The Curse of Beauty: The Scandalous & Tragic Life of Audrey Munson, America's First Supermodel

by James Bone

The tumultuous and heartbreaking life of a world-famous model whose riveting story of beauty, fame, passion, murder, and madness in the Gilded Age captivated a nation.As America was stepping into the modern era, one great beauty became the artist’s model of choice. Her perfect form became the emblem of the Gilded Age and appears on the greatest monuments of New York and the nation. Supermodel, actress, icon—her beauty paved the way for a life of glamour, passion, and ultimately tragedy. She dated the millionaires of the fashionable Newport colony, became the first American movie star ever to appear naked in a film, but her promising film career collapsed, her doctor fell in love with her and killed his own wife, and on her fortieth birthday, her mother committed her to an insane asylum. She remained there until her death in 1996 at the age of 104 and is now buried in an unmarked grave. Her name is Audrey Munson. Many readers will recognize Audrey Munson, and have walked by her in the street, without even knowing her name. She stands atop New York’s Municipal Building. She sits as “Miss Manhattan” and “Miss Brooklyn” outside the Brooklyn Museum, is immortalized on the Manhattan Bridge, the Frick Mansion, the New York Public Library, and the Pulitzer Fountain outside the Plaza Hotel. In gold, bronze, and stone, she still graces bridges, skyscrapers, fountains, churches, monuments, and public buildings across the nation, from Jacksonville to San Francisco, from Atlanta to the Wisconsin state capitol. From James Bone, the former New York Bureau Chief of The Times of London, this brilliantly reported investigative biography reveals, for the first time, the riveting truth of the forgotten life of an iconic beauty. 

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, History, Audiobook, Memoir, True Crime, Biography Memoir

336 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 12, 2016

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Reviews

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

100 years ago Audrey Munson was one of the most famous people in America. She epitomized glamour and beauty. Audrey Munson was the first supermodel ( Sorry Janice Dickinson, Audrey beat you by about 70 years). She was a muse to the days biggest artists, she posed nude without shame, she was the first American movie star to appear nude in a motion picture, she dated millionaires, and she was a feminist before that term was coined.

As I was reading this book I tried to think of who her modern counterpart might be and the only person I could think of was Kim Kardashian. Like Kim, Audrey was a beauty icon to some and proof of the downfall of American society to others. America had such a crazy level of Audrey-fever that Audrey was blamed for driving a man to murder his wife, despite barely knowing him.

As the sub title states Audrey's life was both scandalous and very tragic. Audrey spent the last 64 years of her life in mental institution. She appears to have suffered from Schizophrenia and became such a danger to herself that her mother had her committed on her 40 birthday but she had been sick for many years before that.

Despite being long forgotten as a person if you live in New York City or have ever visited, you've seen the sculptures and monuments that bare her likeness. She helped pioneer new fashions for woman such as the now hated Bra. She spoke out about a woman's right to control her own body.

For Audrey Munson her beauty was a curse. The world only saw her as a sex symbol and turned on her once she could no longer make them money. Her grave doesn't even have a headstone.

Audrey Munson led a life an extraordinary and sad life. Curse of Beauty is stranger than fiction.

[Brianna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoy reading biographies that imbue their subjects with a certain interiority/complexity. I'm assuming that doing so is challenging when the person in question is long-dead, but there are authors who still manage to paint compelling multi-dimensional portraits of their subjects. Nancy Milford's biographies, particularly Savage Beauty, her book about Edna St. Vincent Millay comes to mind.

The issue I had with this book was that I walked away from it without feeling that I had any idea about who Munson was as a person. This might not be so much the author's fault but a result of a lack of extant letters/information and the fact that Munson spent something like 65 years of her life completely isolated in an insane asylum. This was a really interesting look into the gilded age in NYC and the rise of the film industry, but it's attempt to piece together Munson's life fell a little (okay a lot) short for me.

