Evelyn Florence Nesbit
| Evelyn Nesbit | |
|---|---|
Käsebier, Gertrude (1903), Portrait (Miss N) (photograph)
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| Born |
Florence Evelyn Nesbit December 25, 1884 Tarentum, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | January 14, 1967 (aged 82) Santa Monica, California, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Other names |
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| Occupation | Model, chorus girl, actress |
| Spouse(s) |
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| Children | Russell William Thaw |
Florence Evelyn Nesbit (December 25, 1884 – January 17, 1967), known professionally as Evelyn Nesbit, was a popular American chorus girl, an artists' model, and an actress.
In the early part of the 20th century, the figure and face of Evelyn Nesbit were everywhere, appearing in mass circulation newspaper and magazine advertisements, on souvenir items and calendars, making her a cultural celebrity. Her career began in her early teens in Philadelphia and continued in New York, where she posed for a cadre of respected artists of the era, James Carroll Beckwith, Frederick S. Church, and notably Charles Dana Gibson, who idealized her as a "Gibson Girl". She had the distinction of being an early "live model", in an era when fashion photography as an advertising medium was just beginning its ascendancy.
Nesbit claimed that as a stage performer, and while still a 14-year-old, she attracted the attention of the then 47-year-old architect and New York socialite Stanford White, who first gained the family's trust then sexually assaulted Evelyn while she was unconscious. Nesbit achieved world-wide notoriety when her husband, multi-millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw, shot and murdered Stanford White on the rooftop theatre of Madison Square Garden on the evening of June 25, 1906, leading to what the press would call "The Trial of the Century".
Nesbit was born Florence Evelyn Nesbit on December 25, 1884, in Tarentum, a small town near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her actual year of birth remains unconfirmed; her real year of birth may have been 1886. In later years, Nesbit confirmed that her mother at times added several years to her age in order to circumvent child labor laws. She was the daughter of Winfield Scott Nesbit and his wife, née Evelyn Florence McKenzie and was of Scots-Irish ancestry. Legend has it that the newborn girl was so beautiful that neighbors came for months after her birth to gaze at and admire her. Two years later, a son named Howard was born to the family.
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