Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth
Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth (February 12, 1884 – February 20, 1980) was an American writer and prominent socialite. She was the eldest child of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and the only child he had with his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee. Longworth led an unconventional and controversial life. Her marriage to Representative Nicholas Longworth III, a Republican party leader and 38th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, was shaky, and her only child, Paulina, was from her affair with Senator William Edgar Borah.
Alice, frequently spoiled with gifts, matured into young womanhood, and became known as a great beauty like her mother. However, continuing tension with her stepmother and prolonged separation and limited attention from her father created a young woman who was as independent and outgoing as she was self-confident and calculating. When her father was Governor of New York, he and his wife proposed that Alice attend a conservative school for girls in New York City. Pulling out all the stops, Alice wrote, "If you send me I will humiliate you. I will do something that will shame you. I tell you I will."
When her father took office in 1901 following the assassination of President William McKinley, Jr. in Buffalo (an event that she greeted with "sheer rapture"[12]), Alice became a celebrity and fashion icon at age 17, and at her social debut in 1902 she wore a gown of what became known as "Alice blue", sparking a color trend in women's clothing.[13] Alice was known as a rule-breaker in an era when most women conformed with social norms. The Journal des Debats in Paris noted that in 15 months Alice Roosevelt had attended 407 dinners, 350 balls and 300 parties. One paper alleged that she had scandalously stripped down to her lingerie at a drunken orgy held at a Newport, Rhode Island, mansion, and danced atop a table, a story that proved to be false.[14] She smoked cigarettes in public, rode in cars with men, stayed out late partying, kept a pet snake named Emily Spinach (Emily after her spinster aunt and Spinach for its green color) in the White House, and was seen placing bets with a bookie.
Of her quotable comments, Alice's most famous found its way to a pillow on her settee: "If you can't say something good about someone, sit right here by me."[37] To Senator Joseph McCarthy, who had jokingly remarked at a party "Here's my blind date. I am going to call you Alice," she sarcastically said "Senator McCarthy, you are not going to call me Alice. The truckman, the trashman and the policeman on my block may call me Alice, but you may not." She informed President Lyndon B. Johnson that she wore wide-brimmed hats so he couldn't kiss her. When a well-known Washington senator was discovered to have been having an affair with a young woman less than half his age, she quipped, "You can't make a soufflé rise twice."[39] She said in a 60 Minutes interview with Eric Sevareid, televised on February 17, 1974, that she was a hedonist.
After many years of ill health, Alice died in her Embassy Row house on February 20, 1980, eight days after her 96th birthday, of emphysema and pneumonia, with contributory effects of a number of other chronic illnesses. She is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D.C. She was the last surviving child of Theodore Roosevelt.
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