Blanche Oelrichs - Life and Career

Life and Career

Born Blanche Marie Louise Oelrichs at her uncle's Hermann Oelrichs' opulent mansion in Newport, Rhode Island designed by renowned architect Stanford White, Blanche Oelrichs spent summers amidst the Astors, the Vanderbilts and numerous other wealthy elites of American society. Her parents were Charles May Oelrichs, and Blanche de Loosey (whose sister was Emilie de Loosey, later Mrs Theodore A. Havemeyer). Her sister Natalie, always known as Lily, became Mrs Peter Martin of San Francisco, and after Peter Martin's premature death, later married Heinrich Borwin, Duke of Mecklenburg, but they later divorced.

On January 26, 1910, Blanche Oelrichs married Leonard Moorhead Thomas, the son of a prominent Philadelphia banker, with whom she had two children, Leonard Jr. (b. 1911–1968) and Robin May Thomas (1915–1944). A Yale University graduate, her husband had worked in the diplomatic service in Rome and Madrid and served with the United States Army in Europe during World War I, earning the Croix de Guerre from the government of France. Blanche Oelrichs involved herself as an activist for women's suffrage but her love for literature and poetry, especially the works of Walt Whitman, saw her begin writing verse of her own. Using the pen name Michael Strange, she had her first collection of poems published in 1916.

French portrait artist Paul Helleu described Blanche Oerlichs as the "most beautiful woman in America."

Through her social activities, Blanche Oelrichs-Thomas met renowned actor John Barrymore. They had been introduced by actress Cathleen Nesbitt, Barrymore's leading woman in the 1916 play Justice. Blanche continued seeing him for four years and after divorcing Thomas she married Barrymore on August 5, 1920, when she was already several months' pregnant with their only child, Diana Blanche Barrymore, who was born on March 3, 1921. With drawings provided by John Barrymore, Blanche Oelrichs published a book in 1921 titled "Resurrecting Life." She then turned her writing skills to the creation of theatrical plays including a 1921 Broadway production titled "Clair de lune." Based on "L'Homme qui rit" by Victor Hugo, her play starred her husband and his sister Ethel Barrymore. It was made into a 1932 movie of the same name in France by director Henri Diamant-Berger.

In 1921, Oelrichs was among the first to join the Lucy Stone League, an organization that fought for women to preserve their maiden names after marriage.

Frequently apart from her husband due to his performing in New York and London, England, Blanche Oelrichs spent a great deal of time in Paris, France during the next few years. After returning to live in New York, she began acting in live theatre. After her marriage to John Barrymore ended in May 1925 she performed on stage with a summer stock company in Salem, Massachusetts and appeared in two Broadway plays in 1926 and 1927.

Another book of Oelrichs' poetry was published in 1928 under the title "Selected poems, by Michael Strange" and the following year she married a third time to the prominent New York attorney Harrison Tweed who later became Chairman of Sarah Lawrence College. During the second half of the 1930s Oelrichs hosted a poetry and music program on New York radio station WOR that gained a strong audience. In 1940, Blanche Oelrichs published her autobiography, "Who Tells Me True." In 1942 she and Harrison Tweed divorced and in 1944 her son Robin died at the age of twenty-nine.

Starting in the summer of 1940 until her death, Oelrichs was in a long-term relationship with Margaret Wise Brown, the author of many children's books. The relationship began as something of a mentoring one, but became a romantic relationship including co-habitating at 10 Gracie Street beginning in 1943.

In 1960 her daughter Diana Barrymore died at age thirty-eight after several years of drug and alcohol addiction. Her older son Leonard was married to painter Yvonne Thomas née Navella. Two daughters were born to Leonard and Yvonne and are the only grandchildren of Blanche Oelrichs.

Blanche Oelrichs died from leukemia in 1950 in Boston. She was interred with her son Robin in the Oelrichs family plot in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York.