Also not to be petty but I kind of took issue with the title. Not only is it a bit hyperbolic and misleading but it's a bit irksome considering the author sort of implicitly collapses Munson's mental illness with her looks instead of offering a more nuanced conversation about how her struggle with mental illness, her poverty, and the ease with which people (especially the poor and women) were committed into asylums resulted in her 60+ years in a mental ward . The beautiful, emotionally unstable woman is an easy sell, sure, but the author could have drawn less of a straight line between her sad life and her beauty.

[DK Sturdivant · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book chronicles, in somewhat excruciating detail, the life and career of America's first super model. While interesting, I found the many tangents overshadowed the biography.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

AN INTERESTING TALE OF TIME AND PLACE.

“The press dubbed her “the Most Perfectly Formed Woman in the World.” (Kindle Locations 918-919).

Despite the sensationalized title, despite the writer’s tendency to, too often, offer up a litany of names and credits; there is quite an interesting tale of time, of place, and of the people of the Gilded Age—The Great Gatsby came to mind more than once—to be found in James Bone’s The Curse of Beauty: The Scandalous Tragic Life of Audrey Munson, America’s First Supermodel.

Audrey Munson (1891-1996), former chorine, artist/sculptor’s model, became known as America’s first supermodel, having posed for tens of statues still extant around the city of New York to this day. An early star of silent films, “She became America’s first naked movie star,” (Kindle Location 1668), and “Audrey was the first movie star ever to fly to a movie set—and her pilot was Allan Lockheed.” (Kindle Locations 1837-1838).

Recommendation: Readily recommended for anyone interested in the comings and goings of high society, and/or bohemian society, in the Gilded Age.

“In America, nativism was on the march. In 1915 a Jewish factory owner in Texas, Leo Frank, who had been jailed for the murder of thirteen-year-old employee Mary Phagan, was seized from prison and lynched by a mob. That same year, the Ku Klux Klan had been reconstituted and by the early 1920s was growing into a powerful racist force across the country.” (Kindle Locations 3128-3130).

Regan Arts.. Kindle Edition 5,158 Kindle locations

[Moriyah · Rating 4 out of 5]

At the highlight of her career, Audrey was a household name, her figure was the basis of a multitude of sculptures still found today in New York, Atlanta, and San Francisco. It is rumored that she is a model for the image on the US dime. She was the first actress to appear nude in a Hollywood film. This book discusses how Audrey was discovered, her rise to fame and popularity, and the events that transpired and led to her downfall. It is a history that was very detailed and interesting, but very sad. I’m glad I read it, if only to pay homage to the woman who was so quickly forgotten, but whose image stands still at the New York public library, the Brooklyn Museum, the Manhattan, Bridge, and more. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 4/5

[Jeanette · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's closer to 3.5 star. Because Audrey comes alive.

What a life! What crossing of cultural barriers! What fallout for the individual Audrey! Her early life prediction was much a self-fulfilled prophecy. Some might disagree. But I'm sure that the crossing of the barriers she traipsed had far more consequence than she could conceive of in her own possible "eyes" and economic class.

It's a truly difficult tale to tell with so much physical/art evidence? Oh my- are reviewers for this book critical for the cross knowledge to her society. OVER critical of how you could possibly cross the interact she held with all of the outcomes for those interacts that she experienced. Without naming all those associated by-passers, observers, architects, celebs, artists? Physical statues, photos, objects that last more than 100's of years and are cultural icons ARE outcomes. But never forget, that for herself, the "career" always came first. Her poverty of youth would never allow her to turn off the spigot of her income. And so ill "inside"!

You absolutely know that Audrey would never become Miss Manhattan or any of the other Graces without Kittie. Discontent in the mother and the ambition of the daughter! We've heard that kind of tale before. But not of this "unknown" name from this earliest manufacturing/industrial era for such an amazing physical appearance level of exposures.

Interesting life. And also- and I'm absolutely sure about this- the optimum beauty level evaluations change with era/time/locale.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The third star is for the pictures.
The topic of the book was very interesting especially because so many of the statues of Audrey are still so visible, and it was obviously extensively researched. However, the author should have left out some of the research. The book was more about the time and the culture than about Audrey. She could have been a couple of chapters and we would have known just as much about her. There was nothing in depth about her. She floated around the edges of the other stories.

