Isabel Leighton

Isabel Leighton Bunker (July 17, 1899 – April 22, 1995) was an American writer and actress. She was the writer of six Broadway plays,[1] and had an extensive journalism career throughout the 1930s and 40s.

Isabel Leighton
Leighton in 1921
Born
Isabella Kahn

(1899-07-17)July 17, 1899
New York City, U.S.
DiedApril 22, 1995(1995-04-22) (aged 95)
New York City, U.S.
Occupation(s)Actress, writer
Spouses
Herbert B. Lederer
​
(died 1933)​
    Frederic A. Willis
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1935, divorced)​
      Arthur H. Bunker
      ​
      (died 1964)​

      Early life

      Leighton was born as Isabella Kahn on July 17, 1899, in New York, New York, to Clara (née Rothschild) and David Kahn and was raised in high society.[2][3][Notes 1] She graduated from Horace Mann School and then attended the Columbia School of Journalism, making her debut in 1917, before leaving school to marry.[2][8]

      Career

      As actress

      Leighton's career began in the 1920s, when she appeared in several Broadway productions.[1]

      In 1920, she performed in Deburau.[9] In 1922, she starred in Why Men Leave Home.[9] In the next year, she starred in Anathema and What's Your Wife Doing?[9]

      In 1924, she starred in the John Henry Mears-produced play Sweet Seventeen at the Lyceum Theater.[10] In the same year, she starred in The Haunted House.[9] In 1925, she starred in The Dagger.[9]

      As scriptwriter

      Leighton's first play was Mercenary Mary, which was written in 1925.[1] It was an adaptation of the play What's Your Wife Doing?, which she had acted in two years earlier, and was performed in New York and Chicago.[11] In the same year, she adapted The Sapphire Ring from Hungarian for the stage.[9][12]

      In 1927, she cowrote the operetta Katja with Frederick Lonsdale and Harry Graham. It was adapted from a German original and performed in Chicago's Garrick Theater.[13] The next year, she adapted the play Polly With a Past into a musical comedy called Polly.[14] It was performed on Broadway in 1929.[9]

      In 1939, Leighton wrote the story for the film Fight for Your Lady alongside Jean Negulesco.[15][16]: 208  In 1941, she collaborated with Bertram Bloch to write the play Spring Again.[1]

      As journalist and author

      During the 1930s and 40s, Leighton wrote for several magazines,[1] including The Smart Set.[17]: 75  She wrote for the North American Newspaper Alliance,[1] for whom she interviewed Carol II of Romania in 1931.[18]

      In 1933, she published My Boy Franklin with Gabrielle Forbush, a collection of interviews with Sara Roosevelt about her son Franklin D. Roosevelt.[1] Segments of the interviews were published in Good Housekeeping in February of that year.[19] In the same year, she worked with Margaret Livingston Whiteman to write Whiteman's Burden, a look at her husband Paul Whiteman's difficulties with losing weight.[20]

      During the Second World War, she served as a naval correspondent.[1] In 1944, she published Where Away: A Modern Odyssey with George Sessions Perry, which told the story of the USS Marblehead.[1]

      Leighton edited a collection of essays on life during the Interwar period titled The Aspirin Age: 1919-41.[1] It featured essays from John Lardner and Howard Fast among others.[1]

      In 1945, she conducted an exclusive interview with Soong Mei-ling, the wife of Chiang Kai-shek.[21]

      Mental health activism

      In the 1950s, Leighton served as moderator on the television show How Did They Get That Way?, which dealt with mental health issues.[1]

      She served on the boards of the World Federation for Mental Health, Menninger Foundation,[1] and the National Committee for Mental Hygiene.[22]: 1257 

      Political activism

      In 1933, Leighton served as head of the women's committee of the National Recovery Administration campaign in New York City.[23] She was appointed vice-chairman of the independent citizen's committee for Democratic New York mayoral candidate Joseph V. McKee,[23] and vice-chairman for the women's division of his campaign.[24]

      Personal life

      Aged 17, Isabella married Herbert B. Lederer, a customer's man (registered representative) at Edward B. Smith & Co. brokerage firm. A dozen years into this marriage, she told an interviewer that American men seek out youth to their detriment, and that an older woman has more to offer, not least in constructive companionship.[2] Herbert Lederer hanged himself in October 1933 at their 1045 Park Avenue apartment.[23]

