Aunt Nita’s Crystal Necklace

Ever think about family heirlooms? Those objects that sometimes find their way onto a nicknack shelf because they belonged to Great Grandma Addie, or Uncle Perry or someone else you always heard thegrown ups mention, but whom you never met? When my grandmother, Bernice Flynn Sorgani (aka Darling), passed away, she left me some remarkable things. Things of little, if any monetary value, but so precious to our family. One of those family heirlooms entrusted to me was my Great Aunt Nita’s crystal necklace. But to really appreciate the necklace’s significance, you have to know a little bit about Hollywood, especially the Silent Era.

When my sister, Frannie, and I were growing up, my grandmother regaled us with wonderful stories about her older sister, Nita, who had gone to Hollywood to become an actress when my grandmother was a kid. Her professional name was Nita O’Neil. If my calculations are right, Nita went to Hollywood somewhere between 1917 and 1919. This was during the Silent Era, and Hollywood was the wild west. The glamorous world of Hollywood thrilled Americans from coast to coast, and Aunt Nita was there from thevery beginning. She led a fascinating life in Hollywood during those first four decades of Tinseltown’s existence.

Nita never had much of an acting career (that I am aware of), but she did become an important part of the Hollywood scene. She married an action director named Mike Eason. Mike and his brother, Breezy Eason, both accomplished horsemen, worked in the film business as extras. Mike got his lucky break one day when he was working as an extra on a western. Apparently, the director was having a hard time dealing with the horses. The story is that Mike said, “I could do a better job myself”. The director overheard himand said, “Well then, go ahead. Let’s see what you can do.” From that day forward, Mike was employed as an action director.

Darling went out to Hollywood with her sister, my Great Aunt Flo (Florence Flynn Lipschultz - aka Pinken) to visit their sister, Nita. Darling rode horses on Tom Mix’s ranch. Tom Mix was the biggestcowboy star of the Silent Era. But Aunt Flo’s adventure was even more exciting. Aunt Nita was givingAunt Flo a tour of the studio, but couldn’t seem to impress her. Determined to get a reaction, a nearby studioexecutive took her to a live set where they were shooting a Gary Cooper movie. According to Aunt Flo, Cooper was very tall, very handsome, had the most beautiful blue eyes she had ever seen, and he made apass at her! According to Darling, she said, “I wasn’t going to go out

with him! Louis wasn’t there!”) Aunt Flo was was referring to her husband my Great Uncle Louis Lipschultz. The Hollywood crowd couldn’t believe it.

Even when Darling was a child, her big sister Nita’s close friendship with Rudolph Valentino once caused a stir in the Flynn’s South Side Chicago neighborhood. Word got out on Halsted Street that the Sheik,Valentino himself, was coming to visit the Flynns. It happened that Aunt Nita was in Chicago when Valentino was making his coast-to-coast publicity tour. Thanks to his intrusive wife, Natasha Rambova,Valentino was on the outs with the studio. He was trying to buck the studio and take more control of his career.

Valentino and Aunt Nita, along with Lila Lee, a well known actress of the period, were all great friends and often played cards together. (If you want to see Lila Lee, you can see her with Valentino in Blood and Sand 1922). The plan was for Valentino to go over to visit Aunt Nita when he got to Chicago.They were going to play cards. My grandmother never had a lot of spending money, so she came up with a brilliant scheme. Darling knew her sister and Valentino would be playing cards in the kitchen, and that one could easily see through the screen door and get a clear view of the kitchen table and the Sheik! She charged everybody in the neighborhood “a penny a peek” to see him through that kitchen screen door and made a fortune. Fifty cents!

Alas, poor Darling had to return the money. At the last minute, Valentino’s wife, the ever controlling and infamously possessive Natasha Rambova threw a fit, and Valentino gave in. He was a no-show on Halsted Street.

