Age Before Beauty - A Symphony of "S's"

Summer. 1965. New York or St. Jean Cap Ferrat, South of France.

Ann holds court with Marcel Erkart and Iris Flores Schirmer (daughter-in-law number two).

Legend has it that Somerset Maugham often sang for his supper chez Ann, being an old dear chum of hers. However, one evening, upon his entrance, he was met by Ann and Iris at the door. As the three of them proceeded into the parlor, Ann quite naturally took the lead, leaving a bewildered Iris in her wake.

Maugham was said to have looked kindly at the younger Mrs. "S" smile and quip, "Age before beauty, my dear."

Though both the latter and the former Mrs. "S's" treated each other with respect, no love was lost between the divas of stage and screen. Ann had never been accustomed to sharing the bill with anyone, even less so in her role of society matron. As far as she was concerned, she was the real Mrs. "S", and anyone who acquired the title afterwards was a mere pretender to the throne.

"Grand-Mama"

Excerpt from "American Social Leaders", INTERNATIONAL NOMADS, by Lanfranco Rasponi (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1965)


The third great hostess in Nassau, Mrs. Charles Munroe, lives on Cable Beach, amidst a verdant oasis of green, in a pink villa which is not at all splashy but comfortable and snug. In the drawing room, over the fireplace, hangs a superb version of Monet's "Lillies in a Pond." Liable to stay here four months of the year, since she has no other permanent home, she roams the rest of the time. She is a true wayfarer, taking her immense zest for life wherever she goes and making all her friends the richer for it.

Three times a widow and the mother of two sons, Rudolph and Philip Benkard, she was born Ann Ditchburn in the state of Oregon. Gifted with a radiant voice, she studied singing in New York City and became, under the stae name of Ann Swinburne, such a first-rate musical comedy star that Victor Herbert wrote The Madcap Duchess for her. Her love for music has never faltered, and she renounced her skyrocketing career only to marry into the solid and well-estalished musical publishing family of the Schirmers. Today she is still an invaluable member of their Board of Directors. Her musical knowledge is geniune, and she is a fmiliar figure at the Spoleto, Bayreuth, and Salzburg (where she always rents a house) and attends the Festival every year. An intimate friend of many of the musical great, she undertakes long journeys to hear anything new in which they are involved. An enthusiastic supporter of Samuel Barber ad Gian Carlo Menotti from the very beginning of their careers, she has followed each step they have undertaken with something close to maternal pride.

She entertains often and easily, wherever she is. If it's Paris, it will be Maxim's; if London, Claridge's. Excellent at mixing people of all nationalities, she is enough of a linguist to cope with a professor of some German University or a French musicologist if it proves necessary. Restless in a gypsy-like manner, she moves incessantly with her small caravan, consisting of a maid and her English chauffeur, Sims, in a luxurious Mercedes, and rapidly puts up her tents, feeling at home everywhere. To be free to do what pleases her, upon the death of her husband she sold the huge Chateau at St. Jean on Cap Ferrat to Detroit's Ernest Kanzler.

In the thirty years I have known her, her spirit has not changed and her enthusiasm for everything she undertakes - the swim before breakfast in Nassau in the amethyst-tinted sea in front of her bedroom, the daily game of golf and cards, and the pause at the piano to go over a Mozart sonata ("It relaxes me so," I have heard her say often) - is part of the bubble of a charming human being unspoiled by riches or success. In Nassau she chooses her guests from all walks of life and they are apt to be Manhattan's dowager with the mostest, Mrs. William Woodward, Sr., Lorelai, Duchess of Westminster, Conductor Thomas Schippers, lawyer Henry Hyde, or theatrical producer Gilbert Miller and his Kitty.

Lost in Europe?

The Journal-Tribune - August 1914

Ann Swinburne, American Singer, and A Friend are Lost in Europe

(Miss Margaret Itten, Miss Swinburne)

Ann Swinburne, the American singer, sent this photograph of herself and Miss Itten, a friend who was travelling with her from St. Moritz, July 28, three days before Germany declared war on Russia. She was going on to Rome within a few days. Since then nothing has been heard of her. Her relatives and friends have appealed to Ambassador Gerard in Germany and other American representatives but up to last week had learned nothing.

Victor Herbert is anxious to have her here now to rehearse for the stellar roles in "Sweethearts", "Madame Modiste", and the "Madcap Duchess". She is to appear in each of those when the season opens.

Magnificent Production of "The Climax" 1909

Coshocton Daily Times - Ohio - 11.16.1909
THE THEATRICAL WORLD

"...Ann Swinburne gives a thoroughly artistic portrayal of the character of Adelina Von Hagen. The role calls for musical as well as dramatic ability and Miss Swinburne is quite equal to the double demand. Her voice is musical, flexible and beautifully cultivated and her dramatic instinct is unerring. She possesses the ability to do heavy emotional work without overdoing it; the expression of her eyes in the second act when she finds that her voice has left her is something marvelous. Moreover, Miss Swinburne is a beautiful woman."

Opera Star Who Sang to Soothe Her Dying Husband

As R. E. Schirmer, head of a New York music publishing house, was dying at Santa Barbara, California, he had his wife, known in the operatic world as Ann Swinburne, sing selections from Beethoven. His last request was that she sing for him.

- 1921

"Socially Speaking" - Cholly Knickerbocker 1949

"Handsome Mrs. J. Philip Benkard, who is just about as social as anyone can get, but who would rather talk about the days when, as Ann Swinburne, she was a belle of the light opera world, became a bride for the third time in Monte Carlo.

News that Ann is now Mrs. Charles Andrews Munroe will come as a surprise to her friends here, but if won't surprise anyone to learn that her two sons, Rudolph Schirmer and Philip Benkard, were on the spot when the knot was tied.

Ann has always been extremely devoted to the boys. There was a time when she closed up her Newport villa at the height of the social season and leased a shloss in the Austrian Tyrol near Saltzberg, just so Rudy could continue with his music studies.

Her first marriage to Rudolph Schirmer made Ann a happy young girl. She pitched in and took an active role in the music publishing business in which Schirmer was a partner and won renown as a beauty with brains.

When Schirmer died, Ann wrapped her life in her young son Rudy and it was some years later that socially-prominent banker, J. Philip Benkard, made her his wife.

Young Philip was born of this marriage and everyone knew that the former singing star of such Broadway hits as "The Madcap Duchess" and "The Count of Luxembourg" had once again made an ideal match.

Then tragedy struck. Benkard, a lieutenant colonel in World War I, was stricken with a heart attack as he took part in an Army day parade and it proved fatal.

As for Charlie Munroe, it's his second marriage. His wife, the former Rhea Logan, Chicago, died in 1933.

Ann Swinburne - Theatrical Resume

Light Opera

The Madcap Duchess - 1913 (Victor Herbert, composer)
The Count of Luxembourg - 1912 (Franz Lehar, composer)
Robin Hood - 1912
The Climax - 1910