Featured in my new show “Crazy About You: Sifting for Sanity in the History of the Insane,” Audrey Munson is an example of how circumstances can turn a paragon of success into just another resident of a mental hospital.
Born in 1891, Audrey Munson was not a supermodel in the modern sense of photographs on every billboard. She was a supermodel in the context of the early twentieth century, when models weren’t photographed, but sculpted nude into statues for the great Beaux Arts architectural movement. Audrey Munson’s form was imitated in dozens of sculptures that still grace buildings in Manhattan and across the country. But when Modern art moved away from life-like imitation, Audrey lost her appeal. No one was hiring live nude models anymore. And that was when things began to fall apart for her. She and her mother fell into poverty. Her landlord committed murder in her name and she was pulled into the scandal. She started acting eccentrically, and believing that the world was out to get her. It probably really seemed that it was to someone once at the top of her career who had just lost everything. In 1931, Audrey’s mother became ill. She couldn’t care for Audrey any longer, and Audrey couldn’t take care of herself. Audrey’s mother saw no recourse but to have Audrey committed to a New York State asylum. Audrey remained in the asylum for 65 years, and after her mother died, there was no one left to visit her. She was left in the asylum, mostly alone, and without a formal diagnosis, till she died at the age of 104.
Here are the lyrics of my new song about Audrey Munson:
Posed
Still
Captured
For Hours
By sculptors
in bronze
marble and granite
Seen Recognized Famous
Manhattan chorus girl, discovered at fifteen
Convinced to pose in the altogether
America’s first supermodel
Door to door at artist studios
50 cents an hour
Pose nude, don’t move
Muscles aching, breathtaking, sculpture.
Posed
Still
Captured
For Hours
By sculptors
in bronze
marble and granite
Seen Recognized Famous
Skyscrapers, mansions, monuments, coins, fountains
Commemorating Miss Manhattan,
Queen of the 1915 World’s Fair
Beauty tips, newspaper column, first naked film star
Public search for the perfect husband
Former landlord killed his wife for her
Posed
Still
Captured
For Hours
By sculptors
in bronze
marble and granite
Seen Recognized Famous
(Traveled by) roller skates and lawn mower, blades in the air
Conspiracy theories, paranoia,
Poverty attempted suicide
Foam baths in madhouse, six decades alone,
Milk dabbed from cheerios to alabaster skin
Till she was buried
Posed
Still
Captured
For years
By doctors
Institutionalized
Unseen Ignored Forgotten
wow that is quite a compelling tale of Audrey Munson. She had so much going for her and then a downward spiral. I’d love to hear your musical rendition of this story.
Yes, Sue, she was something wasn’t she?