Mike Eason and Nita Flynn Eason were not unimportant. Among their closest friends were Hollywood royalty: Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Valentino, Tom Mix, Lila Lee, Nita Naldi (also starring in Blood and Sand), Norma and Constance Talmadge, Lillian and Dorothy Gish.They were part of the founding of United Artists and the Screen Actors Guild. For their SAG union activity, they were targeted by Joe McCarthy during the Red Scare. The irony was that Aunt Nita was as red, white and blue as you could get. She never forgave Charlie Chaplin for his pacifist stand during WWII, and his refusal to sell war bonds.

And oh, the inside Hollywood gossip. Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were beside themselves when their son, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. got involved with Joan Crawford, who was “low class and had a filthymouth”. Jimmy Cagney was a gem and a consummate gentleman, belying his gangster image. Charles Boyer, was beloved by the young actresses who worked as extras on his films because he never allowed them to be abused on the set. The way that Darling put it was “He protected them from the mashers.”

The names of the Hollywood stars of yesteryear were as familiar to me growing up as the names of the Milwaukee Braves were to the boys I went to school with.

Perhaps the stories I loved the most were those set at Pickfair, the home of Mary and Douglas Fairbanks. I imagined the famous parties where they danced and drank through the entirety of Prohibition. Darling taught me how to dance the Charleston and the Black Bottom. I can still do “the crazy legs” better than anyone I know. And always, in my Hollywood dreams, I imagined what it would have been like towear that beautiful crystal necklace.

So, what about Aunt Nita’s necklace?

It was a long string of crystals, and I mean LONG. It was one of those necklaces the flappers wore inthe Roaring Twenties that wrapped tight around the throat and hung down the front of your dress down to the waist or even longer. The first time Darling showed it to me, she told me that this was THE crystal necklace that Nita had worn to those parties at Pickfair. She may have danced with Valentino, Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, or tossed back the liquor with Mary Pickford wearing that necklace. It was magic.

When Darling passed away, she left the necklace to me. I think she knew that I was the one who would cherish it the most. I was the grandchild that drove her crazy begging to hear those stories over and over again.

Several years ago, in an abundance of caution, I decided not to risk having the necklace disappear in the fields of time because of some carelessness on my part. I decided to give the necklace to someone in the next generation of my family. It was a very easy choice, my niece, Bridgette. Bridgette, because she was an actress. Nita, Bridgette and I all share that unique experience of the world of acting. Bridgette actually acted a lot more than either Aunt Nita or I did, and to my mind was by far the most successful actress of the three of us. I don’t think that’s what matters, though. The “success” I mean.

Being an actor is a vocation just as surely as being a priest. You take a vow of poverty. That’s forsure. But it is so hard that in the end, the only people who pursue it for a lifetime are people who simply MUST because it is their vocation. I admire actors, and the courage of anyone who tries to become one. I love the movies, and I love theatre, and so I gave the necklace to Bridgette. She’s got a bunch of boys, so who knows where Aunt Nita’s necklace will go next? That’s up to Bridgette.

As I write this, I keep seeing Aunt Nita’s face the only time I met her, a few years before she passed. She looked a lot like Aunt Flo with one of those faces that looked like the map of Ireland. She was very small with sparkling blue eyes and was the life of the party. I can feel her, and Darling and Aunt Flo allaround me, and I am quite positive they approve of Bridgette having the necklace.

I believe objects carry the vibrations of the person to whom they belonged. The crystal necklace belonged to Aunt Nita, and her vibrations have been an influence in our family for over 100 years. It doesn’t belong on a nicknack shelf. At 21 years old, I moved to New York to pursue acting. I had a dream of having dinner at the Plaza Hotel with Flaming Cherries Jubilee for dessert. On the night that dream came true, Iwore Aunt Nita’s necklace. As the chef set the Cherries Jubilee on fire, someone passing by our table commented “Look how that beautiful necklace is catching the light of the flames”. Thank you Aunt Nita.

The featured image on this blogpost is an early summer picnic at the aforementioned Pickfair... by the looks of it, pre 1920, around the time Aunt Nita would have arrived in Los Angeles.