Theodora Keogh
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Theodora Roosevelt Keogh O'Toole Rauchfuss (June 30, 1919 – January 5, 2008) was an American novelist writing under her first married name, Theodora Keogh, in the 1950s and 1960s. She was a member of the
Roosevelt family The Roosevelt family is an American political family from New York whose members have included two United States presidents, a First Lady, and various merchants, bankers, politicians, inventors, clergymen, artists, and socialites. The progeny ...
, born in New York City. She worked as a professional dancer in Canada and South America, but retired from this career in 1945. She wrote nine novels, which were published between 1950 and 1962. Her characters' personalities tended to have hidden dark sides. She explored gay and lesbian themes in her novels. She is considered an early writer of lesbian pulp fiction. Her works were largely forgotten between the 1960s and the early 2000s, when they were republished and "rediscovered". During her writing career, Keogh lived in Paris. She moved to Rome in the 1960s, and settled in
North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...
in the 1970s. She spend the rest of her life as a resident of
Caldwell County, North Carolina Caldwell County is a county in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. As of the 2020 census, the population was 80,652. Its county seat is Lenoir. Caldwell County is part of the Hickory- ...
. Following the death of her third and last husband in 1989, she lived alone in a house in the woods.


Early life and education

Theodora Roosevelt was born on June 30, 1919, in New York City, the granddaughter of United States President
Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), also known as Teddy or T.R., was the 26th president of the United States, serving from 1901 to 1909. Roosevelt previously was involved in New York (state), New York politics, incl ...
. She was the eldest of three daughters born to Grace Lockwood and Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt's third son. Archie Roosevelt served in the Army in World War II and received the
Silver Star The Silver Star Medal (SSM) is the United States Armed Forces' third-highest military decoration for valor in combat. The Silver Star Medal is awarded primarily to members of the United States Armed Forces for gallantry in action against a ...
. He later was chairman of Roosevelt & Cross, a
Wall Street Wall Street is a street in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs eight city blocks between Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway in the west and South Street (Manhattan), South Str ...
investment firm. Theodora's mother was Grace Lockwood, daughter of Thomas Lockwood and Emmeline Stackpole of
Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
. Theodora was the eldest of three siblings. Theodora was brought up on the
Upper East Side The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the boroughs of New York City, borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded approximately by 96th Street (Manhattan), 96th Street to the north, the East River to the e ...
of New York, near the
East River The East River is a saltwater Estuary, tidal estuary or strait in New York City. The waterway, which is not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island, ...
, and in the country at Cold Spring Harbor near Oyster Bay. She attended
Chapin School Chapin School is an single-sex education, all-girls independent day school on Manhattan's Upper East Side neighborhood in New York City. History Maria Bowen Chapin opened "Miss Chapin's School for Girls and Kindergarten for Boys and Girls" ...
and
Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard Colle ...
, finishing her education at Countess Montgelas' in
Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
, Germany. After finishing her education, she was briefly a
debutante A debutante, also spelled débutante ( ; from , ), or deb is a young woman of aristocratic or upper-class family background who has reached maturity and is presented to society at a formal "debut" ( , ; ) or possibly debutante ball. Origin ...
in New York and was introduced to society in 1937. She then began her professional life as a dancer in South America and Canada. In 1945, she gave up dancing when she married Tom Keogh, a costumer, and moved to Paris. In France, Tom Keogh designed for the theater and the ballet and worked as an illustrator for '' Vogue'' magazine. He designed costumes for such films as '' The Pirate'' (1948) with
Judy Garland Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm; June 10, 1922June 22, 1969) was an American actress and singer. Possessing a strong contralto voice, she was celebrated for her emotional depth and versatility across film, stage, and concert performance. ...
and '' Daddy Long Legs'' (1955) with Leslie Caron. Through the couple's friendships in Paris, Theodora became connected with writers and editors for the '' Paris Review'', including George Plimpton and
Peter Matthiessen Peter Matthiessen (May 22, 1927 – April 5, 2014) was an American novelist, naturalist, wilderness writer, zen teacher and onetime CIA agent. A co-founder of the literary magazine ''The Paris Review'', he is the only writer to have won the Nat ...
, co-founders of the ''Review''; Scottish novelist
Alexander Trocchi Alexander Whitelaw Robertson Trocchi ( ; 30 July 1925 – 15 April 1984) was a Scottish novelist. Early life and career Trocchi was born in Glasgow to Alfred (formerly Alfredo) Trocchi, a music-hall performer of Italian parentage, and Annie ...
; the poet Christopher Logue; and
Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...
poet and screenwriter
Eugene Walter Eugene Ferdinand Walter, Jr. (November 30, 1921 – March 29, 1998) was an American screenwriter, poet, short-story author, actor, puppeteer, gourmet chef, cryptographer, translator, editor, costume designer and well-known raconteur. During his y ...
.


