content with this bizarre relationship only for the vast amount of money White was providing her family. His sick ways only started there. He had a disturbing interest in young women, underaged teenagers to be more specific. His home had many rooms built for seduction. He had a room with mirrors for walls, a room with a four poster bed with mirror headboards and a canopy, and finally, the object that started it all, the room with the red velvet swing. He forced Nesbit to swing on it in full nudity for his entertainment. Later in her defense she explained that she was only sixteen and enjoyed swinging. The forty six year old architect eventually raped the sixteen year old model until she was obligated to stay in the relationship. She was forced to be his mistress for months before she finally let go of him, or so she thought. She moved on to the actor John Barrymore. Her mother ended the relationship quickly before it was too late. But Nesbit was already impregnated by the actor. White swooped in and sent her to a boarding school where the abortion was hidden as appendicitis. Nesbit fought her way out of that mess and went straight into a new one.
Nesbit met a new disaster named Harry Thaw, the heir to a $40 million coal and railroad fortune. Despite his controlling deranged personality, she married the sap. Although, she got out of one dysfunctional relationship, she entered an entirely worse one. Thaw was also a sexual predator among young women. He would lie to girls by luring them into thinking they would star in Broadway shows, then rape them and beat them severely. Thaw became obsessed with his new bride. He was extremely jealous of her former lovers and constantly pestered her about them. Not only pestered, but abused. He beat her with a leather riding crop for telling him about White until she couldn't think of anymore to say, so she had to keep making things up just to please his disturbed mind. It was sick and twisted. He forced her to speak of White as "The Beast" or "The Bastard." He would sometimes carry a revolver around the house saying how he will keep other girls from going through his poor wife's horrible experience. This only lead to a troubling ending for all of them.
On June 25, 1906, the Thaw's went out to see a play at Madison Square Gardens called "Mamizelle Champagne." Harry Thaw noticed White through the corner of his eye, and the rage began to bubble inside him. A second glance at White threw him over the edge, irritating him just enough to shoot Stanford White three times, twice in the head and once in the shoulder. White was killed instantly. The first shot was fired about twelve feet away, but the second and third were only two to three feet away. Ironically, White was shot during the song, "I Could Love a Million Girls."This became known as the Crime of the Century.
Thaw plead insanity in hopes that he will get out of electrocution in the chair. His spoiled personality allowed him believe he can even get away with murder. He claimed to have a mysterious force outside of his body and that he was being possessed by the spirits of the dead. A doctor later backed up that statement, somehow. The doctor's wife was also a professed medium that helped further the argument. The alleged ghost's name was Johnson. He was believed to be a lower class man and wanted rich womanizers such as White to no longer live in the world. "Stealing our children from us and putting fine clothes on them." were his words, supposedly. Later Johnson claimed to be Thaw's dead father. Of course this is all a hunk of bologna, so he was proven not guilty because he was absolutely insane, or so they say. Thaw was saved from the electric chair. This was also known as the Trial of the Century. After all of this, Thaw divorced Nesbit.
Nesbit later became pregnant, and claimed that it was Thaw's child. He rejected that statement intensely. She named the child Russell William Thaw. Many films were made of this horrific experience that traumatized Evelyn Nesbit known as "The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing." She returned to her career but as a silent movie actress. She married her dance partner, Jack Clifford, but he left her two years later. She dealt with alcoholism and a drug addiction. Thaw helped a little bit by leaving her $10,000 in his will. For the last few years of her life, she was a ceramics teacher. She died at the age of eighty two. She lived every little girls dream and more. Though she was caught up in the worst relationships and never truly found love. Women in that time period were treated as objects, scum. Feelings, and other riff-raff meant nothing to the high class business men. Women were an arm piece, something used to flaunt, not anything more. Nesbit was unfortunately part of that horrendous era and was used like the nearest tissue.
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