When you write about Evelyn Nesbit, it should be noted that the main sources of information about her early life and the years before the murder come in fact from Evelyn herself, through her testimonies at the two trials, through her 1914 and 1934 memoirs or through various interviews.
Of course, Stanford White never spoke publicly about his affair with Evelyn. As for Harry Thaw, he published a book in 1926, in which he vilified Stanford White, lauded Evelyn, criticised her mother, presented himself as a chivalrous hero, trying to protect young and innocent girls from rich perverts, and insisted he had never been insane. Unsurprisingly, the mention of his brutal assault on a 19-year-old boy in 1916 was carefully omitted from his book.
To our knowledge, Evelyn’s mother, who, at best, had been described as naive and unwitting or, at worst, as unfit and calculating, has never made any in-depth public statement. Anyway, her daughter always defended her.
The affair made Evelyn a shady character. As far as the proponents of morality were concerned, her fate was sealed, and her reputation was stained for good. In a 1920 interview, Evelyn complained about it: "Is there no forgiveness for a woman? Must I go through life with the stain of Harry Thaw and Stanford White forever on my forehead?" Unfortunately, deep within herself, she probably knew the answer …
Australian postcard by T. Shaw Fitchett, Melbourne. Caption: "Head and Hearts" Packet. Evelyn Nesbit sketched by famous illustrator Charles Dana Gibson. This artwork was called “The Eternal Question”. Evelyn’s hairstyle is curved into the shape of a question mark.
A family in financial trouble
Evelyn Nesbit was born as Florence Evelyn Nesbit or Florence Mary Nesbit on the 25th of December 1884 or 1885 in Tarentum, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Her parents were Winfield Scott Nesbit and Evelyn Florence McKenzie, and she had a younger brother, Howard.
Her father died when she was about ten years old, and the family was left penniless. The ensuing years were difficult times.
In 1898, her mother left for Philadelphia, where she found work as a sales clerk at Wanamaker’s department store.
She soon arranged for her children to come live with her and found them menial jobs at Wanamaker.
British postcard by Philco Publishing Co., no. 3323A. Caption: Mrs. Harry K. Thaw.
Successful model
Evelyn’s beauty didn’t go unnoticed, and she began to successfully pose for artists. Her steady income soon persuaded her mother to allow Evelyn to become a professional model.
In 1900, Mrs. Nesbit left for New York and, in December, her two children also relocated there.
Evelyn started to pose for noted painter James Carroll Beckwith, and this led to other modelling work.
She was soon much in demand by illustrators, painters and photographers. Women’s magazines steadily used her image and her likeness graced postcards, calendars and advertisements.
In mid-1901, she joined the cast of the popular Broadway show 'Florodora' as a chorus girl.
British postcard by H.V. & Co. Card A. Caption: Miss Florence Evelyn Nesbitt (Mrs. Harry Thaw).
Stanford White
During the 'Florodora' run, she was introduced to famous architect Stanford White, who was in his late 40s and married.
He took a great interest in the young girl, soon moved Evelyn and her mother to a luxury apartment at the Wellington Hotel and offered to pay for younger brother Howard’s schooling in Chester County Academy. Mrs. Nesbit got along well with White and, according to Evelyn, considered him a thoughtful benefactor.
Evelyn later told how she had lost her virginity to White. She would claim that she had been sexually abused by White while she was unconscious after having been drinking. This would have happened when her mother had been paid a trip by White to visit friends in Pittsburgh and had left her daughter under his guardianship.
In any case, underage Evelyn and White started an affair. However, he dated other young female companions. Evelyn, herself, allegedly had an affair with John Barrymore.
Later she wrote: "Stanford White was a great man. That is how I see him after all these years. That he did me wrong, that from certain moral standards he was perverse and decadent, does not blind my judgement".
British postcard by H.V. & Co., Card B. Caption: Miss Florence Evelyn Nesbitt (Mrs. Harry Thaw).
Harry K. Thaw
From May to August 1902, Evelyn Nesbit was elevated to the rank of featured player, as gypsy girl Vashti, in the Broadway musical 'The Wild Rose'.
An avid spectator of the show was Harry K. Thaw, the son of a very wealthy Pittsburgh railroad baron who had died in 1889. He was an unbalanced young man who allegedly had been once expelled from Harvard for 'immoral practices' and was spoiled by his overprotective mother.
In New York, he had applied to several elite men’s clubs but had been turned down. The paranoid Thaw was convinced he had been blackballed by certain influential members and came to blame Stanford White in particular.
Thaw became obsessed with Evelyn and managed to be introduced to her.
In the autumn of 1902, she was sent to a boarding school by her mother and Stanford White. Before she left, Thaw made his first marriage proposal, which she rejected. Other declined proposals would follow over the next two years.
