24. The Gilded Age
Episode 24: The Gilded Age
AMY: Hi everybody, and welcome back to another Lost Ladies of Lit mini episode. I’m Amy Helmes, here with my co-host Kim Askew, and okay, so Kim, let’s talk about how thankful we are that we’ve had television during this pandemic to keep us sane. I know you don’t watch quite as much as I do, but…
KIM: Yes, but even I have my “must-see” shows, and we’ve both been watching “Bridgerton,” which we talked all about in our last mini episode.
AMY: Yeah, so much fun.
KIM: And I can’t wait to eventually watch “The Gilded Age” — we are both waiting for that, and probably all of you are, too. It’s coming from “Downton Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes. This show cannot come soon enough for me. I’m dying for it.
AMY: Yeah, I agree. It’s kind of a bummer that Covid basically had to slam the brakes on production of that one, which is, I think going to eventually air on HBO. But let’s talk about it anyway just to get ourselves excited about what we know so far — it’s something to look forward to on the horizon, and we can all use that.
KIM: Yes, for sure. Let’s talk about The Gilded Age.
AMY: We can always talk about The Gilded Age! Let’s face it.
KIM: Exactly. So knowing we’d be discussing this this week, I took the liberty (which I know you won’t mind) of pulling the synopsis for the show straight off of HBO’s website:
AMY: Okay, I’m dying to hear it; let’s go!
KIM: All right!
The American Gilded Age was a period of immense economic change, of huge fortunes made and lost, and the rise of disparity between old money and new.
Against this backdrop of change, the story begins in 1882 — introducing young Marian Brook, the orphaned daughter of a Union general, who moves into the New York City home of her thoroughly old money aunts Agnes van Rhijn and Ada Brook. Accompanied by Peggy Scott, an accomplished African-American woman, Marian inadvertently becomes enmeshed in a social war between one of her aunts, a scion of the old money set, and her stupendously rich neighbors, a ruthless railroad tycoon and his ambitious wife, George and Bertha Russell.
In this exciting new world that is on the brink of the modern age, will Marian follow the established rules of society, or forge her own path?
AMY: Ooh, that sounds good! You know what’s interesting is how much it actually sounds like “Bridgerton.” You have the neighbors living next door — one house is “old money,” high-society, the other house is “new money.”
KIM: That’s true, you’re absolutely right. That’s a really good point. Hmm.
AMY: And it’s going to be a 10-episode miniseries and I think it ends at that. Which is cool, but I’d also be down for watching something that goes into more seasons. I’m kind of bummed out that it’s just going to be a limited series.
KIM: Oh, yeah, I could stay in the Gilded Age. I’d be willing to invest in that world for much longer. We’ll all be so busy partying, though, I don’t know. Maybe 10 episodes is fine. If it were on right now, I’d want, like, 300 episodes.
AMY: That’s true, that’s true. We’ll all be hopefully traveling the globe, and oh my gosh, can you imagine if we suddenly had no time to watch this? I will always make time for it, Julian Fellowes, don’t you worry.
KIM: Absolutely. Totally. Yeah.
AMY: So in addition to being set in New York City, it’s also naturally going to take us to Newport Rhode Island, which I’m thrilled about. It’s going to be gorgeous, and you can only assume they’re going to be filming at or in, hopefully, some of those grand mansions. And they’re also going to be on location in Troy, New York, which is known for its historic Victorian homes. So, it’s going to be a lot of good backdrops.
KIM: Oh my gosh, I love it. It was sadly supposed to start production last March (so basically three weeks before the world completely shut down.)
AMY: That’s crummy timing!
KIM: I know. So now, at the time we recorded this, they were supposed to be filming from January through June of this year, but it’s difficult to know how on-schedule anything really is because of Covid, so I don’t know.
AMY: And you’ve got to wonder how all the new filming protocols are going to affect things. Cynthia Nixon, who is one of the stars, told Variety in the fall that things are pretty slow-going, because they had managed to get back into production in the fall (or start production in the fall) but she said they can’t have so many people on set. It sounds like it’s been challenging. She said they’ve also had to cut back a lot on the number of extras they’re going to be able to use. So hopefully it doesn’t feel too pared down. Hopefully we won’t notice that they’ve had to make cuts when we’re watching it, because for something called “The Gilded Age,” you want to feel like they just went all out, right?