      On February 15, 1935, at Norwalk, Connecticut, Leighton married Frederic A. Willis, assistant to William S. Paley, the president of Columbia Broadcasting System.[25] Her second husband was a grandson of British Army officer Frederick Willis and a distant cousin of Winston Churchill through the Jerome family.[26][27] His ex-wife, Helen Thornton Willis, committed suicide in her Park Avenue apartment in May 1938.[27] Another ex-wife, Helen Hoadley Willis, married lawyer Lydig Hoyt[28] (who had also married a 17 year old actress, Julia Hoyt)[29]). Leighton and Willis were divorced by 1957.[26]

      Leighton was later married to Arthur H. Bunker, an American businessman and the brother of diplomat Ellsworth Bunker.[30] His ex-wife, Frances Wilkinson, married Italian ambassador Augusto Rosso ("Mussolini's man") in January 1937.[31][32] Bunker's daughter Daphne was found strangled on June 4, 1962, in her Topeka apartment. She had been a patient at the Menninger Clinic in the city and was briefly married to the writer Evan H. Rhodes.[33][1] Bunker died of leukemia in 1964.[34]

      By 1964, she was living in the River House apartment building.[35] In October 1964, she hosted a party for Rhodes and his co-author Merle Miller on the publication of their book Only You, Dick Daring[35] (subtitled OR, HOW TO WRITE ONE TELEVISION SCRIPT AND MAKE $50,000,000, A TRUE-LIFE ADVENTURE). Guests included her brother-in-law Ellsworth Bunker, Joshua Logan and his wife Nedda Harrigan, and Hugh John Casey.[35] In May 1968, she hosted a cocktail party for Gloria Vanderbilt on the opening of a new art exhibition.[36]

      Following a farewell dinner for Rudolf Bing at the Metropolitan Opera House on October 31, 1971, Leighton and two others were attacked by armed robbers outside River House, having thousands of dollars worth of jewelry stolen.[37]

      Leighton died (aged 95) from a stroke at her Manhattan home on April 22, 1995.[1]

      Legacy

      Leighton's papers are kept within the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at the Yale University Library and contain materials on her acting, writing, and mental health work.[4] It includes scripts for The Sapphire Ring, Cadge, and Mercenary Mary, as well as correspondence from John Kenneth Galbraith, Henry Kissinger, and Archibald MacLeish.[38]: 89 

      Yale professorship

      With Arthur Bunker having graduated from Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School in 1916, Leighton left a bequest following her death to create a new chair in hematology called the Arthur H. and Isabel Bunker Associate Professor in Medicine.[34] Hematology covers the study of blood cancers such as the leukemia from which her husband died. The list of chairs and their appointed years is as follows:

      Filmography
      Title Year of production Media Notes
      Deburau 1920 Stage work
      Why Men Leave Home 1922 Stage work
      Anathema 1923 Stage work
      What's Your Wife Doing? 1923 Stage work
      Sweet Seventeen 1924 Stage work Performed at the Lyceum Theater.
      The Haunted House 1924 Stage work

      Publications

      Books
      Title Year of first
      publication      		 First edition publisher Notes
      My Boy Franklin 1933 New York: Ray Long & Richard R. Smith
      Whiteman's Burden 1933 New York: Viking Press Cowritten with Margaret Livingston Whiteman.
      Where Away: A Modern Odyssey 1944 Cowritten with George Sessions Perry.
      The Aspirin Age: 1919-41 1949 New York: Simon and Schuster Editor.

      Scripts
      Title Year of release Media Notes
      The Sapphire Ring 1925 Stage work
      Mercenary Mary 1925 Stage work
      Katja 1927 Operetta Cowritten with Frederick Lonsdale and Harry Graham.
      Polly 1928 Stage work
      Fight for Your Lady 1937 Film Story cowritten with Jean Negulesco.
      Spring Again 1941 Stage work Cowritten with Bertram Bloch.

      Notes
      1. Some sources give her birth date as July 17, 1901,[4][5] while her passport applications and birth record reflect that it was in 1899.[3][6][7]

