Theodora Keogh, Daily Telegraph
marilyn...@aol.com
Theodora Keogh
Last Updated: 2:28am GMT 29/01/2008
Theodora Keogh, who has died aged 88, was the author of nine novels,
all of them dark in tone and many of them peopled with sinister
figures.
The remarkable early novels treated young girls facing sexual conflict
in New York and Paris, and critics could not decide whether Theodora
Keogh possessed extraordinary understanding of these matters or was
merely aiming to shock.
The composer and diarist Ned Rorem described her as "our best American
writer, certainly our best female writer", and judged that the Keoghs
"represented all that was good about America to everyone in Paris".
She was born Theodora Roosevelt on June 30 1919 in New York, the elder
of three daughters of Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt, the third son of
President Theodore Roosevelt. (In later life Theodora was to play down
the Roosevelt connection, forbidding any mention of it to be made in
her books.)
Her father served in the US Army and received the Silver Star in the
Second World War. In civilian life he was chairman of Roosevelt &
Cross, a Wall Street investment firm. Her mother was Grace Lockwood,
from Boston.
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Theodora was brought up on the East River, and in the country at Cold
Spring Harbor, near Oyster Bay. Her father instilled into her a love
of the outdoors with picnics and camping on the sand islands. She was
educated at Chapin School in Manhattan, and was finished at Countess
Montgelas's in Munich. (The countess, an admirer of Hitler, was to die
during the war when her cigarette set fire to her chalet.)
As a young girl Theodora wore boyish clothes, carried a knife and
persuaded schoolfriends to swim nude with her. She was briefly a
debutante before trying life as a dancer, in Canada and then South
America. She joined a ballet company with Alexander Iolas but hated
it, so signed up with a musical revue at the Copacabana at Rio, again
with Iolas.
Together they staged a satire on the married life of Greeks, but the
heavy Salvador Dalí costumes proved restricting. Sometimes they
performed in the street. This being wartime, a Roosevelt dancing in
South America was not considered in the best national interest, and
she and Iolas returned home in February 1943.
Theodora gave up dancing in 1945 when she married the handsome artist
Tom Keogh, two years her junior. He was in New York working for the
costumier Madame Karinska, and was judged by his friend the costume
designer Willa Kim as "one of the most gifted, natural artists" -
though in her view he did not make the sacrifices necessary to fulfil
his true potential.
Keogh and his new wife moved to Paris, where he designed for the
theatre and ballet and worked as an illustrator for Vogue from 1947 to
1951. Keogh designed costumes for films such as The Pirate (1948),
with Judy Garland, and Daddy Long Legs (1955), with Leslie Caron.
Every Christmas he decorated the façade of the Galeries Lafayette in
Paris.
Succumbing to the allure of Parisian high society, Tom Keogh had an
affair with Marie-Laure de Noailles, prompting Theodora to embark on
one with her chauffeur. As the Baron de Redé put it: "This made their
evening travel arrangements rather complicated."
In 1952 Theodora invited the Korean writer Peter Hyun to a
Thanksgiving dinner to meet Willa Kim; but this attempt at matchmaking
failed when, at the same party, Willa Kim met (and later married)
William Pene du Bois, art editor of the Paris Review. Theodora began a
two-year affair with Hyun. The Keoghs finally divorced, but remained
friends until Tom's death in 1980. "My estranged but still beloved
Tom," she called him.
Theodora gravitated to the Café de Tournon in the rue du Tournon on
the Rive Gauche. The café was the meeting place for the Paris Review
set, including Pené du Bois and the writers George Plimpton and Peter
Matthiessen; Alexander Trocchi and Christopher Logue (founders of the
literary journal Merlin); and the Alabama writer Eugene Walter.
The author Richard Wright played pinball while others played chess.
There was much talk of politics; occasional hints of spies lurking;
and everyone observed who arrived and left with whom. Theodora left
with Hyun. Occasionally her Roosevelt world encroached as she was
whisked away to lunch with Carmel Snow, editor of Harper's Bazaar,
sent by her mother.
Theodora Keogh published her first novel, Meg, in 1950. Partly
autobiographical (the heroine came from an Upper East Side family), it
tackled dark areas - the heroine was raped, and passed her history
exam by threatening to expose her teacher as a lesbian.