KIM: Oh, absolutely. With all that said, though, even me, the ultimate optimist, is thinking maybe we won’t be able to watch this one before 2022, but I have a feeling it’s going to be worth the wait. You mentioned “Sex and the City’s” Cynthia Nixon. Who does she play in this? And who else makes up the cast? I am curious to know.
AMY: So Cynthia Nixon plays one of the rich spinster aunts that Marian goes to live with — Ada Brooke. The other aunt is played by Christine Baranski, who I think is going to be fun. She really knows how to bring her perfectly snooty A-game to any project she’s on, so that’ll be good.
KIM: I love her.
AMY: And then get this, Marian, the main young heroine, is played by Louisa Jacobson who is none other than the daughter of one Meryl Streep!
KIM: Ooh, okay, so I knew that Meryl Streep’s daughter Mamie Gummer acted, but I did not know about her other daughter. Okay, so Louisa Jacobson. I’m going to be googling her to find out more after we record this.
AMY: How awesome would it be if Meryl made, like, a cameo?
KIM: Oh, I would love that. Everyone would love that.
AMY: Okay, so, now, the next-door neighbors — the “railroad money” next door neighbors that you mentioned — are played by Carrie Coon and Morgan Spector, who I’m not very familiar with, but they have a lot of big credits to their name. Carrie Goon was in Gone Girl and HBO’s “The Leftovers” and Morgan Spector was in “Homeland” and “The Plot Against America.” And then we have a couple of Broadway stars in the cast in Denee Benton and Audra McDonald (love her!) and Jeanne Triplehorn shows up as a beautiful art collector with a potentially scandalous past that makes her a pariah of this high-society world. And that sounds very “Edith Wharton,” doesn’t it?
KIM: It does. And it sounds like we’ll also be getting a bit of that “Upstairs/Downstairs” vibe in that a variety of servant characters are mentioned in the cast list. So thumbs up to that.
AMY: It will be interesting to see how much they’re incorporated into the show and if it will sort of hew to that “Downton Abbey” template. Speaking of, I had thought originally that this series was supposed to be a prequel to “Downton Abbey” (that it was going to tell the backstory of Cora Crawley back when she was living in America). Obviously, that’s not the case, but I would have liked to have seen something like that.
KIM: I had heard that there was going to be a prequel with Cora Crawley, too, and I would love that. I wonder if there will still be something like that separately, because I think that’s a great idea.
AMY: At the same time, I guess I understand Julian Fellowes going with a fresh slate here with the story, but there’s so much that they’re going to be able to work with in terms of the time period. I mean the tension between old money and new money … this desperate race to marry well … Mrs. Astor and “the 400” I believe that pops up in the show as well.
KIM: Oh, right, so that’s a good point. Did you know that Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner actually coined the term “The Gilded Age?”
AMY: No, but I don’t even know who Charles Dudley Warner is.
KIM: So Mark Twain wrote a book with Charles Dudley Warner called The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. It was a novel. And “The Gilded Age” phrase was inspired by Shakespeare (as everything always comes back to Shakespeare, this does too) in the play King John. And I’m going to quote from that play: “To gild refined gold, to paint the lily … is wasteful and ridiculous excess.” So the phrase “the Gilded Age” actually refers to the period of prosperity and greed between the 1870s and about the late 1910s. The 400 list that Amy referred to is a list of New York society from that time which included the Astors, the Vanderbilts, and the Morgans (as in JP Morgan).
AMY: I know they were being wasteful and lavishly irresponsible with their money, and if you read anything about these parties in Newport, Rhode Island, they really, really went over the top. However, I just want to say I totally could have lived in that era.
KIM: I can imagine you living in that era.
AMY: Speaking of Newport, have you ever been there, Kim?
KIM: Only in my mind… I’ve never been to the “The Breakers” or “Marble House” or any of those beautiful old houses there, but I would love to go. Have you?
AMY: Yes, yes. Twice, I want to say. It’s amazing. It is just spectacular, so the fact that they’ll be filming there… I know that they put out a call for extras in Newport to come be part of the production, and they also were looking for people in the food industry that could come in and play actual kitchen servants because they wanted those people to look really accurate in what they were doing. I thought that was interesting. So..
KIM: Oh my gosh.
AMY: What?