British postcard by Rotary Photo E.C., no. 4411F. Caption: Mrs. Thaw.
A fateful trip to Europe
After an appendectomy in late April 1903, Harry Thaw offered Evelyn and her mother a long trip to Europe to help the young girl recover faster.
The tour wouldn't go on as smoothly as Evelyn had hoped.
Evelyn’s mother soon grew dissatisfied. After it was decided that Mrs. Nesbit would stay in London, Evelyn and Thaw went to Paris.
There, under great pressure from a persistent Thaw, Evelyn allegedly confessed to him every detail of her relationship with Stanford White, which left him in shock.
Mrs. Nesbit finally decided to return to America, leaving her daughter behind. Evelyn and Thaw continued to travel. He soon took her to a castle in Austria-Hungary, where, according to Evelyn, he sadistically assaulted her and beat her with a whip. However, the trip continued into September 1903, and Evelyn finally came back to New York in October.
British postcard by Philco Publishing Co., no. 3319E. Caption: Mrs. Harry K. Thaw.
Marriage
After much pleading on Thaw’s part, Evelyn finally agreed to see him again.
He assured her that she would never be again the victim of his violent behaviour, which he said to have been caused by her confession.
From December 1903 to January 1904, she was briefly back on Broadway in 'The Girl from Dixie'.
Throughout 1904, Thaw pursued his intensive wooing of Evelyn and succeeded in getting back into her good graces. She eventually agreed to marry him, and the ceremony took place in April 1905.
If the young girl had hoped to live a quiet life, it was not to be the case as Thaw’s hatred of Stanford White had increased over the years.
British postcard by Rotary Photo E.C., no. 4411K. Caption: Mrs. Thaw.
Murder
On the 25th of June 1906, Harry Thaw shot Stanford White dead at the rooftop theatre of Madison Square Garden, during a performance of the show 'Mamzelle Champagne'. The press went wild, and the case made headlines.
A first trial opened on the 23rd of January 1907. Evelyn testified in February, mentioning notably the circumstances of her deflowering by White. It ended in a deadlocked jury on the 11th of April. Seven had voted guilty, and five voted not guilty on the ground of insanity. The strategy trying to make the murder appear as a justifiable crime had failed.
The defence had wrongly thought that the notions of 'Unwritten Law' and of 'Dementia Americana' would help Thaw to be acquitted. The 'Unwritten Law' was the supposed and informal principle of the right to use violence to avenge wrongs against family honour. 'Dementia Americana' was an alleged form of temporary dementedness leading to aggression that takes hold of a man who believes the honour of his family has been violated.
A second trial opened in the beginning of January 1908. This time, the defence took another approach and clearly pleaded a plain case of insanity, choosing to focus on Thaw’s troubled mental history. Reports and testimonies of Thaw’s deranged past behaviour were produced. It worked. In February, Thaw was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to an asylum.
Almost immediately, Thaw, greatly discontented with having been adjudged as a lunatic, began a campaign to have himself declared sane, but it would take him more time than expected.
British postcard by Rapid Photo Printing Co. Ltd., no. 3832A. Caption: Miss Florence Nesbit (Mrs. Harry Kendall Thaw).
Found insane a second time
In October 1910, Evelyn Nesbit gave birth to a son, Russell, in Germany. She claimed that her pregnancy was the result of a conjugal visit with Harry Thaw at the asylum, but he strongly denied it and never accepted the boy as his biological child. Neither did the Thaw family, which had never been enthusiastic about Harry’s involvement with Evelyn. Russell Thaw would later appear in several of his mother’s films.
In August 1913, Harry Thaw escaped from his asylum and sought refuge in Canada. He was sent back to the U.S. a few weeks later. On the 16th of July 1915, a jury declared him sane and set him free.
On Christmas 1916, he savagely attacked and viciously whipped 19-year-old boy Frederick Gump in a hotel room. A most curious remark was made in the Harrisburg Daily Independent newspaper: "The boy is said by those who know him to have been finely formed almost effeminate in type, and to have singularly resembled Evelyn Nesbit in features".
Thaw was arrested in January 1917 and was indicted on charges of assault in the second degree. In March, he was found insane and sent again to an asylum. In January 1924, Gump agreed to settle his suit out of court. In April, Thaw was adjudged to be a sane man and was released. He would never go on trial for the Gump affair.
Thaw's later life was much quieter, and he was not involved in any serious legal trouble again.
British postcard by Rotary Photo E.C., no. 4411G. Caption: Mr. and Mrs. Thaw. Evelyn Nesbit and Harry Thaw never posed for this portrait, which is a composite of two different photos.
Back to the stage
In 1913, faced with financial problems, Evelyn Nesbit accepted the offer to appear in the revue 'Hullo, Ragtime!' in London and was teamed with experienced dancer Jack Clifford. Later that year, she successfully performed her dancing act at $1,750 a week at the Victoria Theatre in New York. The management netted a huge profit, and it helped to establish Evelyn as a drawing card in the world of vaudeville. She then went on tour for Comstock and Gest for the pricey sum of $3,250 a week.
