compêndio de ricos excêntricos: Marion “Joe” Carstairs
Book Review: No Ordinary Joe
Born in 1900 in London, Marion “Joe” Carstairs was a cigar-smoking, cross-dressing, motorboat-racing lesbian, who had tumultuous affairs with leading actresses, including Tallulah Bankhead, Mabel Mercer and Marlene Dietrich. With her close-cropped hair and exquisitely tailored Savile Row suits, Carstairs was delighted when anyone actually mistook her for a man. An heir to the Standard Oil fortune, she abandoned civilization at the age of 34 to become the self-appointed ruler of a 9-mile-by-4-mile island in the Bahamas. There she lived for more than 40 years, attended by a kaleidoscopic parade of beautiful women, avid sports and fishing enthusiasts, hearty partygoers — and a small leather doll named Lord Tod Wadley, whom she treated as her best friend and lifelong companion.