I am also disappointed that the case for her insanity was never proven, at least to me. Yes, she was eccentric and not the norm for her neighbors but I got the feeling she was committed because her mother got tired of taking care of her and the commitment was convenient. The mother's anguished letters after the commitment seemed self-serving justification. If Audrey had still had her money, she would have died in her own home. It is also telling that Audrey's first "safe home" was the asylum.

I felt very sorry for Audrey because she seemed to be not very bright and exploited by almost everyone in the book. Her anti-Semitism was not a sign of her insanity, just repeating what she had heard from everyone around her. Henry Ford was referenced as anti-Semitic but not insane.

[Khris Sellin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating, but incredibly sad, story about the world's first supermodel, Audrey Munson -- with ties to Syracuse!
If you walk around Manhattan, you will see her likeness in countless sculptures and statues (including "Miss Brooklyn" and "Miss Manhattan," which guarded the Brooklyn side of the Manhattan Bridge for decades before being evicted by Robert Moses. They now reside at the Brooklyn Museum. Last year, replicas were reinstated at the end of the bridge. Hurray for the return of Audrey!).
She posed for every relevant artist in the early 1900s and was heralded as the "most perfectly formed woman." She even made possibly the first nude film which caused, as one can imagine, huge interest, and controversy, wherever it was screened.

But happiness for Audrey was not meant to be (as foretold to her by a "gypsy" fortuneteller early in life). A series of scandals led to her being blacklisted and shunned. She moved to a farm in Mexico, NY, with her mother Kittie, until, on her 40th birthday, Kittie had her committed to a mental institution in Ogdensburg. What a horrifying birthday surprise. Audrey lived in the institution, incredibly, until near the end of her life. She died in 1996 at age 105(!), anonymous and alone.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating story, not particularly well told. I can't tell if it's author style, need of editing, or the lack of reliable source material.

I do agree with the reviewer who referred to the tangents that detracted from the story.
Still, a glimpse into the changing culture and mores of early last century; and one of the first celebrities of the age.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This wasn't a bad book, interesting as I had never heard of her before. Quite heavy on the detail in parts

[Bronwyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

I wish this was better. There were parts I really enjoyed and other parts that weren't well explained. I agree with another reviewer that I never really felt like I knew who Audrey was. Still an interesting book, it just had a lot of potential that didn't pan out.

[Bridget · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting book, but the actual subject of the book is not particularly inspiring. There is a lot of additional information on people and places around Audrey, which I imagine is due to the limited amount of information on Audrey herself. She was a naive woman whose life was rather sad.

[Stephanie McGarrah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Received in a giveaway!

Not usually the type of biography I go for, I’m not really an art history person, but I am always curious about a star, (Audrey Munson was certainly a star of her time), that simply vanishes from public consciousness.

Its a beautifully designed book with a dust cover that folds out into a map and several pictures so I now have Audrey Munson's ghostly image gazing at me from my wall. The other image is of one of the statues modeled after her likeness. Next to each other they emphasize the uncanny nature of both the sculptures and photographs, her physical body frozen in time.

I wish the world Audrey existed within was more fleshed out. Unfortunately, there just isn’t much to know about her life and you are left feeling underwhelmed. Of course there are more details of her life as an artists model and movie star than her later life as a caustic anti-Semite. Still, an interesting character of the Vaudeville era and the first movie star appear naked in a film (non pornographic).

[April · Rating 1 out of 5]

This books suffers from an author who adds too much detail about insignificant things- losing the pace and flow of the writing and the interest of the reader.

[Jim Dooley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very uneven biography, especially for a figure who is likely entirely unknown by name to potential Readers. It has a title that reads as if it would’ve been more at home gracing the cover of a 1930’s detective novel. At one point, the writer laments that an historian withheld information (likely in part) because he really disliked the title. Well, I’ll also add my 2-cents: I agree. It is an unfortunate title.

The subject of this biography is Audrey Munson, a woman artistically judged to have a perfect figure, and was in high demand for nude artistic works in the first decades of 1900. She was sculpted so many times that her form can still be seen on display in many locations (though not with her name). She was featured in news stories, serialized accounts of her life, on Broadway, and in three motion pictures (only the second of which still exists and has not been licensed as an official release).

