This is the rollicking, never-before-published memoir of a
fascinating woman with an uncanny knack for being in the right place
in the most interesting times. Of racially mixed heritage, Anita
Reynolds was proudly African American but often passed for Indian,
Mexican, or Creole. Actress, dancer, model, literary critic,
psychologist, but above all free-spirited provocateur, she was, as
her Parisian friends nicknamed her, an "American cocktail."
One
of the first black stars of the silent era, she appeared in Hollywood
movies with Rudolph Valentino, attended Charlie Chaplin's anarchist
meetings, and studied dance with Ruth St. Denis. She moved to New
York in the 1920s and made a splash with both Harlem Renaissance
elites and Greenwich Village bohemians. An émigré in Paris, she
fell in with the Left Bank avant garde, befriending Antonin Artaud,
Man Ray, and Pablo Picasso. Next, she took up residence as a
journalist in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War and witnessed
firsthand the growing menace of fascism. In 1940, as the Nazi panzers
closed in on Paris, Reynolds spent the final days before the French
capitulation as a Red Cross nurse, afterward making a mad dash for
Lisbon to escape on the last ship departing Europe.
In
prose that perfectly captures the globetrotting nonchalance of its
author, American Cocktail presents a stimulating,
unforgettable self-portrait of a truly extraordinary woman.