Synchronicity: The Look, Book And Son
March 2021
Again, a synchronicity moment. In the same week I was shooting a Libby Holman look for my 1930s collection and had dug out my book “Libby” for reference, I came across a news item in one of my vintage magazines on the death of her son, which was interesting and sad to me because I’d forgotten she’d had a child.
The Look
In her heyday in the late 1920s to early ‘30s when she was the talk of Broadway with two hit shows, Libby Holman was known for wearing pants in public and smoking with a quellazaire, otherwise known as a cigarette holder of the long-stem variety. So I knew I could create that look by adding some fringe to a great pair of silk pants in my collection paired with a blouse and jacket of the same vintage. And I would borrow the quellazaire from my husband’s tobacconalia collection, with his permission, of course. Libby was also known for wearing clingy, low-cut golden gowns. That’s a look I may work on later, because I don’t think I have anything like that in my collection, right now.
The Book
I didn’t realize she was a fashion icon until I read the book about her. She was quite a gal, known as much for her escapades off stage as on, according to the book. I’d never heard about her until I picked up the paperback a few years ago which was actually about her life and what led up to the mysterious death of her husband, Zachary Smith Reynolds, a tobacco fortune heir. He died on July 6, 1932, after they’d been married for less than a year. She was actually tried and acquitted for his death, but the scandal followed her for the rest of her life.
The Son
The news brief about her son appeared in the Aug/Sept 1990 issue of the magazine, “Memories.” In the “look back” section to 50 years before, which would have been Aug. 15, 1950, it noted the following: “Search party on Mount Whitney finds body of Christopher Reynolds, 17, son of singer Libby Holman and tobacco heir Zachary Reynolds.”
The Wrap
Learning this, for some reason, made me so sad, for her. Here was this extraordinarily talented woman who rose from early poverty to great fame and fortune yet her life was troubled and tragic, her husband’s death, then her son’s. She was, I’ve learned, a legend in her time, known for among other things, her hit songs, “Moanin’ Low” and “Body and Soul.” That was so interesting to me because she was alive during my lifetime, yet I’d not heard of her, nor that she was the first to record “Body and Soul.” She died in 1971, taking her own life at the age of 67. Looking back to 1932, the year her husband died, the then 28-year-old Libby Holman was the biggest star on Broadway, a national sex symbol earning more than $2,500 a week. She’s remembered as the “sexy, torch singer” with a voice critics described as sounding like a “dark, purple flame.”
References: “Libby” by Milt Machlin; “Memories” 1990 Aug/Sept issue; and imbd.com.
Libby Holman
A captivating book written about a captivating woman, Libby Holman. It’s proven to be a great reference book, as you can see by the dog-eared edges, for the lifestyle, fashion and speech of the 1920s-30s.
Unbelievably, I found Libby’s original recording included on this “Follies” album picked up at a local thrift shop.
Here’s Libby Holman singing “Moanin’ Low.” I love her scatting’ on this.
“Libby” book excerpt: “The Legend”
“In 1932, when the world was stumbling through the greatest economic depression in modern times, Libby Holman was at the height of a fantastic career. … The sultry, black-haired torch singer was the biggest star on Broadway. … Only three years earlier, Libby Holman, then 25, had received an ovation when she stopped the show with her rendition of “Moanin’ Low,” in “The Little Show,” a Broadway revue in which she co-starred with Clifton Webb and Fred Allen. Critics raved over her voice. Brooks Atkinson described it as a ‘dark purple flame.’ ”