The title is in reference to an experience when she was a child. Her mother took her to a major Gypsy encampment and she had her fortune told. The fortune teller did not predict happiness, and Audrey apparently clung to the belief through much of her life that the Curse had an influence on her. Of course, her “rags to riches to rags” story had more practical influences, and the decisions made both by and for her hastened her descent especially when coupled with a breakdown that may have been schizophrenia.

Audrey Munson would eventually spend about 60-years of her life in an asylum. Since those records of her time there were not readily available, the writer makes departures into related stories that are loosely linked to hers. Two examples that immediately come to mind are Olive Thomas and Vaslav Nijinsky. Their lives don’t directly link to hers in any meaningful way, but there are similarities in certain events.

Now, having said that, those departures (and others mentioned) are of probable interest to anyone wanting to learn more about society and culture in turn-of-the-century America. Names such as Stanford White, William Randolph Hearst, and Eleanor Roosevelt appear. Many artists also appear, such as David Chester French who designed the Abraham Lincoln statue found in the Lincoln Memorial. My favorite story was one of hilarious misunderstanding involving P.G. Wodehouse.

The Reader also learns about the racism prevalent in the country, turning highly inflammatory remarks into casual exchanges. There are also examples of how people with money can circumnavigate serious encounters with courts of law, and how unscrupulous players were ready to take advantage of anyone who could benefit them.

The saddest moments of all are examples of Audrey Munson’s behavior that reveal signs of severe emotional distress. A problem with the book is that the writer is unable to confirm or deny “facts” that had been stated. For instance, was she operating at the emotional level of a very young child while making one of her films? Was she tangentially involved in a love triangle that resulted in a murder? I didn’t know when I finished reading.

THE CURSE OF BEAUTY has an ample share of scandal, and it provided an intriguing view into backstories of other famous people. There are many photographs throughout, and that helped in appreciating the art installations. For the Reader interested in that period, there are rewards to be found within its pages.

[Mme Forte · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read "The Magnolia Palace" by Fiona Davis, and from that story of a famous artists' model caught up in a murder investigation, I got to this -- the biography of a famous artists' model once caught up in a murder investigation.

Audrey Munson was told as a girl that her beauty was a curse, that she would love but never marry, that she would be famous but never happy, that she would be rich but end up in want. All of that came true. The thing is, Audrey believed it would all along, and much of what she did in her life helped to make the prophecy manifest.

If you go to New York City, you can still see the face and form of Audrey Munson everywhere. She's on the Frick mansion; she's atop the Municipal Building; she's outside the Brooklyn Museum, she's on the Pulitzer Fountain on 59th Street; she's on monuments to Isidor and Ida Straus and to the Maine. She rose from obscurity to the chorus in Broadway shows, was discovered by a photographer and posed for him and others, and finally became the most famous model in the nation, immortalized in stone by men who idealized her already lovely face and figure into archetypes of the female form. She's Descending Night, she's Civic Fame, she's Commerce, she's Maidenhood.

Unfortunately, she's also a human being, with problems and flaws and feelings. Legal issues with the release and profits of some of her films, non-payment for personal appearances, and romantic setbacks all conspired to rob her of financial security and emotional stability. Her behavior became more and more erratic, and at age 40 Audrey was committed by her mother to a New York State asylum. There she remained until she died at age 104 in 1996.

This is a sad story, in the end, despite the joy Audrey describes taking from her work, despite the devotion of her mother Kittie, despite the travel and experiences that her fame and desirability offered her. As I read, I felt that Audrey Munson, even with the courage she had to have to work as a nude model in the early 20th century (let alone to make films in "the altogether"), and the initiative she had to take as a single woman to direct and further her career, was always at the mercy of others -- her employers, the prudish Edwardian society that stigmatized her work, the nascent movie industry and the men who ran it. Finally, she was ground down by it, lost her grip on reality, and was confined for the rest of her days. There were so many factors in her downfall that it's impossible to say exactly what finished off her sanity. This is indeed a cautionary tale, not so much in the don't-let-this-happen-to-you vein as in the watch-how-others-are-treated one.