Show business producers reckoned that Evelyn’s name had commercial value and that there was an audience which was ready to pay to see this notorious woman in flesh or on screen.
In 1914, she notably appeared at the Théâtre Marigny in Paris. The famous French magazine Comoedia wrote: "She has found the recognition of her truly remarkable talent in front of Parisian audiences".
During the season 1915-1916, her Vaudeville act with Jack Clifford included songs, ballroom specialities and acrobatic dancing. In mid-1917, the duo was booked by the Orpheum Circuit to perform in San Francisco and Los Angeles. At the end of the year, she appeared with a new dance partner, Bobby O’Neill, in « A Roseland Fantasy », a richly staged vaudeville performance.
After several years of estrangement, she legally divorced Thaw in 1916. She declared: "All I ask from him is that he leave me in peace to continue my stage career. I do not want his name, and I do not want his money". That same year, she married her dance partner, Jack Clifford. That union didn’t last long. They separated in 1918, and their divorce was finalised in 1933.
American postcard. Caption: Evelyn Nesbit Thaw "In a reverie".
Evelyn in films
In March 1907, Lubin released the short The Unwritten Law: A Thrilling Drama Based on the White Case, which depicted White as a lecher, taking advantage of young and innocent girls. It was an openly pro-Thaw movie and ended with his acquittal because he had killed in his wife’s honour. It was rather curious as the actual trial had not yet ended.
According to some sources, Evelyn Nesbit played herself in The Unwritten Law. Others strongly disagree. Let’s note that, if Evelyn really appeared in this film, it may seem weird that such a key witness in the trial would have appeared in a movie about the murder, even before a verdict had been rendered. Therefore, it would be more plausible that an unknown and unnamed performer portrayed Evelyn in this short.
In 1914, Evelyn made her official screen debut in Threads of Destiny. According to the Moving Picture World magazine, the movie packed theatres because "people are still interested in the notorious Thaw case". She then starred in two films produced and directed by Julius Steger: Redemption (1917), whose part of the plot bears a similarity to Evelyn’s own life, and Her Mistake (1918). Redemption was advertised as "A photo-drama of life depicted with relentless truth".
She next joined the Fox Film Corporation star rostrum and was featured in The Woman Who Gave (1918), I Want to Forget (1918), Woman, Woman! (1919), Thou Shalt Not! (1919), A Fallen Idol (1919) and My Little Sister (1919).
Her screen career ended with The Hidden Woman (1922), directed and produced by Allan Dwan.
British postcard by Lilywhite Ltd. in the Cinema Stars series, no. C.M.-76.
A singer in nightclubs
In 1925, she was hired as a star attraction at the Moulin Rouge Cafe in Chicago as a singer. In the same city, she would later appear at the Club Alabam several times. In January 1928, Billboard magazine mentioned her success at the Lido Venice in Boston with an act called 'Life’s Impressions'.
In the 1920s, she briefly ran a tea room, Chez Evelyn, in Manhattan, and the Evelyn Nesbit Club in Atlantic City.
In 1930, she performed at the famous Bilgray’s Garden, a major fixture of Panamanian nightlife.
But all didn’t go smoothly for Evelyn: there were suicide attempts in 1921 and 1926 and bouts with alcoholism and drug addiction.
Her last known stage appearance took place at the Club Alabam in 1939. By that time, she had somewhat become a relic of the past.
British postcard by Cinema Chat. Photo: Fox.
The Girl in a Red Velvet Swing
When Harry Thaw died in 1947, he left Evelyn $10,000, only a very tiny fraction of his estate.
In the 1940s, she studied at the Grant Beach School of Arts and Crafts in Los Angeles and later taught classes in sculpting and ceramics.
She was hired by 20th Century Fox to be a technical consultant on The Girl in a Red Velvet Swing (Richard Fleischer, 1955), a heavily fictionalised account of the events that had taken place some 50 years before. Evelyn, Stanford White and Harry Thaw were respectively portrayed by Joan Collins, Ray Milland and Farley Granger. The film title refers to a lavish indoor swing on which Evelyn had ridden in Stanford White’s apartment.
The White-Thaw-Nesbit triangle was also portrayed later in Miloš Forman’s Ragtime (1981), with Elizabeth McGovern as Evelyn.
In 1962, she would allegedly say: "I’m still interested in that world of art and music and beauty which Stanford White first showed me, so long ago". Evelyn Nesbit passed away on the 17th of January 1967, in a Santa Monica nursing home.
British postcard by Cinema Chat. Photo: F.B.O.
Text and postcards: Marlene Pilaete.
