Evelyn Nesbit. The true story of beauty, sex and murder.

Evelyn Nesbit was born Florence Evelyn Nesbit on December 25, Christmas Day, 1884 in a small village near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was shy as a child but strikingly beautiful.

Evelyn's father, Winfield Scott Nesbit, was struggling to find clients and make a decent living, in the small town, so moved his family to Pittsburgh in 1883. Shortly after the move Evelyn's father became ill and died leaving the family destitute and in substantial debt. For years Evelyn, her mother and younger brother lived in near-poverty. By the time Evelyn reached her early teens her startling beauty was being noticed by several of the towns local artists, including John Storm. Storm asked her to sit for him, as a model, and she soon was able to take care of the family as an artists model.

In 1901, when Evelyn was sixteen, she and her mother moved into a tiny room in New York City. Her mother had difficulty finding work in New York and after a time Evelyn persuaded her to let her start modeling again. Evelyn, using a letter of introduction from an artist from Pittsburgh, met and posed for a prominent New York artist named James Beckwith. The name Evelyn Nesbit spread quickly and soon she was posing for top named artists and photographers throughout New York.

Charles Gibson, one of the most popular artists in the country at the time, rendered a pen-and-ink profile of Evelyn titled "The Eternal Question" that remains one of Gibson's best known works and Evelyn entered the ranks of the famous turn-of-the-century, Gibson Girls. By the time fashion advertising in newspapers and magazines became popular Evelyn was earning 10 dollars a day and her family was living on easy street.

Evelyn was seductively beautiful with long, wavy red hair and a slender, shapely figure. This, combined with her modeling career, many doors opened for the young stunner and by 1901 she was a chorus girl on Broadway. While performing one evening Evelyn was introduced to acclaimed architect Stanford White, a notorious womanizer known as "Stanny" by his close friends and relatives, was 47 years of age. Evelyn was 16.

White invited young Evelyn to join him for a drink at his apartment on West Twenty-fourth Street, which he kept for just such occasions, and she accepted. The apartment was decorated with long, heavy red velvet curtains and expensive paintings. White poured her a glass of champagne and led her to a small upstairs room decorated with a red velvet swing in the center and mirrors on the walls and ceiling. After more champagne, White, a pervert and child molester, persuaded Evelyn to sit in the swing nude while he, also nude I assume, pushed her back and forth in the swing while he gratified himself.

The relationship between White and Evelyn Nesbit continued, unchanged, during which time, White, was able to endear himself to Evelyn's mother by making arrangements for her younger son to be admitted to the Chester Military Academy in Philadelphia. Evelyn's mother trusted White to the point that when she left town for several weeks she left Evelyn in his care.

Evelyn later stated in her book, Prodigal Days, that on the night that her mother left town White summoned her to his apartment where they had champagne and another escapade in the room with the red velvet swing. Later that night, after to much champagne, Evelyn, wearing a yellow kimono, passed out. She recounted that she awoke in bed, nearly naked with White lying beside her, and that she "entered that room a virgin," but did not come out as one.

After White had moved on to other unsuspecting young virgins Evelyn dated other men including John Barrymore of the famous acting family. Barrymore fell deeply in love with Evelyn and proposed several times but Evelyn, being still in love with White, declined.

Evelyn eventually met and married Harry Kendall Thaw, the son of a coal and railroad baron, at age twenty. Thaw was extremely possessive of Nesbit and became irate at any mention of her relationship with White, who he referred to as the beast. Thaw was a cocain addict and a sadist. He often severely whipped Evelyn and was known to pay young boys for the same. Evelyn may have been a beautiful, successful model but her taste in men needed serious work.

One night at the Madison Square Garden's Roof Theater Thaw and Evelyn ran into White in the attendance of a young woman. The sight of Stanford White was more than Thaw could endure. Later that evening, after seething for a while, Thaw walked up and shot White three times in the face, with a pistol, killing him instantly. He then screamed “you'll never go out with that woman again!”. Bystanders stated that he also said. “You ruined my life or wife”. An agreement could not be reached as to which word was actually used.

Thaw was tried for White's murder twice. In the first trial the jury was deadlocked. During the second trial, in which Thaw pleaded temporary insanity, Thaw's mother contacted Evelyn Nesbit and told her that if she would testify that White had raped her that she would pay her one million dollars and guarantee a quite divorce from her son. Evelyn agreed and testified in Thaw's behalf. Thaw was found temporarily insane for Whites murder and sent to a posh mental hospital in Beacon, New York where he came and went freely. Evelyn Nesbit never saw a dime of the bribe money offered by Thaw's mother.

Evelyn Nesbit continued her career as an actress and model but her life was marred with attempts of suicide. She did marry again but the marriage only lasted for a short time. She wrote two books, or memoirs, about her life. The Story Of My Life (1914), and Prodigal Days (1934). She also helped in the making of her movie, The Girl In The Red Velvet Swing in 1955. She died in Santa Monica, California in 1967 at the age of 82.

Post Script. Thaw's mother, being a very wealthy woman and willing to do what ever it took to save her perverted son, probably, in my opinion, also bribed the jury in the first trial which resulted in a deadlocked jury. How else can you explain a murder in which a man is shot three times in the face in front of witnesses end in a hung jury.