A compelling story but it felt fragmented and the chronological flow was often broken off by side stories. Add in some editing glitches and what might have been 4 stars is 3.

[dejah_thoris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audrey Munson was a model immortalized across our nation during a time when posing nude was not empowering and the physical conditions could be very dangerous to one's health. (Marble sculptor's studios tended to be frigid.) Artists adored her though. She was very versatile, easy to work with, and had two trademark dimples in the small of her back. As she aged, she tried acting, the most memorable motion picture of hers being Auction of Souls/Ravished Armenia (1918). Shot for a Christian audience, the highlight of the picture is a scene of long-haired women being 'crucified'. In a century dominated by genocide, it is the first example of a film that depicts mass murder and racial hatred. Of course, this doesn't scratch the surface of Audrey's complicated life story, which is well worth reading if you like celebrity stories.

[Maryann Jorissen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The brief synopsis of this book states that Audrey Munson's curse that led to tragedy was her beauty. I disagree. The tragic curse was the misogynistic society that dominated the relatively new modeling world. The pay was very little but earned big profits for the agencies, men, and other artists.
Moreover if an important businessman in the new industry did not like a woman or that woman did not cater to his whims, her life could be singularly ruined. That was her tragedy, that her gift was shamelessly exploited.

[Ursula · Rating 2 out of 5]

Audrey Munson was an artists' model in the early part of the 1900s, and sat for many famous sculptures. In fact, the majority of the statues at the International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915 were modeled on Audrey. What a weird thing, to have many replicas of yourself facing each other everywhere! Anyhow, she was serious about modeling and she broke a lot of taboos about the nude form, etc. And she had an unlucky life in a lot of ways - never managed to find a man, apparently went crazy .... But wow, this author could have used an editor. The bio says that he is "the former New York bureau chief of The Times of London newspaper", and was most recently a correspondent in Rome. I don't know anything about that paper, but this book is written as if he were the bureau chief of the National Enquirer. The title of the book comes from (I kid you not) a gypsy prophecy Audrey got about her life and the book matches up the events to the prophecy every chance it gets. Everything is written in the most sensational way possible. One of her suitors was "superrich but supercomplicated." Supercomplicated? Couldn't he have said "super-rich and equally as complicated" so as to preserve some sense that I'm reading a somewhat serious non-fiction book? He could also have used an editor for some of his sentences (a lot of them, really) and punctuation. On one recent page, I find gems like "Newspapers immediately launched a manhunt for the cad presumed to be responsible for the near-death of America's first supermodel. To no avail." and "Prohibition was forced, but the jazz age was in full swing behind closed doors, in the speakeasies. Woman had won the right to vote and began to dance the Charleston and wear cosmetics." [sic, all of it]

In addition to that, he goes off on tangents about nearly everyone he mentions, starting with their birth. I don't know if it's just an interest in including every bit of research or a need to pad out the book, but sometimes I forgot what on earth we were actually supposed to be focusing on here. In addition to that, he jumps back and forth and sideways in time at the beginning of the book (presumably to cram in a bunch of interesting details to tease you on to the rest of the story), and it's very confusing at times.

[Nick Van · Rating 2 out of 5]

