I’ve been watching The Gilded Age, the latest dramatic offering from Julian Fellowes, the writer behind Downton Abbey, and two episodes in it’s a case of “So far, so meh,” at least in terms of the drama on offer. Downton was a watered-down retread of Fellowes’ brilliant, Oscar-winning script for the film Gosford Park, and a play on the Upstairs, Downstairs theme that that TV series did better. So far Gilded Age is a pale imitation of Downton, so the law of diminishing returns is in full force.
The “Gilded Age” in question is the heyday of New York high society in the 1880s, when old money of vast proportions (usually inherited wealth) battled it out with new money of vast proportions (businessmen, speculators, and developers who made a killing in railways and industry). There’s more than enough real drama in this chapter of American history than you can shake a stick at — more about that in a moment — but you’d barely know it from what’s on offer. Anyone looking for nuance in the upstairs folk will look in vain, while the downstairs folk don’t make anywhere near the impression of their counterparts in Downton, who quickly became the people audiences cared about the most.
The two main reasons I’m sticking with it (so far) are the cast and the costumes. The more veteran members of the cast include Broadway legends Audra McDonald, Michael Cerveris, Nathan Lane, Christine Baranski, and Kelli O’Hara, who between them have 14 Tony Awards and 16 nominations. I’d watch any one of them read (or sing) the phone book, and would pay good money for a decent series starring just the five of them.
As for the costumes: to say they are gorgeous is an understatement (I’m referring mostly to the women’s outfits; I can’t get terribly excited about cravats and waistcoats, no matter how opulent). I have some idea of what late 19th century American fashion for very rich women is supposed to look like, and everything appears spot-on, and stunning to the nth degree, from hats that are works of art to the footwear. As well as being wonderful to gaze upon, the costumes do a fine job of impressing on even the most casual viewer just how rich these people were (very rich indeed).
The series includes a few real people from the time, most notably Mrs. Caroline Astor, who married into one of the richest families in America (her son John Jacob Astor died on the Titanic). All very well, but I wish someone would make a TV series featuring another real gilded age personality: Consuelo Vanderbilt, daughter of one of the richest families in America. In 1895, at age 17, she was married off by her ambitious mother to the ninth Duke of Marlborough; in exchange, her family’s money helped restore the Duke’s then-crumbling estate, which included Blenheim Palace.
Portraits of Consuelo at Blenheim show a stunningly, even hauntingly, beautiful woman who appeared to have it all. However, her autobiography The Glitter and the Gold shows a woman who was desperately unhappy. Her husband was aloof and cold, interested only in her money and having her provide an “heir and a spare”. As mistress of one of the most prestigious houses in the land, she found herself continually “on display”, which she hated. Consuelo, like other American women of her age and background, was well-educated and knowledgeable about politics and world events; British women of similar lineage were not, and she was bored silly making empty small-talk at endless social events. Eventually she had had enough, and in 1921 married (this time for love) Lt. Col. Jacques Balsan, a record-breaking pioneering French balloon, aircraft, and hydroplane pilot who once worked with the Wright Brothers.
There is enough in Consuelo’s life to fuel a TV show which, if decently-written, would knock The Gilded Age into a cocked — but doubtless gorgeously stunning — hat. Please, someone, make it happen.
editorial@accjournal.ca
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