Perle Mesta acquired many sobriquets during her long life. Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn called her “Perly-Whirly.” Aristocratic activist Daisy Harriman dismissed her as “Mrs. Thing.” To postwar Luxembourg, she was “Madame Minister.” But the nickname that endures comes from Ethel Merman’s brassy portrayal of her in Irving Berlin’s 1950 musical, Call Me Madam. Fifty years after her death, Perle Mesta is still “the Hostess with the Mostest.”
In The Woman Who Knew Everyone, Meryl Gordon charts her rise through society and politics from her plain Midwestern roots to the corridors, dinner tables, and ballrooms of power in Washington.
Perle Mesta was born in 1882 to the successful land-and-oil speculator William Skirvin. Her real life, however, began in 1915, when, at 33, with a generous allowance from her father, she moved from Oklahoma to Manhattan. Two years later, she married Pittsburgh steel magnate George Mesta.
The marriage was a happy one, but Perle and Pittsburgh didn’t mix well. When George was appointed to a wartime labor board, Perle met the city of her future: Washington, D.C. A chance encounter with Thomas Marshall, vice president under Woodrow Wilson, opened the first of many doors that Perle passed through on her way to social supremacy. She was friendly, generous, and astute. Invitations to dinners led to charity events, which led to club memberships and better invitations. “I began to understand how a Washington hostess could be a factor in politics by having the right people at the right time,” she wrote later.
George died suddenly in 1925, leaving Perle with plenty of time and money on her hands. (The couple did not have any children.) Bringing the “right people” together became her life’s work. Many important Washingtonians lived on modest government salaries, making Perle’s natural generosity and deep purse a winning combination. She shared her opera boxes and her tables at charity balls with them, underwrote their daughters’ debutante parties, and fêted them grandly.
Her parties were also great fun. She imported entertainers from Broadway and hired the best bands. Money was no object; Perle’s fortune was unaffected by the 1929 crash. But her success as a hostess came from more than mere extravagance. Author Louis Bromfield said, “She could give you a good time if she only had a 5-cent beer.”
During the Depression, with readers craving diversion, her parties, her clothes, her jewels, and her joie de vivre became newspaper copy all over America. In 1930, her name appeared in more than 300 newspaper stories. Nearly 20 years later, she was on the cover of Time magazine.
Crowning her court of capital bigwigs, three presidents joined Perle’s inner circle. She and Harry Truman hit it off when they met, in 1938, during her passionate work for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. Perle campaigned hard for his selection as F.D.R.’s 1944 running mate and for his own election, in 1948. The Eisenhowers were already old friends when Ike won the White House in 1952. And Perle jumped on L.B.J.’s bandwagon in 1956 and never got off, entertaining and stumping for him until he left the presidency. Through these administrations, she was a regular guest at formal White House functions, while relishing private First Family time full of travels, celebrations, gossip, and gifts.
Truman gave her the gift she treasured most: the post of minister to Luxembourg. Perle called her tour there “the five happiest years of my life.” She brought originality and pizzazz to her official entertaining: For one evening, she imported violinist Isaac Stern to play for her guests, then led them in square dancing. She inaugurated a yearly Christmas party for war orphans at the residence. For homesick American G.I.’s, she launched a monthly open house and, endearingly, wrote to their mothers afterward. Her own celebrity raised the profile of the tiny duchy and drew precious tourism dollars.
Call Me Madam, the rollicking spoof of her diplomatic career, was a Broadway smash hit. Perle took the tease like the good sport she was. Now at the height of her fame, she became a columnist for several publications and co-wrote a best-selling autobiography. She toured the U.S.S.R. as its first official civilian visitor. Later, she spread her unofficial goodwill on a private tour of Asia, visiting 17 countries and meeting leaders from Nasser to Nehru.
Through her 70s and 80s, Perle continued entertaining, supporting her chosen candidates and her perennial favorite cause, the E.R.A. Her last big party was for Texan John Connally in 1972. “You’re an event in the life of America,” he toasted her. A few months later, Perle fell and broke her hip. She never fully recovered, gradually declining to death in 1975.
Perle Mesta lived in the spirit of “mostest,” pouring herself into everything she did with zest, determination, and humor. Gordon’s book is an easy read through her life, a tribute to the Perle we remember and a revelation of the one we never knew.
Robin Olson is a writer and painter