A riveting subject such as Munson deserves a better biography. Her story is fascinating, but this presentation is not up to the task of presenting it. The writing seems rushed, and the editing is glaringly poor. The simple factual errors which are caught has one asking which other errors have been missed. A definitive biography has yet to be written.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gave this 2 stars mainly because the subject is interesting, but otherwise it's a bit of a meandering mess. Given the author's background, I would have thought the guy could at least organize it and actually write something a bit more coherent. Unfortunately journalism has become such a joke, they can no longer organize, much less write. There seems to be a lot of missing info here, therefore leading to a lot of conjecture which of course is frustrating to a reader. He spends a lot of time repeating himself and then when he gets to the really interesting part, he just seems to go nowhere. That may be just a simple lack of information, but given how much time he spent on side characters that Audrey may or may not have known or been involved with, it looks as if he could have come up with more on the actual mental illness. It might have been more interesting if he had looked into other models of the time rather than spending so much time on the strange men in Audrey's life. What is a bit confusing is at the end when Bone lists all of his sources and there are a tremendous number of them, so I know he put a lot of time into research, but obviously there are too many unknowns to make an entire book interesting. That's why I feel he should have maybe looked at similar models at the time. Certainly Munson is an interesting side note to the Gilded age and modeling, but sometimes a side note is just a side note. The story is rather sad, but the author seems to want to make Munson a victim of the Gilded age and he just does not have enough evidence of that. Obviously she began to have some sort of breakdown, but she may have had her mental issues no matter the time period. The only evidence here is that she simply was not successful long term and the fashion and music industries are full of people like that.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating account of a woman who should be famous but, like many women of her time, was exploited by men and pushed aside by history. Audrey Munson lived and worked during a time of enormous change: Modernism was taking over the art world, Hollywood was coming into being, and technology was transforming almost every aspect of people's lives. It was a complex era, and Munson, though beautiful, wasn't equipped to succeed. Although in some ways, she was a ahead of her time, in too many ways, she was behind it, and she just didn't understand what was going on around her. But her life does provide an intriguing lens through which to view history, and no one who reads this book will ever look at many New York City landmarks the same way. The writing style is a bit unfortunate -- swinging between dry and melodramatic. Still, the story uncovers a world, that of the artist's model at the turn of the twentieth century, that we've rarely seen, and so it's interesting from start to finish and filled with photographs that help bring Audrey to life.

[pickfordm]

I read this book because I've been trying to learn more about Audrey Munson for a while, as research for my novel. In that respect this book was a godsend. It's very well researched and it's well written. That said, it's not an exciting biography considering this model's strange and sad life. Also, neither good nor bad, there were certain deviations from the other book I read about her. Fascinating story, though; the muse of the MY sculpture studios reduced to poverty and sent to a mental health hospital when she was forty. She never left, although she lived for another sixty-five years.

[Ellie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Though the intended subject of the book is riveting, the delivery does Audrey Munson's story absolutely no justice. The author meanders and takes us down so many rabbit holes that the reader forgets that Munson is actually the subject. An interesting look into this particular era? Sure. But Audrey Munson's life is minimized to a supporting role in this book's long winded and often droll narrative. An utter disappointment on so many levels.

[Josie · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an absolutely heartbreaking story. Hopefully, James Bone gives Audrey the dignity and respect she never got in life.

PS if there isn't a movie about her life in 5 years, I volunteer to write it

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very sad story.

[Kristi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audrey Munson led a fascinating life. Born to humble beginnings in western New York, she became wealthy and famous as the premier art model of the early twentieth century, before ending her life penniless and obscure, at the age of 104. Bone's does well to bring Munson to the fore, as the woman who's form and face graces countless public sculptures. The first half the this biography situates her in the art world of her time. The passages which recount the rigors required of the model to hold a posture and process of plaster-casting her body, were poignant and illuminated the experiences of the model. Art is not created in a vacuum of inspiration, but is a physical process in which models - such as Munson - played a vital, but often forgotten role. Munson was an icon, but before the age of forty she was penniless, struggled to get work, and was committed to an asylum for the last sixty-four years of her life.

To his credit, Bone's work reminds us that models, like Audrey Munson, were real people, as compelling as the art and artists who immortalized their likenesses. Munson deserves a biography that places herself at the center of the narrative, and attempts to recapture and understand her personal experiences. Bone gives us glimpses of a feminist with the courage to display her nude form; a woman who struggled with complex body issues, involving antisemitism, racial purity, and classical ideals; an animal lover, too destitute to care for her beloved pets; an individual with troubled relationships to money, family, and self. Munson's body as art seems to have shaped her sense of self in both troubling and admirable ways. In a more tightly written narrative, she may have emerged more fully articulated.

