Kyle Thomas Hemingway: The ephemera edit

“In the way he dressed, fancy-dress parties and leopard-skin togas aside, Rex was markedly and increasingly conservative in comparison to his dandyish friends. Stephen might sprinkle his hair with gold dust, rouge his cheeks, smear Vaseline on his eyelids, paint his lips, don earrings and mist himself with scents from Worth and Molyneux, but for the most part (despite his brief flirtation with plus fours) Rex dressed ‘unostentatiously’ in corduroy trousers or well-cut suits.”

“The gleaming low white villa was set into the rocks behind it, as though it belonged there, and guests who glanced out of the windows or stepped onto the private balcony of their bedroom would get the impression that it was almost hanging over the blue sea. The swimming pool, considered the best on the Riviera, was housed in a basin blasted out of the rocks and featured a water-chute so that bathers could slide down into the sea below and swim to a raft tethered just offshore. The huge terrace between the house and the pool was the center for most of the entertainment, and at each end a curved stone staircase descended to the pool.”

“It would be a dull world if we all thought alike.”

“This is a characteristic image from the Bright Young People’s world: the thought of sorrowing in sunlight, good times gone, the myriad champagne corks bobbing away on a stream turned unexpectedly chill.”

“I figured the only way to make people love me was to be a million laughs.”

“The evening of Wednesday, November 28, 1973, as guests began arriving at Versailles, the palace glowed under a full moon and through a scrim of light snow—the first dusting of the season. Red uniformed, saber-wielding gendarmes flanked the gilded palace gates, along with some four hundred footmen in eighteenth-century white powdered wigs and livery. Marie-Hélène de Rothschild, dressed in green, ostrich-trimmed gown by Yves Saint Laurent and with solitary diamonds pinned in her thick hair greeted guests; brushing kisses on the cheeks of the French and offering handshakes to the Americans.”

“Well, some men, I think, do want to look pretty. And nicer still, beautiful!”

“The men in the bar—there were no women—came from all walks of life and included tradesmen, merchants, and professionals. What drew them to Seeger’s Restaurant was the opportunity to meet men who preferred men, for love or sociability, and to do so in a safe environment.”