Lovely Evelyn Nesbit: Model For "The Gibson Girl" & "The Girl On The Red Velvet Swing," --- was involved in a murder-jealousy scandal......

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 Is vivid, sensational beauty a blessing or is it a curse???... 

She was such an exquisite, nubile beauty, with her perfect, yet delicate Grecian-like features and sultry eyes, that all who saw her were stunned. When she was only ten years old people started remarking about her beauty.

(I'm sure, many just starred, rudely.)

She was an American, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Christmas Day, 1884 or 1885. She was thought to have been "The Girl On The Red Velvet Swing," and that perhaps she performed as the swing moved over the heads of those below, or others did, imitating her. This act was referred to in an episode of "The Duchess Of Duke Street," a BBC series. And, there was also a movie, starring Joan Collins, called "The Girl In The Red Velvet Swing," for which Evelyn, at 72, was an advisor, --- but, who knows if she really rode that swing in an act, --- ???... Still, it's a positively fascinating image to imagine. (It was said she really did swing, privately, for very rich entrepreneur Stanford White, who was known to be a sexual deviant, in his apartment, when she was only 16.)

In her day, Nesbit was a famous fashion model, being frequently photographed for mass circulation newspapers, magazine advertisements (including those for Coca Cola), souvenir items, and calendars.

When in her early teens, she had begun working as an artist's model in Philadelphia. Nesbit continued after her family moved to New York, posing for legitimate artists including James Carroll Beckwith, Frederick S. Church, and notably Charles Dana Gibson, who idealized her as a "Gibson Girl". She was an artists' and fashion model when both fashion photography (as an advertising medium) and the pin-up (as an art genre) were beginning to expand.

Nesbit entered theater, first as a chorus line dancer. She was offered a contract as a featured star, and attracted attention from a variety of wealthy men, including Stanford White, nearly three times her age. In 1905, Nesbit married Harry Thaw, a multi-millionaire with a history of mental instability and abusive, predatory behavior. But, Evelyn had refused Thaw's proposals of marriage many times, but he kept after her, and after her, and after her, until she finally relented.

She wore black on her wedding day to show her depression.

After the marriage, Evelyn lived with Thaw and his mother, who had controlling, self-righteous and Puritanical ideas and made Evelyn's life intolerable. Her freedoms were continually restricted, and she was miserably unhappy. Harry even had the cosmetic dental work Stanford White paid to have done on Evelyn removed. 

Then, on June 25, 1906, Thaw shot three times and killed White at the rooftop theatre of Madison Square Garden, screaming, "You ruined my life!", or perhaps, it was "...my wife!".

The press called the resulting court case the "Trial of the Century", and coverage of these well-known figures was wildly sensational. Nesbit testified that White had befriended her and her widowed mother when they were poor, but had allegedly drugged her and then raped her when she was unconscious. Nesbit and White had also had an ongoing relationship after the alleged rape incident. Thaw was said to have killed White in retaliation for his actions with Nesbit, based on his own obsession with her.

Nesbit visited Thaw while he was confined to mental asylums. She toured Europe with a dance troupe, and her son, Russell Thaw, was born there two years after Thaw was confined. Evelyn declared he was conceived during a conjugal visit. 

Later she took the boy with her to Hollywood, where she appeared as an actress in numerous silent films. Russell also acted in some of these. 

Nesbit wrote two memoirs about her life, published in 1914 and 1934. Her son later became a pilot, working as a test pilot for the Douglas Aircraft Company after World War II.

She died in a nursing home at the age of 82, after having stayed there only a year. She said Stanford White was the only man she had ever loved.

Below is a photo of Evelyn at 77.

She very well may have been one of the most beautiful women who ever lived.