Writing career

Keogh wrote nine novels during the period of 1950 to 1962, after which time she gave up writing completely. In her later life, Theodora played down her Roosevelt connections as she wanted her writings and her talents to be judged on their own merits. Her novels tend to focus on characters with psychological conflicts, and often with dark sides to their personalities. In this regard, her themes are similar to those of novelist
Patricia Highsmith Patricia Highsmith (born Mary Patricia Plangman; January 19, 1921 – February 4, 1995) was an American novelist and short story writer widely known for her psychological thrillers, including her series of five novels featuring the character T ...
, most noted for '' Strangers on a Train'' and ''
The Talented Mr. Ripley ''The Talented Mr. Ripley'' is a 1955 psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith. The novel introduced the character of con man Tom Ripley, whom Highsmith wrote about in four subsequent books. Its numerous film and television adaptation ...
''. Like Highsmith, she created characters who seemed quite normal on the surface and in relation to the social conventions of their day, but who had another side to their lives and their identities. Indeed, her first novel, ''Meg'', published in 1950, garnered a response from Highsmith, who notoriously rarely reviewed anything: "She writes with a skill and command of her material that should set her promptly into the ranks of the finer young writers of today." Also similar to Highsmith, Keogh's novels were also noteworthy for exploring gay and lesbian themes, which were daring topics for the era in which she was writing. Her novels were largely neglected after the 1960s but were rediscovered and reissued by Olympia Press during 2002–2007. The attention to her work after about thirty to forty years of dormancy brought both surprise and delight to Theodora in the final years of her life. Keogh's works were reprinted primarily for three reasons. First, her style is very modern and represents a transition from
Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...
to
modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
and
postmodernism Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, Culture, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting ...
that mirrors not only writers like Highsmith but also
Raymond Chandler Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive durin ...
and
Dashiell Hammett Samuel Dashiell Hammett ( ; May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American writer of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. He was also a screenwriter and political activist. Among the characters he created are Sam Spade ('' The Ma ...
. Second, she is admired for her exploration of psychological issues and in thus creating complex characters who often present one personality to the world while having a secret and immoral life that is in contradiction. Explorations of the tensions between the socially accepted and the inwardly rebellious or evil side of the same person's psyche have made Keogh's novels of greater interest. Third, she is admired for her explorations of lesbian and gay themes, and this approach has made her popular as one of the writers, like Ann Bannon, Marijane Meaker, and
Doris Grumbach Doris M. Grumbach (''née'' Isaac; July 12, 1918 – November 4, 2022) was an American novelist, memoirist, biographer, literary critic, and essayist. She taught at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and ...
who opened post-World War II American fiction to explorations of homosexuality. Her handling of these themes in often lurid detail also made her popular, as one of the early writers of lesbian pulp fiction.


Personal life and death

Keogh divorced Tom Keogh in the 1960s after his affair with Marie-Laure de Noailles. Upon the divorce, Keogh left Paris and lived in Rome, then New York. Influenced by the
Greta Garbo Greta Garbo (born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson; 18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990) was a Swedish-American actress and a premier star during Hollywood's Silent film, silent and early Classical Hollywood cinema, golden eras. Regarded as one of the g ...
film ''Anna Christie'', she bought a tugboat, which she sailed in the Atlantic Ocean. Her interest in tugboats also led to her second marriage with Thomas "Tommy" O'Toole. O'Toole has been referred to as a tugboat captain, but he was actually a steward on the Circle Line. During the marriage, the couple lived in an apartment at the
Hotel Chelsea The Hotel Chelsea (also known as the Chelsea Hotel and the Chelsea) is a hotel at 222 West 23rd Street in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Built between 1883 and 1884, the hotel was designed by Philip Hubert in a styl ...
in New York, where she kept a
margay The margay (''Leopardus wiedii'') is a small wild cat native to Mexico, Central and South America. A solitary and nocturnal felid, it lives mainly in primary evergreen and deciduous forest. Until the 1990s, margays were hunted for the wildl ...
, a South American tiger-cat similar to an
ocelot The ocelot (''Leopardus pardalis'') is a medium-sized spotted Felidae, wild cat that reaches at the shoulders and weighs between on average. It is native to the southwestern United States, Mexico, Central America, Central and South America, ...
, for company. It was rumored that one night, after Theodora had drunk too much and was asleep, the margay bit off one of her ears. In actuality, "the margay took a few irritated nips off an earlobe, after which Theodora styled her hair a little differently." In the 1970s, O'Toole and Keogh sailed away to North Carolina together, but eventually divorced in 1979. Theodora moved to Caldwell County, in the western mountains of
North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...
where she became friends with the wife of Arthur Alfred Rauchfuss (1921–1989), owner of a chemical plant. The Rauchfusses eventually divorced, and then in 1979, Arthur Rauchfuss and Keogh were married. 10 years later, Arthur Rauchfuss died. After his death, Keogh spent the last years of her life in North Carolina, in a house in the woods with cats and chickens. She died on January 5, 2008.


Bibliography

* ''Meg'' (1950); Mass Market Paperback version published in 1956 was titled "Meg: The Secret Life of an Awakening Girl". * ''The Double Door'' (1952) * ''Street Music'' (1952) * ''The Tattooed Heart'' (1953) * ''The Fascinator'' (1954) * ''My Name Is Rose'' (1956) * ''The Fetish'' (1959); published in America under the title of ''The Mistress'' * ''Gemini'' (1961) * ''The Other Girl'' (1962)


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Keogh, Theodora 1919 births 2008 deaths Roosevelt family Schuyler family American people of Dutch descent American women novelists Chapin School (Manhattan) alumni Novelists from New York City 20th-century American novelists People from the Upper East Side Writers from Manhattan People from Cold Spring Harbor, New York 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American politicians 21st-century American women Radcliffe College alumni Pulp fiction writers American expatriate writers in Canada American expatriates in France American expatriates in Italy American expatriates in Germany