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    The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright
    The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright
    The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright
    Ebook375 pages5 hours

    The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright

    By Jean Nathan

    5/5

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    About this ebook

    A glamorous, haunted life unfolds in the mesmerizing biography of the woman behind a classic children's book

    In 1957, a children's book called The Lonely Doll was published. With its pink-and-white-checked cover and photographs featuring a wide-eyed doll, it captured the imaginations of young girls and made the author, Dare Wright, a household name.

    Close to forty years after its publication, the book was out of print but not forgotten. When the cover image inexplicably came to journalist Jean Nathan one afternoon, she went in search of the book-and ultimately its author. Nathan found Dare Wright living out her last days in a decrepit public hospital in Queens, New York.

    Over the next five years, Nathan pieced together a glamorous life. Blond, beautiful Wright had begun her career as an actress and model and then turned to fashion photography before stumbling upon her role as bestselling author. But there was a dark side to the story: a brother lost in childhood, ill-fated marriage plans, a complicated, controlling mother. Edith Stevenson Wright, herself a successful portrait painter, played such a dominant role in her daughter's life that Dare was never able to find her way into the adult world. Only through her work could she speak for herself: in her books she created the happy family she'd always yearned for, while her self-portraits betrayed an unresolved tension between sexuality and innocence, a desire to belong and painful isolation.

    Illustrated with stunning photographs, The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll tells the unforgettable story of a woman who, imprisoned by her childhood, sought to set herself free through art.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateMay 17, 2013
    ISBN9781466845305
    The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright
    Author

    Jean Nathan

    Jean Nathan graduated from Williams College and the Columbia School of Journalism. She was a staff writer for The New York Observer and a senior editor at Connoisseur magazine. She has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Travel & Leisure, Vogue, and other publications. She lives in New York City.

