“…you can’t dispose of Mercedes de Acosta lightly—she has had the two most important women in the US—Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich.”

Top Drawer!!

If you were going to be a closeted lesbian back in the day, you might as well go for the Cadillac of all lesbians. I wondered what it could have been like being between their legs, look up and see a movie star’s face in ecstasy?

Classic.

Born in New York City in 1893 to a Cuban father and a Spanish mother, Miss de Acosta was reportedly a descendant of the Spanish Dukes of Alba. Impressive!

But, like time honored traditions, Miss de Acosta married a man first before exercising her delicious right of exploring the poinsettia (it is Christmas after all), by marrying Abram Poole, a painter in 1920.  The marriage didn’t last long.  The couple divorced in 1935. I wonder why?

I am not sure if Mr. Poole did her wrong, or she always had a love for fine dining, but Miss Mercedes being the writer that she was did not attempt to hide her sexuality. This woman collected lesbians like trading cards. And not any kind of lesbians, she liked them young and virile; kind of like how I like my many lovers. Her first venture that we know of was in 1916, when she began an affair with actress Alla Nazimova, and shortly thereafter started an affair with young actress Tallulah Bankhead, and later dancer Isadora Duncan. Shortly after marrying Abram Poole, de Acosta became involved in a long five-year relationship with actress Eva Le Gallienne. Though, like many hot-headed women before her, it took Miss de Acosta’s possessiveness and jealous nature to end the affair.

Over the next ten years, Miss Mercedes didn’t have to visit her dentist cause this woman’s dalliances kept her teeth well flossed! She slept with:

Author Salka Viertel

Actress Pola Negri

Writer Edith Wharton

Writer and stage actress Katharine Cornell

Socialite Dorothy Fellowes-Gordon

Writer Amy Lowell

Russian ballerina Tamara Platonovna Karsavina

If I repeated any of the names of her lovers, please forgive me. My head is spinning! We all wish that we could live and love this much!!! Isn’t that what life is all about? But, I do ask myself if Miss de Acosta was searching for something. Then why all the lovers? I think that although sexing is fun, but each time you give yourself up in a non-relationship king of way, you are giving up a piece of yourself. Non?

In 1931, Miss Mercedes met the crème de la crème. The woman who liked to be left alone- Miss Greta Garbo.  She called Miss Greta the “love of her life”.  For the next 12 years, they had a unpredictable relationship.  Unfortunately, Miss Greta did not feel this way for long cause when the going- on’s got exposed she quickly denied everything! Though before everything hit the trifecta, they did many a things closeted girlfriends like to do.  At times Garbo would shower Mercedes with flowers and gifts.   Mercedes became so enamored that she pasted photos of Garbo into her Bible!!  They vacationed together, sunbathed in the nude, and even lived together for a time in 1932. Garbo occasionally asked Mercedes to do some shopping for her and even enlisted her aid in finding places to live, both in Hollywood and in New York.

Do you know where Miss Garbo’s saying-”I vat to be left alone” came from? From her telling Miss Mercedes that it was O-V-A. It all came to a head (sorry) in 1944, when Miss Garbo ended the relationship. She insisted de Acosta stop sending her poems and letters professing her love. I guess she really did want to be left alone.

In the end, Acosta wrote a controversial autobiography exposing many of her relationships to the public. These affairs have been confirmed through personal letters, and many of the affairs were known to Hollywood insiders, but were kept out of the headlines for the sake of the actresses’ career. Take note Tiger Woods baby- Letters, texting have a way of biting you back in the ass.

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