Cherie Burns - Searching for Beauty

Millicent as she was photographed in 1947 at Falcons Lair, Rudolph Valentinos former villa in Benedict Canyon overlooking Beverly Hills, which she rented during her pursuit of Clark Gable in Hollywood. (Archives of the Millicent Rogers Museum, Taos, New Mexico)

To Taosreal, remembered, and imagined

Contents

Acknowledgments

Millicents story began to take shape for me after my friends Jack Smith and Paul Pascarella introduced me to Millicents son, Arturo Peralta-Ramos, who invited me to lunch. He then spent a number of hours with me in a series of interviews that formed the starting point for my research. While Arturo later chose to support an authorized biography, which did not materialize, I am grateful to him for the time he gave me, and for his fierce interest in his mothers story.

I am also indebted to other members of Millicents family: Arturo Peralta-Ramos III, Philip Peralta-Ramos, Wiltraud Salm, Antonia Salm, and especially to Christina Lucia Peralta-Ramos for her conscientious help. Fellow authors Annette Tapert, Shelby Tisdale, and Adam Lewis, generously shared information with me. Donald Sturrock navigated time differences between New Mexico and England to provide details about Millicent and Roald Dahl from research for his recent biography of Dahl.

Millicent made headlines during her life from Massachusetts to California, and this book could not have happened without the expertise of research librarians and archivists across the country who helped me follow her trail: Shawn Waldron at Cond Nast, John Cantrell at Hearst, Debra Charpentier at the Millicent Library in Fairhaven, Massachusetts; Mary Cummings at the Southampton Historical Society, the Southampton Public Library, Angie Parks at the Brooklyn Museum, and the incredible Carolyn Waters at the New York Society Library. Also Barbara Hall at the Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills, Ned Comstock and Dace Taube at the Doheny Memorial Library at the University of Southern California, Christina Rice at the Los Angeles Public Library, Katherine Feo at the Harry Ransom Collection at the University of Texas, and Tomas Jaehn at the Fray Angelico Chavez History Library in Santa Fe. Helpful as well were the New-York Historical Society, Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park in Oyster Bay, New York; the Southampton Public Library, the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., the District of Columbia Public Library, the New Mexico State Records and Archives, and the Center for Southwest Research at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Closer to home, Fred Peralta, Carmela Quinto, and the staff of the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos were always supportive. Jina Brenneman at the Harwood Museum of Art lent her enthusiasm and resources to the project.

I am grateful to the Millicent Rogers Museum for granting me access to and permission to quote from Millicents letters and diary and other materials held in their archives. I am also grateful to Wiltraud and Antonia Salm for permission to quote from My Dear PetersConfessions of a Father, and to the following libraries and institutions for access to and permission to quote from material in their collections: the Center for Southwest Research, University Libraries, University of New Mexico; the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin; the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, UK; and the Planting Fields Foundation, Oyster Bay, New York.

There is a long list of people in New Mexico who helped me put together those many aspects of Millicents life that were never recorded on paper or film. Judy Anderson, Benton Bond, Barbara Brenner, Paul Paco Castillo, Paulle Clark, Phoebe Cottam, Elizabeth Cunningham, Barbara Duff, Clark Funk, Jean-Vi Lenthe, Tom and Barbara McCarthy, Ouray Meyers, Dollie Mondragon, Dalton Montgomery, Robert Parsons, Joan Pond, Jackie Peralta-Ramos, Steve Petit, Rena Rosequist, Sylvia Rodriguez, Deborah Sherman, Francy Speirs, Bob Tenorio, Olga Torres-Reid, Norbert Vigil, Bill Westbury, Mary Wheeler, Art Wolfe, and Barbara Waters were the Taos locals, some of whom have moved on by now, who directed me to other people and places that would help tell her story. Patricia Ripley, Susan Streeper, and Dori Vinella were often my confessors and guides. Larry Torres, who shared the videotape of his interview with the late Paul Peralta-Ramos, provided me a glimpse of Millicents son I had come to Taos too late to meet.

Dr. Robert Knudson patiently walked me through the stages of rheumatic fever and treatment during the past century to help me understand the medical menace that stalked Millicents life.

I will gratefully and long remember sitting by Miranda Masocco Levys bedside in Santa Fe while she good-naturedly recalled the Millicent she had known seventy years earlier. The late Martha Reed also cheerily shared her wealth of Western fashion experience with me as she moved in and out of hospitals. She lit up like a young girl each time she opened her closet to show me the Western skirts and dresses we discussed.

Susan Dicus Chittim, who sat at Millicents knee when she first came to Taos and lived in the house now owned by Kathy and Michael Fitzgerald, made that house come alive for me in a different time and era, with Millicent ensconced and smuggling puppies into the front room.

Pat Allen and Rebecca Rodriguez patiently scanned and copied photos and pages for a jittery author with a deadline.

My friend and fellow writer Bonnie Lee Black generously read the manuscript early on and contributed her valuable observations and copyediting.

Lloyd Bolander, Skip Keith Miller, and Bill Westbury helped me chase the phantom of Millicents reported visit to Tres Ritos, which we could never corroborate or document beyond a photo.

Ernesto Luhan, Kathleen Cornbringer Michaels, Dawn Mirabal, Tony Reyna, Mary Esther Winters, Juanita Marcus Turley, and Santiago Suazo helped me understand Millicents involvement with Taos Pueblo and its people.

Elizabeth Irvine, Judith Price, Edward Landrigan, Kenneth Jay Lane, and Federico Jimenez guided me to some understanding of the the world of jewelry making. Hamish Bowles, Harold Koda, Jan Reeder, Arnold Scaasi, Babs Simpson, and John Galliano generously shared with me their fashion insights and thoughts on Millicent.

I want to especially thank Louise Grunwald, Leonard Stanley, Daphne Root, Jody Donohue, and Lotsie Holt, who opened their social diaries and address books in order to help. Others tolerantly let me exhume old ghosts of bygone lovers, ex-spouses, gossip, and family matters. Robin Adrian, Louise Balcom, Oatsie Charles, Michael Coe, Paul Gregory, Maria Janis, Rita Kip, Charles Mallory, Bunny Mellon, Payne Middleton, Patricia Munn, the Countesses Jacqueline de Ribes and Sheila de Rochambeau, Warren Sinsheimer, Odette Terrel des Chnes, Thomas R. Vreeland, Hutton Wilkinson, Vanessa Wilcox, Betsy Wright, and Kohle Yohannan contributed their time and recollections.

A personal thanks to David Michaelis for his help and sound advice. I am truly indebted to my agent, Cynthia Cannell, for making this book happen, beginning to end, and to Toby Greenberg, who steered me through the daunting process of choosing a few select images of a woman who was photographed her entire life. And to my editor, Michael Flamini, of St. Martins Press for his unwavering enthusiasm and big vision, his assistant, Vicki Lame, for helping carry it through, and to my husband, Dick Duncan, for his love, support and expert meddling.