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    • 4/5
      There are two telling reviews on Amazon.com for The Lonely Doll:one entitled "Paging Dr. Freud" and the other entitled "Dolly Dearest." Both of these monikers are apt for this biography of The Lonely Doll's author, Dare Wright. Dare Wright, the product of a fabulously dysfunctional marriage of a failed actor/writer and a portrait artist was raised by her narcissistic mother who denied that her divorced husband was alive and that she also had a son whom she abandoned after she divorced her husband. Dare was also initially ignored and only used by her mother as an attractive accessory to her active social life. Later on, as mother Edie became older, she attached herself more tightly (and jealously) to her daughter - going on dates with her, taking all holidays with her and even sleeping in the same bed.Dare, never grows up and has feelings of abandonment throughout her life. To cope she immerses herself in a life of fantasy - dressing up, having a desultory acting and modeling career and finally carving out a career for herself as a photographer. Ultimately, at her mother's apartment, she discovers an old doll she had as a child. She names this doll Edith and it assumes the role of her own child and, along with two Teddy bears who are symbols of the father who abandoned her and the brother who was taken from her, she develops a new "family" to replace the one she never had in real life. This new "family" becomes the basis for a series of "Lonely Doll" children's books that were popular from the late 1950's through the early 1980's. Through these stories, Dare expressed her own fears of abandonment and her desire to have a safe haven in a stable family. Many people now find these stories extremely disturbing (as evidenced by the customer reviews on the Amazon web site), but the books, three of which were re-released in the 1990's, remain popular to this day.Dare and her mother, Edie's, lives were similarly disturbing. Her life is truly a version of "Mommy Dearest" with Edie being pretty much the archetypal monster mother, and ultimately, she had a very sad end. Paging Dr. Freud, indeed.
    • 4/5
       What made me pick up a second-hand copy of Jean Nathan's The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll I can't recall. But, after reading the prologue, I stopped at the local library branch and checked out four of Dare Wright's children's books.As a child, I had never read the stories of Edith, a doll who is lonely until the arrival of Mr. Bear and Little Bear. Edith and Little Bear pursue mischief and adventure that often finishes with Edith's rear-end over Mr. Bear's knee. The text is simple, but the photographs are not. Dare diligently posed Edith, often in hand-made clothes, and her teddy bear friend in complex environments that were both fantasy and real. To look at Edith, with her blonde hair and heavy bangs, sideways glance, and absent smile, you might think of a classic girls' toy. But once you know the life of her owner, you see Dare Wright in plastic and felt - her anxiety, childhood absences, and sexual hesitation finally manifested.Edith gets spanked by Mr. Bear (while Little Bear watches) in The Lonely DollNathan's fascinatingly rich biography brings intimacy between Dare and the reader. To highlight Dare's life in a few sentences will leave out the emotional tenderness and bizarre passions that Nathan captures. However, an overview will reveal new meanings in Dare's strangely dark children's stories.Her mother was Edie Stevenson Wright, a famous portrait painter who was serious about her ego and more serious about her looks. Dare had an older brother Blaine, who disappeared from her and her mother's life when Dare was just 3. As a child with few friends, Dare proved herself to be as artistic as her mother, and even more beautiful. More than anything in life, Dare wanted to please her mother, a goal she would maintain until Edie's death.In her twenties, Dare dabbled in theater and modeling, but with little success and certainly without passion. Longing for family, Dare set out to find her brother. When the two reconnected, Dare's passion was ignited. Their love was both familial and romantic; Nathan's elaboration of their relationship leaves the reader uncomfortable. Dare became engaged to a friend of Blaine's, though never went through with the wedding and never made any effort at relationships outside of those with her brother and mother.Dare finally found career comfort behind the camera, as a fashion photographer and then as a children's book author. Her first book, The Lonely Doll, was a huge success, though the spanking scene made some wonder. In all, Dare wrote and photographed 19 children's books, most of them with doll Edith as the main character. In these books, she also found friendship - particularly in Edith and Little Bear. Dare seemed to participate in the real world of adults through her children's toys' staged escapades.playing dress-up in Edith and Little Bear Lend a HandCommon themes in Dare's fantasy books parallel her real life paranoia and anxieties. Edith, named for Dare's mother, is lonely and desperate for a friend. When she finally finds one, it's not another doll, but a teddy bear, adorable but masculine, kind-hearted but stubborn. Their friendship echos Dare's relationship with her brother. Edith and Little Bear often play dress up, an enjoyable past-time for Dare and her mother, who often photographed these play sessions. As a consequence of misbehaving, Edith often ended up angering Mr. Bear - the father she never knew. Mr. Bear would threaten leaving and Edith would beg forgiveness with an almost sadomasochistic tinge. A good spanking and some stern words to behave, or else, are followed by tears and hugs that end the story.
    • 4/5
      Dare Wright was the author of "The Lonely Doll" books. Dare's life is fascinatingly glamorous, tragic and odd. Her dysfunctional upbringing created a grown virginal woman unable to form intimate, sexual relationships with men, preferring that they act more as her playmates. She and brother Blaine, who were separated by their divorced parents when they were very young, reunited as adults but their relationship was a confused combination of romantic love and childlike play. Dare's mother Edie, although indifferent to her children when they were young, went on to form a tight, oppressive and somewhat inappropriate relationship with her daughter. Dare's life was so tied to her mother that upon Edie's death, her own life fell apart. You can't help but feel sorry for a woman who was never permitted or encouraged to be independent and reach her emotional potential.