      References
      1. "Isabel Leighton, 95; Actress and Writer". The New York Times. April 27, 1995. Archived from the original on June 29, 2021. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
      2. Alden, Alice (May 7, 1933). "Men Err Demanding Youth". Sunday News. Lancaster Pennsylvania. p. 3. Retrieved February 1, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
      3. "New York City Births: 1899 Isabella Kahn". FamilySearch. New York City, New York: New York Municipal Archives. July 17, 1899. Retrieved February 1, 2022.
      4. "Isabel Leighton papers". Archives at Yale. Archived from the original on August 25, 2020. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
      5. "Ship Passenger Lists, New York Arrivals: Aquitania". Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. May 18, 1929. NARA Series T715, Roll 4498, line 12. Retrieved February 1, 2022.
      6. "Passport Applications: 1909 David, Clara, and Isabel C. Kahn". FamilySearch. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. April 20, 1909. NARA Series M1490, Roll 82, application #2961. Retrieved February 1, 2022.
      7. "Passport Applications: 1918 Isabel Kahn Lederer". FamilySearch. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. December 19, 1918. NARA Series M1490, Roll 656, application #52483. Retrieved February 1, 2022.
      8. "Miss Kahn to Wed H. B. Lederer". The New York Times. New York, New York. July 30, 1918. p. 11. Retrieved February 1, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
      9. "Isabel Leighton (Performer)". Playbill. Archived from the original on October 2, 2021. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
      10. Robinson, David (March 23, 1924). "New York Theater Gossip". The Miami Herald. p. 14A. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
      11. "Mercenary Mary". Chicago Tribune. August 18, 1925. p. 17. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
      12. "Theater". Chicago Tribune. February 26, 1925. p. 17. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
      13. "Katja". Chicago Tribune. March 14, 1927. p. 23. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
      14. "Polly". The Philadelphia Inquirer. November 4, 1928. p. 5 TH. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
      15. "Isabel Leighton". BFI. Archived from the original on March 1, 2021. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
      16. Capua, Michelangelo (September 1, 2017). Jean Negulesco: The Life and Films. McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-6653-2. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
      17. Rose, Kenneth D. (June 1997). American Women and the Repeal of Prohibition. NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-7466-3. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
      18. Leighton, Isabel (August 9, 1931). "King Carol of Roumania, Granting Interview to American Woman, Frankly Declares Return of the Princess Helen is an Impossibility". The Times Dispatch. p. III-1. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
      19. "Groton Record Set by President-Elect". The Boston Globe. January 25, 1933. p. 21. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
      20. "Paul Whiteman's Big Heart Stops; Jazzman Was 76". Daily News. December 30, 1967. p. 4. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
      21. Leighton, Isabel (November 27, 1945). "'America Can Lead World Out of Wilderness'". The Boston Globe. p. 20. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
      22. Hearings. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1950. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
      23. "Broker Hangs Self to Transom". The Miami Herald. October 21, 1933. p. 18. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
      24. "Husband of Actress, Wall Street Broker Employee, Hangs Self". Chicago Tribune. October 21, 1933. p. 13. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
      25. "Writer Weds". Daily News. February 17, 1935. p. 18. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
      26. Randolph, Nancy (December 4, 1957). "People and Plans". Daily News. p. 8. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
      27. "Fashion writer, Failing in 'Comeback' Ends Life". The Morning News. May 21, 1938. p. 1. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
      28. "Mrs. Helen H. Willis Bride of Lydig Hoyt; New Yorkers Marry in Paris and Leave on Secret Honeymoon". The New York Times. June 28, 1928. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
      29. "Miss Julia Robbins Marries Lydig Hoyt" New York Times (June 4, 1914).
      30. "Arthur H. Bunker Dead at 68; American Metal Climax Officer; Headed Executive Committee —Distinguished in Mining, Finance, Public Service". The New York Times. May 20, 1964. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
      31. "U.S. Divorcee to Wed Envoy, Capital Hears". Daily News. October 21, 1936. p. 52. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
      32. "Mrs. Bunker Bride of Augusto Rosso; Washington Society Woman Is Wed to Italian Ambassador to Moscow in Paris". The New York Times. January 29, 1937. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
      33. "Tycoon's Daughter is Slain". Daily News. June 5, 1962. p. 3. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
      34. "Hematologist awarded endowed chair". Yale Medicine. Yale School of Medicine. 31 (4): 39. Fall 1997.
      35. "Isabel's Divine Party for 'Only You, Dick Daring'". Daily News. October 7, 1964. p. 20. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
      36. "Zoocotheque". Daily News. May 27, 1968. p. 12. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
      37. McFadden, William (November 1, 1971). "Quick Holdup Costs 2 Women 100G in Gems". Daily News. p. 3. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
      38. "Recent Acquisitions Briefly Noted". The Yale University Library Gazette. 71 (1/2): 75–96. 1996. ISSN 0044-0175. JSTOR 40859163. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
      39. "Dr. Madhav Dhodapkar is the New Bunker Professor of Hematology". YaleNews. May 16, 2008. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
      40. "Müschen named to Arthur H. and Isabel Bunker Professorship at Yale". YaleNews. October 21, 2020. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
      41. "Halene named Arthur H. and Isabel Bunker Associate Professor of Medicine". YaleNews. December 15, 2021. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
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