Irina Yusupova Vs. Mgm
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THE PRINCESS ON THE WITNESS STAND: IRINA YUSUPOVA VS. MGM What does it cost to blur the line between fiction and reality? FILE UNDER: FASCINATING ROYAL AND NOBLE WOMEN WANT ME TO READ THIS POST TO YOU? CONTENTS: With a Friend Like This, Who Needs Enemies? | Meet Felix | Hooray for Hollywood | The Show Must Go On | Disputin’ | And the Oscar Goes To… | Lawyer Up | Stranger Than Fiction | “Monsters Out of My Head” HEN I WAS LITTLE, I never understood why W movies about real people featured the following disclaimer: “Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.” It was a blatant lie. Of course Elliott Ness in The Untouchables wasn’t made-up. Neither was Howard Hughes in The Aviator. So why does that disclaimer exist? Because of a series of bad decisions that can be traced back to – wait for it – Rasputin and the fall of the Russian empire. WITH A FRIEND LIKE THIS, WHO NEEDS ENEMIES? THIS ISN’T A STORY ABOUT Rasputin or his murder. But to understand what happened later, we need to start in pre-revolutionary Russia. In October of 1905, Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra met Grigori Efimovich Rasputin. He was a wandering holy man who claimed to have spiritual gifts, including the power to heal. GIRLINTHETIARA.COM | IRINA YUSUPOVA VS. MGM RASPUTIN BY AN UNKNOWN PHOTOGRAPHER, PUBLIC DOMAIN VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. But he wasn’t the type of holy man who led a chaste, austere life. Nope. He drank and he chased women. He was arrogant and he was coarse. He believed you had to sin before you could be saved. Combine this behavior with a hypnotic personal magnetism and Rasputin made waves everywhere he went – including at the imperial court. GIRLINTHETIARA.COM | IRINA YUSUPOVA VS. MGM Over the next few years, Rasputin earned the tsarina’s trust because of his ability to ease the pain caused by her son’s hemophilia. He appeared to stop the boy’s bleeding, swelling, and pain often just by praying at his bedside. Alexandra believed he was absolutely necessary for her son’s survival, no matter what anyone else said about him. ALEXANDRA AND ALEXEI, PUBLIC DOMAIN VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. But since her son’s illness was a secret, no one on the outside could understand what Alexandra saw in him. What was she thinking, letting this creepy guy in the same room with her daughters? GIRLINTHETIARA.COM | IRINA YUSUPOVA VS. MGM RASPUTIN WITH ALEXANDRA, HER KIDS & THEIR GOVERNESS. PUBLIC DOMAIN VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. For a family that already struggled with the concept of public relations, Rasputin only made the situation worse. And World War I magnified every problem Russia already had. Shocked and angered by over five million wartime losses as of 1916, the family members left behind questioned the country’s leadership. (Sumpf) Who was making these terrible decisions? Why were their sons, fathers, and GIRLINTHETIARA.COM | IRINA YUSUPOVA VS. MGM brothers sent into battle without shoes or guns? Why was there no food or fuel left for those at home? Who let things get this bad? IMAGE BY GEORGE H. MEWES, P UBLIC DOMAIN VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS . Government ministers came and went, appointed and quickly dismissed as, one by one, they failed to turn the war around or stabilize the economy. Most people believed Rasputin was manipulating the tsar and tsarina into making these terrible choices. As a result, everyone from aristocrats to soldiers to factory workers gossiped about his influence. GIRLINTHETIARA.COM | IRINA YUSUPOVA VS. MGM ANONYMOUS CARTOON, PUBLIC DOMAIN VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. Nicholas II’s cousin, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, later described the situation like this: “Rasputin…– it was like a refrain, his mistakes, his shocking personal conduct, his mysterious power. This power was tremendous; it was like dust, enveloping all our world, eclipsing the sun. How could so pitiful a wretch throw so vast a shadow? It was inexplicable, baffling, almost incredible.” (Marie, 248-9) GIRLINTHETIARA.COM | IRINA YUSUPOVA VS. MGM Someone had to fix this situation, and if the tsar couldn’t or wouldn’t get rid of him, well, there were others who would. MEET FELIX PRINCE FELIX YUSUPOV TOOK it upon himself to solve Russia’s Rasputin problem. He was the sole heir to one of the richest noble families in imperial Russia and he knew Rasputin personally. GIRLINTHETIARA.COM | IRINA YUSUPOVA VS. MGM In 1914, he’d married Nicholas II’s only niece, Princess Irina Alexandrovna. This brought him even closer to the imperial family, where he saw firsthand the wedge Rasputin was driving between the tsar and tsarina and the rest of the imperial family. IMAGE BY BOASSON & EGGLER, PUBLIC DOMAIN VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. GIRLINTHETIARA.COM | IRINA YUSUPOVA VS. MGM