A Conversation with Irrepressible Author Emily Bingham
HerKentucky editor Heather C. Watson interviews Louisville native author and historian Emily Bingham.
was at the top of HerKentucky's list of the summer's must-read books. The story of a charismatic Jazz Age debutante who scandalized Louisville society by kissing girls at the city's most exclusive clubs while charming London's elite Bloomsbury intellectual set , Irrepressible reads like a tightly constructed novel, deftly weaving through continents and eras to tell a lovely and ultimately tragic story.The second child and only daughter of Louisville politician, judge, and publishing magnate Robert Worth Bingham, Henrietta was born in 1901 into a Kentucky of thoroughbreds, cotillions, and country clubs. Her Louisville was a world most of us have only experienced in myth -- her grandmother Henrietta Long Miller owned an imposing mansion in Old Louisville and an equally impressive summer home in Peewee Valley -- but which was often too rigid for her tastes. Upon graduation from Louisville Collegiate School, Henrietta sought refuge first at Smith College (where she began an affair with magnetic young composition professor and heiress Mina Kirstein, whose family co-founded Filene's Department Stores), then abroad, where her gracious disposition and violet eyes captivated the free-spirited intellectuals of the Bloomsbury group. Among her confidantes and lovers were Wimbledon champion Helen Hull Jacobs and actor John Houseman; her complex and co-dependent relationship with her larger-than-life father cast a decidedly Southern Gothic shadow over her life of privilege.
Henrietta Bingham (image via The Daily Beast)
Ultimately, the societal norms of Henrietta's era -- it's heartbreaking to remember that, less than a century ago, gay Americans were forced into the closet by the imminent threat of criminal charges and physical violence -- along with a lifelong history of mental health and substance abuse issues ultimately dulled Henrietta's flame. The outré flapper and muse became known as a sad and embarrassing branch of the Bingham family tree. When Henrietta's great-niece, the writer and historian Emily Bingham, announced her plans to name her daughter for this relative whom she'd never known, the story goes, her family blanched. Henrietta's name was considered an unwelcome burden to saddle upon a new generation of Binghams, so Emily started reconstructing her great-aunt's story. In a twist so fortuitous that it seems torn from the pages of a Hollywood script, Emily Bingham found two perfectly preserved trunks in the attic of her family's estate. Henrietta's story unfolded through the trunks' contents -- a glamorous story of love, heartbreak, and adventure. Emily graciously answered some questions about Irrepressible for HerKentucky readers.
Henrietta's partner, Helen Hull Jacobs
HK: What was going through your mind when you discovered Henrietta’s trunk of memories?
EB: That day in 2009 was probably one of the greatest experiences I'll ever have as a historian. I went to that attic in my childhood home very reluctantly. I had peeked into the trunk some time before and seen a lot of very old shoes, hats, that sort of thing, and it was pure duty to spend hours on a frigid January day in the uninsulated space full of soot and lit by a single dangling bulb. The house itself was empty and did not contain my happiest childhood memories (though I did love exploring the vast attic where servants had once lived and where my father and his siblings had a lot of toys and books and old saddles stored).
The first amazing find was a massive silver flask with Henrietta's initials. It holds about two fifths of bourbon. Nothing like the discreet flapper flasks you might imagine.
Then I came across the tennis outfit that turned out to have belonged to Helen Hull Jacobs, the 1930s lesbian tennis champion. Her monogrammed shirt suggested a more intimate relationship than I knew had existed between her and my great aunt, and the clothes, which I sent to the Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, RI led me to her diaries and scrapbooks and the "joyous and satisfying life" she shared with Henrietta in the 30s and 40s.
There were some little tiny folded papers containing white powder. I thought I'd come across some illicit drug but on closer inspection they proved to be "dog powders" for Henrietta's beloved border terriers and Pekingese!
And then, as I was about to leave for the day to relieve my babysitter, I saw that another trunk was hidden in the shadows in a corner of the garret room. At the very bottom is where I found the carefully tied up and almost perfectly-preserved collection of love letters from the sculptor Stephen Tomlin and the actor/producer John Houseman. Seeing Henrietta through their besotted eyes was one of the utter thrills of my experience with this book.
Young Henrietta. Image via The Daily Beast.
HK: Was there ever a time when you thought of turning back and keeping Henrietta’s story in the past?