John Betjeman described it as a "brutally frightening picture of what
may happen to a little girl in New York", and Nigel Nicolson wrote: "A
great many people will be outraged by this book, but I place it first
on my list because of its remarkable originality, good sense and utter
lack of sentimentality."
In the Saturday Review, Patricia Highsmith gave an unknown woman a
rare favourable review: "She writes with a skill and command of her
material that should set her promptly into the ranks of the finer
young writers of today."
The Double Door (1952) was inspired by the Marquis de Cuevas, who ran
his own ballet on his wife's Rockefeller money and had two adjoining
houses in New York, in one of which they entertained grandly. But an
internal door led into the neighbouring house, where unspeakable
things took place.
This novel had elements of revenge in that Tom Keogh had an affair
with Nathalie Philippart, the ballerina married to Jean Babilée, both
of whom were briefly signed by the Cuevas Ballet. In the book the
Cuevas figure was able to perform his marital duties only when stirred
by the memory of a dark, swarthy Indian boy walking in the Place
Vendôme.
"Quite something," noted John Gielgud of some of the book's contents.
"Not a book for nursery consumption," added Peter Quennell. "Literary
censors would not fail to award it an 'X' certificate." Also in 1952,
Theodora Keogh published Street Music, in which a street musician
falls in love with a child criminal.
Theodora Keogh wrote six further novels. Among them, The Fascinator
(1954) had a young girl being lured to bed by a diseased sculptor;
Gemini (1961) tackled incest between twins; and The Other Girl (1962)
fictionalised the murder in 1947 of Elizabeth Short (the Black
Dahlia).
In England the novels were published by the entrepreneurial Peter
Davies and later by Neville Spearman. They were translated into five
languages, and in the United States became mass-market paperbacks,
their covers deceptively adorned with embracing nudes and tabloid
captions: "Her haunting beauty drew men to her - her twisted desires
consumed them."
Theodora Keogh never read her reviews and abandoned writing after
1962. But, to her great surprise, in the last five years of her life
she was tracked down by a disparate group of new readers from various
lands, some bearing offers of republication.
After Paris Theodora Keogh lived in Rome and then in New York. Willa
Kim sent her to see the Garbo film Anna Christie, an experience which
persuaded her to buy a tugboat which she sailed in the Atlantic; it
also led to her finding her second husband, Thomas (Tommy) O'Toole, a
tugboat captain. After he left her she lived at the Chelsea Hotel,
where she kept a margay (a South American tiger-cat) for company. One
night, after she had drunk too much and fallen asleep, it chewed off
one of her ears.
In the 1970s Theodora Keogh moved to North Carolina, where she became
a friend of the wife of Arthur A Rauchfuss, owner of a chemical plant
in Caldwell County. In 1979, after the Rauchfusses divorced, she
married Arthur, who died 10 years later.
Theodora Keogh, who died in North Carolina on January 5, spent her
final years in a house set in 19 acres. She loved cats, but gave up
keeping chickens as they were eaten by coyotes.
Hyfler/Rosner
<marilyn...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:bcfac2a2-46ca-4700...@d4g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
Has anyone read her books?
Theodora Keogh
Last Updated: 2:28am GMT 29/01/2008
Theodora Keogh, who has died aged 88, was the author of nine
novels,
all of them dark in tone and many of them peopled with
sinister
figures.
The remarkable early novels treated young girls facing
sexual conflict
in New York and Paris, and critics could not decide whether
Theodora
Keogh possessed extraordinary understanding of these matters
or was
merely aiming to shock.
All her books are in my library. I can't WAIT to go. I'll
keep you posted. (I have a feeling that I'll just look at
them there. How good could they be?)
marilyn...@aol.com
BTW, an obit La N posted for Theodora Ranchfuss from the Charlotte
Observer is obviously for the same person.
La N
<marilyn...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:fddb9043-cf30-4b89...@s19g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
> They sound fabulous to me!
> BTW, an obit La N posted for Theodora Ranchfuss from the Charlotte
> Observer is obviously for the same person.
And I posted it despite the fact that Theodora absolutely wished no obituary
be written for her ..;p
- nil