Kathleen Eaton Cannell (usually known as Kitty Cannell) (1891 – 1974) was a

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

-based

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dance and fashion correspondent for major U.S. papers and periodicals. Before moving to Paris she was the dance critic for ''

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''. During the years of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

she was a dancer and performed under the stage name of 'Rihani', inventing a dance style called 'static dances'. She was a well-known figure in the American community of artists in Paris in the 1920s. She was briefly married to the poet

Skipwith Cannell Skipwith Cannell (1887–1957) was an American poet associated with the Imagist group. His surname is pronounced with the accent on the second syllable. He was a friend of William Carlos Williams, and like Ezra Pound he came from Philadelphia. C ...

but divorced him in the spring of 1921, later marrying French poet Roger Vitrac. William Carlos Williams describes her thus: "Kitty Cannell in her squirrel coat and yellow skull cap, which made the French, man and woman, turn in the street and stare seeing a woman, approaching six feet, so accoutered". She had an affair with Harold Loeb and they socialized with

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...

and his wife Hadley. In ''

A Farewell to Arms ''A Farewell to Arms'' is a novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, set during the Italian campaign of World War I. First published in 1929, it is a first-person account of an American, Frederic Henry, serving as a lieutenant () in the am ...

'' Hemingway based the character Helen Ferguson on Kitty, and also the character Frances Clyne in ''

The Sun Also Rises ''The Sun Also Rises'' is a 1926 novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, his first, that portrays American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the bu ...

'', although she denied this, but a reading of her letters to Loeb indicates strong parallels with the story. She became the Paris fashion correspondent for ''

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'', and, during the German occupation, reported on occupying forces' press conferences for the

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. Her only book was ''

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'', a memoir of her childhood, which was spent shuttling back and forth between the U.S. and Canada. It was published by William Morrow & Company in 1945. Her papers are held by Harvard University's Houghton Library.

References

Sources

* Robert Karoly Sarlos, ''Jig Cook and the Provincetown Players: Theatre in Ferment,''

University of Massachusetts Press The University of Massachusetts Press is a university press that is part of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The press was founded in 1963, publishing scholarly books and non-fiction. The press imprint is overseen by an interdisciplinar ...

, 1982 * Humphrey Carpenter, ''Geniuses Together: American Writers in Paris in the 1920s,'' Unwin Hyman, 1987. (see pp. 101, 153, 183) * Bertram D. Sarason, ''Hemingway and 'The Sun' set'' NCR / Microcard Editions, 1972 * James J Wilhelm, ''Ezra Pound in London and Paris 1908-1925'' Penn State Press, 1990. (see p. 301) {{DEFAULTSORT:Cannell, Kathleen Eaton 1891 births 1974 deaths American female dancers American dance critics American expatriates in France American women journalists The Christian Science Monitor people American women critics 20th-century American dancers 20th-century American women