The Eternal Flapper

The true thrilling and mysterious story of early Broadway, silent movie and vaudeville star turned Wall Street trader Edna Wallace Hopper.

Edna Wallace Hopper Brown arrives at an after theater party in NY in 1953, speaks of a desire to remain eternal. She is now in her 90's of age, was the "it girl" of early Broadway in the 1890-1910 era, was the fountain of youth in Vaudeville and now a key trader on Wall Street. She meets a man and asks him to follow through on a charted forecast of events, as seen by her studies through meditation and psychic "It will be January of 1989, give him my scrapbooks on my life and tell him to do a book and musical film on my life. The only way to remain eternal is through the minds of the living." In December of 1959, Edna dies. The man, known as the messenger, follows her request and places the books in the vault at the Lincoln Center at the time of her death.

In 1979 the author has a dream of Edna while posing in 1903 as a clown for the Silver Slipper operetta. He sees the painting the next day at an antique show. Ten years later, 1989, Edna's prediction comes true. The Messenger meets the Dreamer and tells him of her request. "But, she said there are things never revealed that she wants you to tell, you must find these things she has held secret. She wants them revealed". The story begins with the migration of the Dunsmuir family from Scotland to British Victoria, where they become the richest family in North America in the coal and shipping industry. Alex Dunsmuir meets Edna's mother, Josephine, and becomes Edna's stepfather. His drinking/behavior and abuse forces Edna out of San Francisco to New York where she becomes a star of early Broadway. Her life on and off stage, both colorful and amazing are seen in musical vignettes along with her life's tragedies and comic events. A pivotal part of the book and film is the trial: Hopper VS Dunsmuir, a famous trial, actually 3, which took 3 years to end. In the trial we flash back to events and see what really happened, including a sexual molestation of Edna by her stepfather. The story moves forward into in the future where a young man who is at first seen as the dreamer, now an investigative writer, in the year 2001. The investigative writer/dreamer finds out about a letter that was written in 1886 and sealed with a wax seal with instructions to be opened in the year 2000. He has telephone conversations and email correspondence with someone he has not seen in person who cannot be disclosed by name and known in the story as Mr. X. Through communications with Mr. X, the investigative writer finds out what was written in the secret letter found in the Craigdarroch (Dunsmuir family) castle. A child was born in 1886, the father being Alex Dunsmuir, and who was the mother? The story will tell you more. The investigative writer realizes he opens Pandora's Box, info that has been held secret by the Royal family of Windsor, as there were two children born out of wedlock in 1886, both fathered by Dunsmuir. He is advised not to disclose this information as the MI-5 of England could interfere. "If they think nothing of harming their own, they would think nothing of harming you-or me" says the secret informant to the investigator. The writer finds there is a living man, in British Victoria, who he thinks is the great grandson of Edna Wallace Hopper, and of Alex Dunsmuir, as a pregnancy occurred in 1886 as a result of a his sexual abuse while intoxicated. Here lies the secret, a family somewhere that she wants to know of her but never had the chance to connect with. There are a few more secrets revealed in the book as well, including one held by her lovely mother Josephine.

The book covers Edna’s first career as one of the brightest stars of early Broadway as a comedic operetta singer/actress/dancer, her second amazing and shocking career in Vaudeville selling the Fountain of Youth while coming out naked at the age of 65 and doing acrobatic dancing and more. Booked at The Roxie, The Apollo, and Graumans Chinese Theater she was billed as The Eternal Flapper, a name she had chosen for herself. The author finds that not only did she remain as a flapper in her latter years; she had created the flapper look and attitude twenty years before the flapper era of the 1920’s.

Edna Wallace Hopper Brown’s third career was as one of the key traders on Wall Street. While in her eighties and nineties of age, Edna was the only woman on the board of L.F. Rothschild Trading firm as one of the key traders for the firm and one of the top investment traders on Wall Street. The book suggests that Edna knew many things about the dark side of Wall Street and the Skull and Bones members who had offices with her at the 120 Broadway Building in New York.