EB: Absolutely. My editor didn't think the book was even possible given that I had no diaries and almost no letters from Henrietta herself. So it was almost DOA. But I pushed past that with some of the discoveries in the attic and elsewhere. There was a point when her depression and addiction melded with a sad and confusing time in my life and I wondered if the project might not make me ill.
Henrietta Bingham (image via Courier-Journal)
HK: I’m a Jazz Age buff, and a Kentucky native, so as I read, I was thinking both of the timeline of some of my favorite authors and historical figures (thinking, e.g., “OK, Scott and Zelda would have been here, or Gerald and Sara Murphy would have been here”) and of a very local timeline (saying things like “the Miller house was a block down from the Woman’s Club” or “of course they all thought Henrietta was a gracious hostess; she was a Louisville girl!”) It almost felt like Henrietta lived two completely separate lives –freedom in London and duty in Louisville. When you were working on the book, how did you feel that place played into Henrietta’s story?
EB: Henrietta felt very connected to her Kentucky and southern roots. There is a remarkable passage in the pages John Houseman cut from his memoir: see page 180-181. He was drawn in by the romance of Kentucky but later he came to see things in a more nuanced way. Here's a bit more of it: "I discovered that Louisville was, in reality, a typical middle-Western American city, indistinguishable from Indianapolis or Cincinnati, and that its main claim to national fame -- Churchill Downs, scene of the Kentucky Derby -- was ringed with factories and power plants that made it, without question, one of the most squalid hippodromes in the United States. Yet, for close to a century, from Foster to Fitzgerald, the legend of Louisville's romantic fascination had persisted--and not without reason. For in its own mysterious way the spell worked -- not only on public occasions such as the long Derby weekend, when the entire population, swollen by streams of visitors, lived in a state of collective alcoholic hallucination, but also, in a more intimate way, each time the natives came together and succeeded, through sheer emotional energy, in generating and sustaining an atmosphere of glamour and gaity that was no less magical for being achieved almost entirely with Bourbon and mirrors."
Henrietta loved her Miller grandmother. She also loved having a mansion to throw parties in. She dared to make passes at girls at the Louisville Country Club and kiss her lover in the elevator at the Pendennis. She went sledding in Cherokee Park and was pushed in a stroller in Central Park in Old Louisville. I was stunned when I figured out that for at least a year she and her father and elder brother occupied an apartment 5 doors away from me on Cherokee Road! London and Manhattan were much freer places for her, for sure, but I think she always wanted to come back and her thoroughbred breeding farm at Harmony Landing was the way she hoped to find her way in -- brave as a woman, a lesbian, and someone without direct experience in bloodstock (though her great uncle Dennis Long had two Derby winners in her childhood and that may have set her ambitions early).
Emily Bingham. Image via author's website.
HK: You do an amazing job of, as you say in the preface, not presuming to speak for Henrietta. Yet, you’re very fair with your assessments of her mental health and her likely dyslexia. Was this a hard line to walk?
It's always hard to walk the line between empathizing with your subject and wanting to protect them and being frank about their weaknesses and shortcomings. I believe that readers don't just want "models" and can appreciate lives that are as complicated and imperfect as their own.
HK: If you had the chance to talk to Henrietta, what would you say to her?
EB: Sing for me. Play the sax. Tell me the stories of the musicians you loved and who, doubtless, found you pretty interesting, too. What was your favorite bar, show, concert, player? Where did you feel most free? Who did you really love? Finally, "You are in the world again and people still find you lovable and irresistible and are so glad not to have lost you altogether."
Thanks so much to Emily for the amazing interview, and for writing the summer's best book. Check back later this week as HerKentucky takes you on a photo tour of Henrietta's Louisville.
10 Things You Probably Didn't Know about Happy Chandler
Observing the 117th anniversary of Kentucky Governor A.B. "Happy" Chandler's birth.
Albert Benjamin Chandler was born July 14, 1898 in Corydon, Kentucky. Three years later, Chandler's teenaged mother, Callie, fled the state, abandoning her husband Joseph and their young sons. Chandler worked his way through college and law school, going on to achieve memorable careers in both politics and sports. An ambitious and often polarizing figure in his chosen fields, Chandler never failed to show his deep love for the Bluegrass State. In honor of the inimitable Kentucky politician and perhaps the most famous singer of Kentucky's state song, here are 10 things you probably didn't know about Happy Chandler.
- Chandler earned his undergraduate degree at Transylvania College, where he was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, captain of the football and basketball teams, and quarterback of the football team.
- At Transylvania, Chandler earned the nickname "Happy", because he was always jovial and pleasant.