Unfortunately, Audrey Munson as an individual personality remains enigmatically at the periphery of the story of her life. In the second half of the biography, in particular, she becomes lost and decentralized from the account. Rather than approaching and examining events with Munson as the primary subject, the narrative often tends to long examinations that set her as a tangential. The Winston murder case being a prominent example, of when an event leads the narrative rather than Munson's involvement. This has the tendency to sensationalize her life, displacing Munson from her own biography, and results in a failure to understand her agency and experiences. At times the narrative is also scattered and repetitive.

Further troubling, is the author's discussion of sources, which dramatizes a conflict between himself and another historian. Bone questions the ownership of protected and private sources he was not granted full access to. While the integrity of the archive and open access to sources is a necessary and valued hallmark of scholarly etiquette, Bone's treatment of the conflict comes across as suspect, somewhat disingenuous, and unprofessional. Is his aim to advocate for the importance of sources related to Munson's life to scholarship or to vindictively discredit another historian? It is not implausible that belongings innocently came into a possession of a third-party following the death of Munson's mother, especially considering Munson was then incarcerated in an asylum. Bone muddies the waters whether the sources he was granted partial access to are privately owned or part of an official historic collection; if the former, it is a privilege to be granted access. It remains unclear what Bone's sources actually were. He seems to quote from personal correspondence, but since there is no mention of archival sources and no footnotes, its hard to determine if quotations come strictly from published interviews and articles, or perhaps papers held in private collections. The affect of the whole latter portion of the book, sadly, tends toward sensational journalism rather than scholarly biography. Nevertheless, Bone is to be commended for his research and his passion for giving Audrey her identity back, as an individual worth knowing and remembering.

This volume is visually stunning, including numerous images of Audrey Munson. An elaborate dust jacket, has images on each side, and further unfolds to a map of the statues depicting Audrey Munson in New York City.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

The life story of Audrey Munson is fascinating. As a New Yorker, I enjoyed learning about the life behind the model for so many monuments across the city.

Despite the remarkable material he had to work with, the author's writing left much to be desired. He filled out the book by spending enormous amounts of time on the back-story of various famous individuals only tenuously connected to Munson but (peculiarly) did not spend much time describing her physical appearance for which she was so famous. That sort of crucial information appears in drips and drabs throughout the book.

The book is often repetitive and circular. Some of the conclusions offered by the author are based on thin evidence and hunches. Even sentences are awkward. For example:

Pg. 264: "There had been a daredevil aviator named Joseph Stevenson from Mineola, Long Island but he jumped to his death from a flying biplane in front of thousands of children during a flying demonstration at the Alabama State Fair in October 1912 before thousands of watching schoolchildren."

In sum: some great research went into this book and it is a wonderful topic, but it is somewhat challenging to read.

[D.H. Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been an art model for over 30 years, mostly for college classes and groups of artists rather than for single ones doing commissioned work. And as a 2001 contestant on the highly rated ABC game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, I can even make a claim that at one time, I was the most famous art model in America (even if that time was only for the 20 minutes I was on primetime network TV talking with Regis Philbin about my nude modeling job). So I was naturally drawn to this book about Audrey Munson, who really was the most famous art model of her time. I also have an interest in silent film (my DVD collection includes almost all of Buster Keaton's work from the 1920s, several DW Griffith films, and some Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd films). So I was equally fascinated by Audrey Munson's forays into silent film. The book gave as good a picture of Audrey Munson's life as can be given now with what is available from her life. I enjoyed it and the many illustrations of sculptures she modeled for and stills from her lost silent films.

[Fred Klein · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting book of the success and tragic ending of the woman who could be called America's first supermodel. She was considered to have perfect features, leading to her being the model for an incredible number of sculptures in this country. If you live in New York City, you probably pass sculptures for which she modeled every day.

Audrey Munson's story is also that of her time, the Gilded Age, before World War I, and many of the figures of that period make cameo appearances in her story. Unfortunately, one of the prominent elements of that time is anti-Semitism, and Audrey becomes obsessed with Jews. This could make her an unsympathetic character, but her story is so sad that most people will still feel for her.

Sometimes, however, the writing is hard to follow because the author jumps around in time. He attempts to begin many chapters with some kind of drama, but then he has to go back in time to explain the context. There were a few times that I found that I was reading about the same events more than once.