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299 C H a p t e r 1 8 Reinventing Herself after Her oUtBUrst against Harry CoHn, swanson was finished with movies. She had once told Adolph Zukor that every artist should be compelled to leave California for three months a year. Now she knew it was time to pull up stakes, to go somewhere she could feed her imagination and leave behind the same old conversations about the same old business. So Swanson threw herself a farewell party, packed her bags, and left the industry—and the industry town—where she found fame and fortune. Beyond the spotlights, without the guaranteed paychecks and the intense scrutiny of the fans, the executives, the columnists , and her colleagues, she would have a long and vibrant second act. The self-proclaimed “mental vampire” regretted her abbreviated education ; now she determined to use New York City as her classroom.1 Settling into the apartment at 920 Fifth Avenue she would call home for many years, Swanson studied the city’s art and architecture, attended the theater, collected (and read) rare books, and pursued her interests in fashion and design. None of this produced any income—at least not at first—but she did nothing by halves. Like her son Joseph, Swanson loved to tinker with things and observe how they worked: “I just happen to have that kind of a mind. I always figure out card tricks and I can read a blueprint and understand it.”2 She recalled fooling around with the idea for a wireless communication device more than a decade earlier . The time had not been right then—someone else had patented the idea first—but maybe now she could put her endless curiosity to work. Maybe it could help pay some of the bills. She kept hearing about the scientists stuck in Nazi Germany and began to hatch a plan: what if she could create a company that would employ both refugee inventors and herself? In no time Swanson convened a board of directors, all men with industry experience, and Multiprises, her least likely entrepreneurial adventure, was born. “I had all the r e i n v e n t i n g H e r s e l f 300 innocence of the brash amateur, so I didn’t know enough to put any limits on my catalogue of utopian products-to-be-invented or productsto -be-obtained.”3 She sent an envoy to Berlin in search of scientists who needed employment—and a way out. Henri de la Falaise, who had split from Constance Bennett and was living in France, came to Gloria’s aid, graciously providing a Paris “office” for the new company’s “headquarters.” He wrote letter after letter assuring the authorities that Multiprises guaranteed jobs for the four Viennese inventors Swanson’s envoy located. In January 1939, Gloria arrived in Paris, and four delighted men met her at the Gare Saint-Lazare, beaming and carrying bunches of violets. Electronics engineer Richard Kobler headed the group and managed its patents office. Leopold Karniol was a chemist and a plastics expert, Anton Kratky a metallurgist, and Leopold Neumann an acoustical engineer . Three were Jews; they had been forced to leave another colleague behind in a German concentration camp. Kobler had twice been detained by the Gestapo as he made his way from Berlin through Zurich to Paris. Their troubles were not yet over: Kobler needed a visa to travel to Brussels before he could leave Europe. Henri wangled Swanson an invitation to a party, where she waylaid the unsuspecting ministry official who could grant Kobler his visa. Soon she had the man under her spell, and Kobler had his travel pass. It took another six months to get the whole group out of Europe. By the time their temporary US visas expired, the inventors were in New York, Multiprises was up and running, and the US was at war with Germany. Thankfully there was no question of sending Jewish refugees —scientists with steady employment—back to face the Nazis. Seeing Henri again was a bright spot amid the dark of prewar Paris. Gloria adored his beautiful South American fiancée Emmita and gladly agreed to take legal steps to relinquish the title of marquise so Emmita could carry it. (Connie Bennett had never had official claim to the title , which satisfied Gloria, too.) The war brought Henri and Gloria close again: she helped Emmita raise money for wartime ambulances after the man Gloria called “her...

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