- After earning a degree from Transylvania, Happy considered a career in professional baseball (he even threw a no-hitter in a development league game!), but chose instead to attend Harvard Law School.
- While matriculating at Harvard, he scouted the University's football team; many credit this intel as a factor in Centre College's famous 1921 victory over Harvard.
- After one year of Harvard education proved too financially draining, he completed his law degree at the University of Kentucky. Throughout law school, he worked as a high school baseball coach and a football scout and assistant coach for Centre College.
- Chandler's political career spanned over sixty years. He was named Chairman of the Woodford County Democratic Party in the 1920s, and master commissioner of the Woodford County Circuit Court in 1928.
- Happy served as the 44th (1935-1939) and 49th (1945-1951) Governor of Kentucky and the 2nd Commissioner of Baseball (1945-51). Innovations attributed to his terms included a free textbook program, participation in the federal rural electrification program, establishment of a teachers' retirement system and an old-age assistance program, and the start of a special rural roads program
- As Baseball Commissioner, Happy approved the Brooklyn Dodgers' contract with Jackie Robinson, paving the way for African-American players in baseball.
- Other jobs held by Chandler included newspaper publisher, Senator, and Commissioner of the Continental Football League.
- Chandler was named to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Man of the Year by both The Kentucky Press Association and the Kentucky Broadcasting Association, and was the longest-living Kentucky governor.
Here's to Happy on the 117th anniversary of his birth! He wasn't always right, but he always loved the Commonwealth!
Ten Things You Probably Didn't Know About Johnny Depp
Ten things you may not know about Kentucky-born actor Johnny Depp.
Today is Johnny Depp's birthday, y'all! In honor of the fascinating, handsome, quirky actor and Kentucky native, here are 10 things you probably don't know about Johnny Depp!
1. On June 9, 1963, John Christopher Depp II was born in Owensboro, the youngest of four children. His mother, Betty, was a waitress and his father was a civil engineer.
2. He dropped out of high school at 16. When he tried to return to school two weeks later, his principal advised him to follow his dreams of becoming a musician.
“Awards are not as important to me as when I meet a 10-year-old kid who says, “I love Captain Jack Sparrow.””
3. In 2012, the Guinness Book of World Records named Johnny the Highest Paid Actor in the World.
“I`m an old-fashioned guy . . . I want to be an old man with a beer belly sitting on a porch, looking at a lake or something.”
4. Johnny lived in Frankfort from the ages of 3 to 10, where his mother worked at the Holiday Inn.
5. Depp has been married twice, briefly to makeup artist Lori Anne Allison, and, since earlier this year, to actress Amber Heard. He had a 14 year relationship with Vanessa Paradis, the mother of his children Lily-Rose and Jack. Over the years, he was engaged to Sherilyn Fenn, Kate Moss, Jennifer Grey, and Winona Ryder.
“The only creatures that are evolved enough to convey pure love are dogs and infants.”
6. He once co-owned a Parisian bar and restaurant, along with Sean Penn and John Malkovich. Located in a former cinema, the bar was named for avant-garde artist Man Ray.
Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, Johnny Depp
7. In the early 1990s, Depp was co-owner of the famous Los Angeles nightclub The Viper Room. Johnny Cash's 1993 solo performance at the Viper Room is credited with introducing Cash's music to a new generation.
8. Johnny Depp famously plays his Pirates of the Caribbean character Captain Jack Sparrow as "a mix of Keith Richards and Pepe Le Pew." When asked about the Pirates franchise, he once said "I only wanted to be in a movie that my kids could see."
“Hunter decided that since we were both brothers from “the dark and bloody ground,” as Kentucky is known, there were several fish to fry in Louisville. We were going back there to clear his name—they were going to celebrate him, and his mother was going to be there, and she would be proud. He said he wanted to make me a Kentucky Colonel—which almost anyone can be. There’s a society of Kentucky Colonels. Hunter was one and he made me one. You don’t need to do anything—you just write in and ask for it, and they give it to you. From then on, he always referred to me as the Colonel.”
Colonel Depp and Dr Thompson
9. Johnny is a member of the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels. His close friend, Louisville native Hunter S. Thompson, nominated him for the honor and frequently called him "Colonel Depp." Johny Depp starred in two films based on Dr Thompson's works, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Rum Diary.
10. He was once in a band called P along with Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea. The band's eponymous studio album included a cover of Abba's Dancing Queen.
Happy birthday, Johnny!!