    • 5/5
      If you were a girlchild of the 1950s, The Lonely Doll was on your nightstand. It told the story in pictures of Edith, a glamorous doll living on her own, who is befriended by two teddy bears, Mr. Bear and Little Bear, and they become a family. There was always something creepily fascinating about it, maybe the fact that since the illustrations were all photos, I took it as fact, as opposed to books with drawings, which meant fiction to me. There was also the shock of seeing Edith, with her grown-up hoop earrings , getting spanked by Mr. Bear, neither of which, the spanking nor the earrings, had never happened to me. Somehow The Lonely Doll always haunted me, and I was not alone. Jean Nathan, the author, tried tracking down the book in the early '90s and ended up finding the author, Dare Wright, as well, right before her death by alcoholism. Researching Dare's background, she learned that her parents, Edith and Ivan, separated early on in their marriage, with Ivan keeping custody of older son Blaine and daughter Dare living with Edith. The children were not allowed to contact each other until after Ivan's death, as adults. Edith was a renowned society portrait artist based in Cleveland, and she and Dare were inseparable, sleeping in the same bed until Dare moved to New York and became a model and a photographer. Edith resented Blaine and he despised his mother for ignoring him and keeping the siblings apart. Dare was unable to form romantic or sexual attachments due to Edith's demands for all of her time and attention. Edith was a monster in the mode of another mother/daughter symbiotic hellish matchup, Edith (!) and Little Edie Beall of Grey Gardens fame. This is a fascinating study of the outcome of maternal selfishness, and Dare's success as an author and photographer did little to make for a happy or fulfilling life.
    • 4/5
       What made me pick up a second-hand copy of Jean Nathan's The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll I can't recall. But, after reading the prologue, I stopped at the local library branch and checked out four of Dare Wright's children's books.As a child, I had never read the stories of Edith, a doll who is lonely until the arrival of Mr. Bear and Little Bear. Edith and Little Bear pursue mischief and adventure that often finishes with Edith's rear-end over Mr. Bear's knee. The text is simple, but the photographs are not. Dare diligently posed Edith, often in hand-made clothes, and her teddy bear friend in complex environments that were both fantasy and real. To look at Edith, with her blonde hair and heavy bangs, sideways glance, and absent smile, you might think of a classic girls' toy. But once you know the life of her owner, you see Dare Wright in plastic and felt - her anxiety, childhood absences, and sexual hesitation finally manifested.Edith gets spanked by Mr. Bear (while Little Bear watches) in The Lonely DollNathan's fascinatingly rich biography brings intimacy between Dare and the reader. To highlight Dare's life in a few sentences will leave out the emotional tenderness and bizarre passions that Nathan captures. However, an overview will reveal new meanings in Dare's strangely dark children's stories.Her mother was Edie Stevenson Wright, a famous portrait painter who was serious about her ego and more serious about her looks. Dare had an older brother Blaine, who disappeared from her and her mother's life when Dare was just 3. As a child with few friends, Dare proved herself to be as artistic as her mother, and even more beautiful. More than anything in life, Dare wanted to please her mother, a goal she would maintain until Edie's death.In her twenties, Dare dabbled in theater and modeling, but with little success and certainly without passion. Longing for family, Dare set out to find her brother. When the two reconnected, Dare's passion was ignited. Their love was both familial and romantic; Nathan's elaboration of their relationship leaves the reader uncomfortable. Dare became engaged to a friend of Blaine's, though never went through with the wedding and never made any effort at relationships outside of those with her brother and mother.Dare finally found career comfort behind the camera, as a fashion photographer and then as a children's book author. Her first book, The Lonely Doll, was a huge success, though the spanking scene made some wonder. In all, Dare wrote and photographed 19 children's books, most of them with doll Edith as the main character. In these books, she also found friendship - particularly in Edith and Little Bear. Dare seemed to participate in the real world of adults through her children's toys' staged escapades.playing dress-up in Edith and Little Bear Lend a HandCommon themes in Dare's fantasy books parallel her real life paranoia and anxieties. Edith, named for Dare's mother, is lonely and desperate for a friend. When she finally finds one, it's not another doll, but a teddy bear, adorable but masculine, kind-hearted but stubborn. Their friendship echos Dare's relationship with her brother. Edith and Little Bear often play dress up, an enjoyable past-time for Dare and her mother, who often photographed these play sessions. As a consequence of misbehaving, Edith often ended up angering Mr. Bear - the father she never knew. Mr. Bear would threaten leaving and Edith would beg forgiveness with an almost sadomasochistic tinge. A good spanking and some stern words to behave, or else, are followed by tears and hugs that end the story.
    • 5/5
      I love me a weird read, and this was certainly one. You just have to read it to believe it all, and it's true!! Frighteningly sad....Poor Dare I felt so sorry for her! Going to have to keep this one and read it again!
    • 5/5
      The sad, tragic story of a disfunctional family, a lost girl who never figured out how to grow up, and the stories she wrote and photographed that became children's classics. Children never noticed that the Edith and the Bears books had a subliminal message. To adult eyes, however, the photos tell a dark and uncomfortable story of someone trapped and unable to find the door. I never saw Dare Wright's books as a child, and as a grownup I was never able to put my finger on why they bothered me. Now I know.

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    The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll - Jean Nathan

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