Harry Kendall Thaw (February 12, 1871 – February 22, 1947) was the son of American coal and railroad baron William Thaw. Plagued by mental illness since childhood, Thaw led a profligate life. Heir to a multi-million dollar fortune, he spent money lavishly to fund his obsessive partying, drug addiction, and the gratification of his sexual appetites. It is alleged that it was at this point in time that the term “playboy” entered the popular vocabulary coined to describe the lifestyle that Thaw so energetically pursued. The Thaw family wealth allowed them to buy the silence of those individuals who threatened to make public the worst of Thaw’s reckless behavior and licentious transgressions. Throughout his life, however, he had several serious confrontations with the criminal justice system, which resulted in his incarceration in mental institutions.
His historical legacy rests on one notorious act. In 1906, on the rooftop of Madison Square Garden, Thaw murdered renowned architect Stanford White who had been the lover of Thaw's wife, model/chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit.
Read more about Harry Kendall Thaw: Early Life, Obsession With Stanford White, Drug Use, Murder of Stanford White, Trial, Arrest For Assault, Children, Later Life, Death
Famous quotes containing the words harry, kendall and/or thaw:
“Comes from a fine family. So she tells me. Brother’s a priest, all that. But, you know, death, disaster, unfortunate investments. One day she’s a little princess, up on the hill. Next, she’s down there, working the bars for the best she can.”
—Peter Prince, British screenwriter, and Stephen Frears. Harry (Bill Hunter)
“It was always the work that was the gyroscope in my life. I don’t know who could have lived with me. As an architect you’re absolutely devoured. A woman’s cast in a lot of roles and a man isn’t. I couldn’t be an architect and be a wife and mother.”
—Eleanore Kendall Pettersen (b. 1916)
“So unrecorded did it slip away,
So blind was I to see and to foresee,
So dull to mark the budding of my tree
That would not blossom yet for many a May.
If only I could recollect it, such
A day of days! I let it come and go
As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow;
It seemed to mean so little, meant so much;
If only now I could recall that touch,
First touch of hand in hand—Did one but know!”
—Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894)