KIM: I’m just imagining us being extras in “The Gilded Age!” We’d have to move to Newport or something, but…
AMY: How do we do it? Oh my god!
KIM: And I would not want to play a servant. I’m sorry to be snobby, but I want to play a Vanderbilt or something so I can wear a gorgeous Vanderbilt dress.
AMY: I want the costumes! Yes!
KIM: What about favorite books relating to the Gilded Age? Let’s talk about that.
AMY: Well, anything “Edith Wharton, right?” She’s got to be your go-to-gal. She’s the biggie.
KIM: True, and I have been to her house, The Mount, which we’ll probably talk about in another episode. That’s in the Berkshires. I love The Buccaneers. It’s a novel by her, and I think it was her last novel because she never finished it. And I think Amy has read it, too. We love that book, and it was turned into a great miniseries.
AMY: I don’t know if we watched it together. You might have lent me your copy or something. But it stars Carla Gugino. It came out in 1995… if you haven’t seen it, now would be a great time to bust that one out because it’ll sort of whet your appetite to get you ready for “The Gilded Age” series.
KIM: Yeah, okay. You really need to if you haven’t seen it because it’s literally one of my “Top 10” costume dramas. It’s wonderful. I think Carla Gugino is amazing in it. And Mira Sorvino is also in it. She plays Conchita Clausson. She’s basically inspired by the real-life Consuelo Vanderbilt. She married England’s Duke of Marlborough. She’s known as the American heiress who saved the British aristocracy.
AMY: Yeah, so she was basically “OG Meghan Markle” back in the day. The aristocracy in England was starting to be in jeopardy because they were losing their money, basically. They needed an influx of cash, and they needed it to save all their estates. And so they looked to America and these daughters, particularly daughters of some of the newly rich who were… It’s almost like an “odd couple” scenario, right? You have nobility in England looking to marry sort of brand new upper-crust Americans.
KIM: They wanted the money, and then the Americans wanted this air of aristocracy and nobility that we don’t have here in the States. So it was a “give and take” kind of thing.
AMY: Yeah, everybody got something out of it.
KIM: Yes.
AMY: But that’s basically the plot of The Buccaneers and that’s basically what Consuelo Vanderbilt ended up doing. She got engaged to the duke, went over and sort of had complete culture shock trying to fit in and learning a new way of life. There’s a biography about Consuelo and her mother, Alva, by Amanda MacKenzie Stuart that tells her story and it really transports you into this world. I think, yet again, Kim, you lent me that book, but I’m not even sure you read it yourself?
KIM: I actually got you that book, I think as a gift, and then you loaned it to me to read and I think still have it. As Amy knows, I’m not that great on nonfiction, sometimes, but it is really good, and it’s got a gorgeous cover with a painting of her on the front.
AMY: She was beloved by Englanders. They really took to her because she was so glamorous and wonderful, and I think she lived in England for the rest of her life. But Kim, if you want another novel from this time period that is interesting, I liked also The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin. It’s sort of that same kind of “Buccaneer,” “new money” American girl that’s brought to England to find a husband. It’s also a good fictionalized account of that time.
KIM: All the girls in The Buccaneers ended up going over and basically bringing their money to England and marrying (or at least trying to marry) into the aristocracy there. It’s really interesting. The American Heiress sounds great, too. So, as we said, The Gilded Age was basically taking place in America in around the 1870s and 1880s and a little bit later, and the next novel we’re discussing, was written around the same time, but in Ireland.
AMY: Yes, and just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, we’re going to be discussing “lost lady” Margaret Wolf Hungerford and her best known book, the delightful, funny and romantic Molly Bawn.
KIM: And with us to discuss Hungerford is our favorite Irish lass (or Irish-American lass) Jessica Callahan. She’s a development executive at Crown Media Family Networks and that’s the company behind everyone’s favorite Hallmark movies.
AMY: Ooh, it’s going to be a good one!
KIM: We’re also having a lot of fun getting to engage with you over at our Facebook page, so if you haven’t yet, go over, check out our “Lost Ladies of Lit” Facebook page and follow it so you can be part of our updates.
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AMY: And don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast and leave us a review if you’re liking what you’ve been hearing! All right, bye, everybody!
KIM: Our theme song was written and performed by Jennie Malone, and our logo was designed by Harriet Grant. “Lost Ladies of Lit” is produced by Kim Askew and Amy Helmes.