So he gathered a small circle of conspirators, including his best friend, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, and Lieutenant Ivan Sukhotin, an officer in a prestigious guards regiment. Later, they brought in Vladimir Purishkevich, a member of the Duma who had spoken out against Rasputin, and Dr. Stanislaus Lazovert. In December of 1916, they put their plan into action. Felix invited Rasputin to his home, the Moika Palace, on the pretext that Rasputin would finally get to meet Felix’s wife. Irina wasn’t even in Petrograd at the time, but Rasputin didn’t know that. The murder itself is like a game of Clue: was he killed by cyanide in the poisoned cakes and wine glasses, the shot by Felix to his heart, two additional gunshots fired by Purishkevich, the beating Felix gave him with a steel- and-leather club, or the icy waters of the river they dumped him into? GIRLINTHETIARA.COM | IRINA YUSUPOVA VS. MGM WAX FIGURES RECREATING THAT FATEFUL NIGHT IN THE MOIKA PALACE. IMAGE BY NINARA FROM HELSINKI, FINLAND, C C BY 2.0, VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. All that matters for this particular story is that the murder was discovered immediately. Felix and Dmitri bore the brunt of the tsar’s anger. Nicholas II exiled Felix to his estate in central Russia, and sent Dmitri to Persia with the army. Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna later wrote that in the aftermath, Felix seemed intoxicated by his role in the murder. Dmitri, on the other hand, felt remorse and regret. GIRLINTHETIARA.COM | IRINA YUSUPOVA VS. MGM And as it turns out, Dmitri was right. Rasputin’s death wasn’t enough to prevent a revolution. Just ten weeks after the murder, Nicholas II abdicated the throne and Russia collapsed into revolution and civil war. IMAGE BY YAKOV VLADIMIROVICH STEINBERG, P UBLIC DOMAIN VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. Felix and Irina fled Russia in 1919. They settled in London and then Paris, selling artwork, jewels, and trinkets to get by. In 1927, Felix published a book that described Rasputin’s murder. Purishkevich also published a GIRLINTHETIARA.COM | IRINA YUSUPOVA VS. MGM memoir, and Felix addressed the subject again in his memoir, Lost Splendor. None of the other conspirators ever spoke publicly about the murder. There are still unanswered questions about how accurate those published accounts are, but all we need to know for this story is that Felix Yusupov came away as the man known as the murderer of Rasputin. HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD IN THE EARLY 1930S , American playwright and poet Mercedes de Acosta took a screenwriting gig in Hollywood with RKO Studios. GIRLINTHETIARA.COM | IRINA YUSUPOVA VS. MGM The daughter of aristocratic parents, she had already traveled extensively and made friends with actors, artists, and writers across the globe. When her RKO contract got cancelled, her friend Greta Garbo talked to MGM studio boss, Irving Thalberg, about hiring Mercedes to write for a script especially for her. Thalberg agreed, and Mercedes wrote a story that called for Garbo to disguise herself as a boy. Thalberg refused to put the glamorous Garbo on screen in a very unglamorous disguise. GRETA GARBO PHOTOGRAPHED BY STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHER CLARENCE BULL, PUBLIC DOMAIN VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. GIRLINTHETIARA.COM | IRINA YUSUPOVA VS. MGM According to Mercedes, he said, “I am in this business to make money on films and I won’t have this one ruined.” He killed the script and Mercedes was once again out of work. But it wasn’t long before Thalberg came back. This time, he asked Mercedes to bring him as much information as she could about Rasputin’s life. Seems like a pretty random request, right? But Thalberg was on a mission. He wanted to make a movie with all three of the famous Barrymore siblings: Lionel, Ethel, and John. JOHN, ETHEL, AND LIONEL BARRYMORE BY AN UNKNOWN PHOTOGRAPHER, PUBLIC DOMAIN VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. GIRLINTHETIARA.COM | IRINA YUSUPOVA VS. MGM They had never appeared on screen together and it would be box office gold if he pulled it off. But since they were siblings, the movie couldn’t be a love story. So Thalberg went digging in the MGM archives and realized they had bought the rights to a novel, Rasputin by Alfred Klabund. Now, Thalberg needed Mercedes to provide research and, eventually, a story. Mercedes took the job. Thalberg didn’t know it, but she’d actually met Felix Yusupov years ago in Paris, through their mutual friend Prince Agoutinsky. One night in Paris, Felix had told the story of Rasputin’s murder – so now, Mercedes contacted him and asked for more detail. She asked if Irina had ever met Rasputin. No, said Felix – he made sure she’d never even laid eyes on him. After some initial research, Mercedes suggested the movie focus less on Rasputin’s life and more on his interaction with the imperial family.