Mercedes de Acosta
| Mercedes de Acosta | |
|---|---|
Arnold Genthe (1869-1942)/LOC agc.7a08459. Mercedes Hede de Acosta, 1919 or 1920
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| Born |
March 1, 1893 New York City |
| Died | May 9, 1968 (aged 75) New York City |
| Occupation | Poet, novelist, playwright |
| Nationality | American |
Mercedes de Acosta (March 1, 1893 – May 9, 1968) was an American poet, playwright, and novelist. Four of de Acosta's plays were produced, and she published a novel and three volumes of poetry. She was professionally unsuccessful but is known for her many lesbian affairs with famous Broadway and Hollywood personalities and numerous friendships with prominent artists of the period.
She was born in New York City in 1893. Her father, Ricardo de Acosta, was of Cuban and Spanish descent and her mother, Micaela Hernández de Alba y de Alba, was Spanish and reportedly a descendant of the Spanish Dukes of Alba. De Acosta had five siblings: Aida, Ricardo Jr., Angela, Maria, and Rita. Maria married socially prominent A. Robeson Sargent, the Harvard-educated landscape architect and son of Charles Sprague Sargent. Rita became a famous beauty best known as Rita Lydig. She was photographed by Adolf de Meyer, Edward Steichen, and Gertrude Käsebier, sculpted in alabaster by Malvina Hoffman, and painted by Giovanni Boldini and John Singer Sargent among others. Under the name Mrs Philip Lydig, Rita wrote a novel, Tragic Mansions (Boni & Liveright, 1927), a society melodrama described as "emotionally moving and appealing" by The New York Times. De Acosta attended elementary school at the Covenant of the Blessed Sacrement on West 79th Street in Manhattan where Dorothy Parker was a classmate.
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