Mercedes de Acosta
Mercedes de Acosta was a Cuban-Spanish writer, playwright, and poet, recognized for her significant contributions to the arts and her bold exploration of her identity. Born to a wealthy family in New York City, she was influenced by a rich cultural background that included connections to prominent Modernist figures such as Igor Stravinsky and Pablo Picasso. Acosta led an unconventional life, having thought of herself as a boy until age seven, which prompted lifelong reflections on gender and sexuality. She was a committed suffragette and engaged in various artistic and social movements, including the Women’s Rights Movement and Eastern spirituality.
Acosta wrote plays, poetry, and novels, though her literary success was mixed. Despite her early promise, she struggled to gain recognition and faced challenges in Hollywood, where her screenplays were largely unproduced. Her memoir, "Here Lies the Heart," published in 1960, gained attention for its candid accounts of her relationships with notable women, including Greta Garbo, yet it strained many of her personal connections. Although Acosta's literary achievements may not have fully realized her potential, her frankness about her life during a time of societal stigma around LGBTQ+ identities remains impactful. Today, she is celebrated as an inspirational figure in lesbian history and the arts.
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Subject Terms
Mercedes de Acosta
American writer
- Born: March 1, 1893
- Birthplace: New York, New York
- Died: May 9, 1968
- Place of death: New York, New York
Although Acosta’s fame predominantly rests on her intimate relationships with some of the most celebrated women in art, film, and theater, she had literary success in her own right by publishing her controversial autobiography, Here Lies the Heart (1960).
Early Life
Mercedes de Acosta (mur-SAY-deez dee ah-COS-tah) was the youngest of eight children born to a Cuban father and a Spanish mother. Acosta was proud of her heritage and emphasizes in her memoir that both sides of her family had Castilian lineage. Acosta’s father, Ricardo, was born in Cuba after his parents migrated from Spain to establish a coffee plantation in La Jagua. According to Acosta’s dramatic account, her father led an uprising against Spanish forces in Cuba, escaped a firing squad, and ended up in the United States, where he met and married Micaela Hernandez de Alba y de Alba, who had inherited a significant family fortune. This fortune allowed the Acostas to reside in New York City’s fashionable Park Avenue district.
Acosta’s sister, Rita Lydig, was a prominent socialite noted for her stunning beauty and innovative fashion sense. She had her portrait painted by several famous artists of the time, including John Singer Sargeant. It was Rita who introduced Acosta to the Modernist art circles in Paris that included Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Picasso, and Sarah Bernhardt.
During World War I, Acosta was active in the Censorship Bureau and the Red Cross. She was a committed suffragette and fought for women’s right to vote. She admired Isadora Duncan’s attempt to liberate women from restricting corsets and other constricting styles of clothing. Until the age of seven, Acosta thought she was a boy and referred to herself as “Raphael.” This sexual ambiguity would be a source of continued reflection and expression throughout her life. Acosta married Army captain and artist Abram Poole in 1920 but insisted on keeping her maiden name to retain her independence. While married, Acosta had passionate affairs with women, which she chronicled in her autobiography. She and Poole divorced in 1935. Although Acosta was raised in a strict Spanish-Catholic tradition, she developed an interest in Eastern spirituality that lasted the rest of her life. Her exploration included adopting vegetarianism and traveling to India to meet Ramana Maharshi, a revered Hindu sage to whom her autobiography is dedicated.
Life’s Work
Early in her career, Acosta fell in love with the theater and tried her hand as a playwright. She wrote and produced two plays as vehicles for her then-lover, Eva Le Gallienne. Sandro Bottocelli (1923) premiered in New York and Jehanne d’Arc (1925) premiered in Paris, because Acosta wanted the play to open in her heroine’s own country. Jacob Slovak, a play about anti-Semitism, opened in 1927 to generally favorable reviews. Acosta also published three collections of poetry—Moods: Prose Poems (1920), Archways of Life (1921), and Streets and Shadows (1922)—and two novels, Wind Chaff (1920) and Until the Day Break (1928). However, she was unable to achieve a successful career as a poet and novelist. Critical reception to these works was generally disappointing.
Acosta had a short-lived career in Hollywood in the early 1930’s under the legendary producer Irving Thalberg. An idea for her lover Greta Garbo to appear in a film wearing boy’s clothes was quickly nixed (although Garbo’s androgyny would be featured prominently in the 1933 film Queen Christina). While writing the screenplay for a film on the life of Rasputin, Acosta was asked by Thalberg to include a scene that had no basis in historical fact. She refused and was fired. None of the screenplays Acosta wrote during her time in Hollywood were produced.
After publishing her memoirs in 1960, Acosta sold her letters, photographs, and other ephemera to the Rosenbach Library and Museum in Philadelphia. Her letters from Garbo came with the stipulation that they not be made public until ten years after the death of the last surviving correspondent. The letters were released to the public in April, 2000, ten years after Garbo’s death, and disappointed observers who had hoped to find among them an explicit love letter from Garbo to Acosta. Because Acosta moved in the various artistic circles of Modernist thought in the United States and Europe, her correspondents made up a veritable who’s who of art, dance, film, literary, and theater worlds.
Nearly destitute at the end of her life, Acosta lived in a small two-room apartment in New York City and suffered from a variety of ailments. She felt snubbed by former lovers and friends who never forgave her for “outing” them in her autobiography. Acosta died in 1968 and is buried in Trinity Cemetery with her mother and sister.
Significance
Critics agree that Acosta never fulfilled her early promise as a writer. Her greatest literary success came with the publication of her memoir, Here Lies the Heart (1960), which received enthusiastic reviews although it cost her dearly in terms of her relationships. Acosta’s reputation today primarily rests on the sensationalism of the celebrity women she bedded, rather than her broader role in advancing the cause of women’s rights. Her forthrightness about her lifestyle during a time when the stigma of lesbianism was so pervasive is truly remarkable.
Her striking fashion sense (she favored capes, tricorn hats, and silver-buckled shoes) earned her the nickname “Black & White.” Acosta continues to inspire generations of artists and writers interested in lesbian history. In a fitting tribute to Acosta’s aspirations as a playwright and her cultural heritage, Odalys Nanín, founder of Mujeres Advancing Culture History and Art (MACHA), wrote and starred in Garbo’s Cuban Lover (2001), a play chronicling Acosta’s tempestuous relationship with the elusive Hollywood star. The Advocate magazine listed it among the ten best plays of 2001.
Bibliography
Acosta, Mercedes de. Here Lies the Heart. New York: William Morrow, 1960. Acosta’s famous and controversial memoir.
Cohen, Lisa. “Fame Fatale.” Out 8, no. 4 (October, 1999): 76. Lively account of Acosta’s life and loves from a homosexual perspective.
Schanke, Robert A. “That Furious Lesbian”: The Story of Mercedes de Acosta. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2003. Schanke’s scholarship calls into question some of the claims made by Acosta in her autobiography but nevertheless provides ample evidence that Acosta was much more than a mere seducer of famous women.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗, ed. Women in Turmoil: Six Plays by Mercedes de Acosta. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University, 2003. Published as a companion work to the biography, Schanke, a professor of theater, rescued these plays from oblivion (only two were produced). A strong autobiographical thread runs through this collection as the female characters grapple with unfulfilling marriages and thwarted desires.
Vickers, Hugo. Loving Garbo: The Story of Greta Garbo, Cecil Beaton, and Mercedes de Acosta. New York: Random House, 1994. Vickers, as Cecil Beaton’s official biographer and literary executor, relies on extant letters to situate this unlikely triumvirate of complicated and frustrating relationships.