Truman Capote and the Swans of Fifth Avenue

Nothing was more dazzling than Truman Capote's inner circle of alluring, attractive, and wealthy women, dubbed his "Swans" during the height of mid-century New York City. Capote understood the value of having well-to-do friends as someone who sought the appeal and grandeur provided to the privileged, as he remarked, "I appreciate being able to fly where others walk." He believed that if he couldn't entertain guests with anything of his own, he could at the very least be granted entrance to the best clubs and exclusive homes of his time. Not only the money and style of these alluring swans captivated him, but also the stories that came with them, a passion that would later lead to his downfall. 

Each swan has her own story to tell: he wasn't just a trophy wife collector. These are the original ‘It' girls who inspired the Breakfast at Tiffany's writer, and whose style reigns everlasting, from Gloria Guinness, whose rags-to-riches story belongs on the silver screen, to Babe Paley, dubbed the doyenne of the New York social scene.

The women were quick to oust him after he released early chapters of his unpublished manuscript, Answered Prayers, in which he not-so-subtly alluded to his friends' personal dramas. It was the epitome of social suicide, and it was a decision from which he never recovered.

Nevertheless, Truman Capote and his cohort of glamorous divas undoubtedly made history, marking New York's (and even the international) high society.

Babe Paley

Babe Paley attending President Eisenhower's inaugural ball in 1957;
Capote based the character Cleo Dillon, the wife of a philandering
Jewish power broker, on her 

Barbara 'Babe' Cushing was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 5, 1915, to wealthy renowned parents (her father was a brain surgeon and professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins, Harvard and Yale universities). She was one of the 'fabulous Cushing sisters,' along with her two older sisters Minnie and Betsey, who were known for marrying powerful, affluent men. Babe married William S. Paley, the CEO of the CBS television network, while her sisters married Vincent Astor and James Roosevelt. They teamed up to become two of New York's most powerful social figures, throwing some of the decade's most extravagant and well-known parties. 

She was noted for her exceptional taste and designer clothes, favoring Balenciaga, Valentino, and Givenchy, and was inducted into the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1958, in addition to her beautiful lifestyle. 

"Dill and I have always told each other everything. He was my lover for two years when I was just out of college and working at Harper's Bazaar. The only thing he ever specifically asked me never to repeat was this business about the governor's wife (believed to be Mary Rockefeller); I'm a bitch to tell it, and maybe I wouldn't if it wasn't for all these blissful bubbles risin' in my noggin—" She lifted her champagne and peered at me through its sunny effervescence. "Gentlemen, the question is: why would an educated, dynamic, very rich and well-hung Jew go bonkers for a cretinous Protestant size forty who wears low-heeled shoes and lavender water? Especially when he's married to Cleo Dillon, to my mind the most beautiful creature alive, always excepting the Garbo of even ten years ago (incidentally, I saw her last night at the Gunthers', and I must say the whole setup has taken on a very weathered look, dry and drafty, like an abandoned temple, something lost in the jungles at Angkor Wat; but that's what happens when you spend most of a life loving only yourself, and that not very much). 

(...) He jumped up and snapped on the light. His whole paraphernalia had felt sticky and strange. As though it were covered with blood. As it was. So was the bed. The sheets bloodied with stains the size of Brazil. The governor's wife had just picked up her purse, had just opened the door, and Dill said: 'What the hell is this? Why did you do it?' Then he knew why, not because she told him, but because of the glance he caught as she closed the door: like Carino, the cruel maître d' at the old Elmer's—leading some bluesuit brown-shoes hunker to a table in Siberia. She had mocked him, punished him for his Jewish presumption.

(...) He soaked [the sheets] in the tub in scalding water. Scrubbed and scrubbed. Rinsed and scrubadubdubbed. There he was, the powerful Mr. Dillon, down on his knees and flogging away like a Spanish peasant at the side of a stream."

- Lady Ina Coolbirth (based on Slim Keith) on Cleo and Sydney Dillon, Answered Prayers

Slim Keith

Slim Keith

Nancy Gross, better known as Slim Keith, was born on July 15, 1917, in Salinas, California. She was the original 'California Girl,' a model who appeared on the cover of Harper's Bazaar at the age of 22. Her first marriage was to director Howard Hawks, for whose smash To Have and Have Not she found the leading actress, seeing Lauren Bacall on the cover of a magazine and suggesting her new husband he should put her opposite Humphrey Bogart. Her next husband, Broadway producer Leyland Hayward, whose credits included South Pacific and Gypsy, was widely regarded as the love of her life. Her final marriage was to Sir Kenneth Keith, a British aristocracy, through whom she became Lady Keith. In 1972, after ten years of marriage, the couple divorced.

