Aileen Pringle papers

The Aileen Pringle Papers contain letters, manuscript materials, photographs, clippings, printed works, and miscellaneous personal papers which document the life of Aileen Pringle, a popular American silent film star. The papers span the years 1887-1970, with the majority falling within the years 1926-56.

The collection is housed in 10 boxes and consists of four series: Correspondence; Writings; Photographs; and Personal Papers. Boxes 8 and 9 contain Oversize material from all four series and Box 10 contains Restricted Fragile Papers.

Series I, Correspondence (Boxes 1-4) covers the years 1918-70. The major part of this series consists of letters to and from H. L. Mencken. After their first meeting on June 19, 1926, Aileen and Mencken began to correspond. By 1928, Aileen was often writing two letters a day to "Henry." Her letters discuss her affection for Mencken, but also include running accounts of her everyday life in Hollywood. She gossips about the fortunes of her costars (e.g. Conrad Nagel), her associates (e.g. Greta Garbo), and her bosses at MGM studios (e.g. Louis B. Mayer). Tales of her social life abound with accounts of buffet dinners at Marion Davies's estate and parties where she crossed paths with Irving Berlin and George Gershwin. Letters from October and November 1926 document Menckens visit to Los Angeles, while those of November 1927 tell about Aileen's extended visit to New York, where she saw Mencken again; those from February and April 1928 cover Carl Van Vechten's visit to California.

Aileen's relationship with Mencken came to an abrupt end on June 19, 1930, four years to the day after they had originally met, when Mencken announced his engagement to Sara Haardt. Aileen had half-seriously questioned Mencken about his intentions towards Haardt in a letter dated May 23, 1928, but was taken by surprise at this new development in the relationship, as evidenced by a telegram dated June 19, 1930. After Mencken returned her letters in three large packages (see Box 8, folder 134), Aileen apparently returned the most personal of his, but kept many telegrams and short notes from the period 1926-30. She also retained a number of clippings and letters which Mencken had forwarded to her.

Aileen and Mencken corresponded infrequently during the early 1930s, but after Sara Haardt's death in 1935, Aileen offered her condolences and she and Mencken began to correspond and see each other more frequently. In letters of October 1935, Mencken offers Aileen advice about submitting a manuscript to Mademoiselle. He discusses his coverage of the presidential nominating conventions in the summers of 1936 and 1940. He expresses his pessimism about the looming escalation of war in December 1940. In July 1944, he offers his best wishes to Aileen on her marriage to James M. Cain. (A few subsequent letters are addressed Cain). Because of a stroke he suffered in 1948, Mencken's correspondence from then until his death was handled mostly by his secretary.

Series I also contains notable groups of correspondence of other literary and art world figures. Ralph Barton, illustrator and caricaturist for Vanity Fair, wrote to Aileen from Europe between 1926 and 1930. Carl Van Vechten was a friend of Aileen's from the time he met her in 1926. A few of his earlier letters are included, but the majority date from the 1950's, when Aileen had settled in New York City and was very close to Carl and his wife Fania Marinoff. During this period, Aileen became asociated with a number of young artists who wrote to her from various locations. Elwyn Chamberlain, an artist and later a novelist, exchanged letters with Pringle from several locations where he was studying and teaching. Her letters to him between 1954 and 1957 are extent in this series; they were given to the Beinecke Library by Chamberlain in the mid-1950s. In them, Pringle describes a wide range of Manhattan theater and social events. Karl Priebe sent watercolor postcards of birds from Milwaukee. Dick Banks wrote and sent drawings from Palm Beach, Florida. Saul Mauriber, who called Aileen the "Penny Princess," is represented by several letters. The series also contains a pair of telegrams from Joseph Hergesheimer, three items from James M. Cain, and letters from Blanche Knopf, Fania Marinoff, and Joan Crawford.

Series II, Writings , is made up of works by others. Included here are a group of poems, Naked Ghosts, and a draft of a novel, The Last Thirty Days of Christ, by Sadakichi Hartmann, and a playscript, with part-book, of "Goodnight Gwendolen!" by Rupert Hughes.

Series III, Photographs consists principally of photographs made by Carl Van Vechten. The subjects include many black performers from the 1950s (Geoffrey Holder, Mattiwilda Dobbs, Diahann Carroll) and others such as Fania Marinoff and the Baroness Blixen. Several large portraits of H. L. Mencken, done by a photography studio, are in this series (Box 8, Oversize).

Series IV, Personal Papers , is made up of various items collected by Aileen Pringle. Included are: a folder of obituaries of Carl Van Vechten, a number of clippings which mention H. L. Mencken, and printed works about Carl Van Vechten.

Box 8 contains Oversize material from all four series, arranged in series order. Box 9 contains one oversize item from the Personal Papers series, namely a letter box, likely given to Aileen by Saul Mauriber.