American Venus: The Extraordinary Life of Audrey Munson, Model and Muse

The career of Audrey Munson, American model, is a classic tale of meteoric rise and tragic downfall. In her youth, Munson modelled for countless public and private works. She has adorned Jay P. Morgan's yacht, the Mercury Head Dime, the Walking Liberty Half-dollar, and art held at the Museum of Modern Art as well as in the estates of John D. Rockefeller and George Vanderbilt. At the peak of her career she was selected as the primary female model for the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, eventually appearing in thousands of feet of mural decorations and scores of statues. Munson starred - mostly nude - in four controversial silent films based on her experiences as a model. After a media spectacle linking her with a murder case, her career faltered and, ultimately, at the age of 39, she was doomed to a life of reclusion in a psychiatric facility. She lived there largely unacknowledged by her family until the astonishing age of 105. This is her story.