She was a big society person on both coasts, being in a romantic affair with Clark Gable and attending William Randolph Hearst's birthday party and Rex Harrison and Kay Kendall's wedding.

Her sociability, in addition to her elegance, made her an enticing companion for Truman Capote. When she found he had modeled an unflattering character, Lady Coolbirth, on her in his unpublished book in the 1980s, she blocked him out of her life.

"As for the lady who also knew the distinction, she was indeed a lady—Lady Ina Coolbirth, an American married to a British chemicals tycoon and a lot of woman in every way. Tall, taller than most men, Ina was a big breezy peppy broad, born and raised on a ranch in Montana."

- Answered Prayers

C.Z. Guest

C.Z. Guest, wearing tweed Mainbocher, photographed by Irving Penn in 1952

Lucy Douglas "C. Z." Guest (born Cochrane) was an American actress, author, columnist, horsewoman, fashion designer, and socialite. She wore gorgeous designs by well-known designers such as Mainbocher on a regular basis. Her uncomplicated manner was regarded as characteristically American. She became one of the most photographed and covered society figures for more than half a century after marrying Winston Frederick Churchill Guest (second cousin to Winston Churchill), an heir to the Phipps fortune in 1947, and served as a muse to artists such as Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali. Her husband's name was closely associated with Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Cecil Beaton, Diana Vreeland, and Ernest Hemingway.

Unlike the Duchess of Windsor, who preferred to blend simply lined dresses with overstated jewels, C. Z. Guest had a more straightforward taste and lived her entire life in the same classic all-American, at times sporty style.

Gloria Guinness

Gloria Guinness in 1961 in her suite in the Waldorf Towers, New York,
wearing a black wool Givenchy jacket and Balenciaga hat

Gloria Rubio y Alatorre was born on August 27, 1912, in Guadalajara, Mexico. Jose, her father, was a well-known journalist, and Maria Luisa, her mother, was an aristocratic dona descended from Christopher Columbus himself. When Gloria was 20 years old, she met and married the Dutch sugar factory superintendent Jacob Scholtens, who was almost 3 decades her senior. Two years later, the pair divorced, and Gloria first tied the knot with Franz-Egon, the Count von Furstenberg, and then in 1951, with banking magnate Thomas “Loel” Guinness.

Gloria's face became an emblem of American power and elegance in the 1950s. She had a long, slender neck, high cheekbones, and sharp, angular features that accentuated her large, brown eyes. Where many were clamoring over blonde bombshells like Marilyn Monroe, Gloria represented a beauty standard for the “old money” set.

"Aces grimaced; he looked at me as if about to speak, but there was no need; I'd leafed through enough Vogue's and Paris Match's to know who Perla Apfeldorf was. The wife of a very racist South African platinum tycoon, she was as much a figure of the worldly milieu as Kate McCloud. She was Brazilian, and privately - though this was something I discovered later - her friends called her the Black Duchess, suggesting she was not of the pure Portuguese descent she claimed, but a child of Rio's favelos, born with quite a bit of the tarbrush which, if true, was rather a joke on the Hitlerian Herr Apfeldorf."

- Answered Prayers

Marella Agnelli

Rare archive photo of Marella Agnelli in her New York home

Marella Agnelli was the daughter of a Neapolitan aristocrat, Filippo Caracciolo, and an Illinois-born mother, Margaret Clarke, and was born in Florence. She married the dashingly gorgeous Gionvanni – or ‘Gianni' – the heir to the Fiat automobile dynasty who had a bit of a playboy image in 1953 and became an Agnelli. Agnelli's studies were heavily influenced by the arts. She received her education in Paris and worked as a photographer for Condé Nast, appearing in Vogue as a contributor and model. She collaborated with many of the finest visionaries of the day - with photographers, as their model and muse; for interior decorators, her home was their palette; and equally, architects regarded an Agnelli contract a career highlight.

The family had 10 homes in Turin, Rome, Milan, New York, St. Moritz, and Marrakech that needed to be decorated, ranging from regally antique villas to ultramodern apartments. The Agnelli collection featured works by Picasso, Renoir, Canaletto, Matisse, and Canova, among others.

She published a number of novels over her life. Her autobiography, The Last Swan, which she co-authored with her niece, was published in 2014. It is a great coffee table book that is the appropriate token to remember such a person.