June Miller
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January 7, 1902
June Mansfield Miller | |
|---|---|
 Miller, circa 1933 | |
| Born | Juliet Edith Smerth January 7, 1902 |
| Died | February 1, 1979 (aged 77) Phoenix, Arizona, U.S. |
| Other names | June Mansfield, June Smith, Juliet Edith Smerdt |
| Spouses | |
June Miller (January 7 or 28, 1902 – February 1, 1979)[1] was the second wife of novelist Henry Miller. He wrote prolifically about her and their relationship in his books, usually using the pseudonyms Mona or Mara interchangeably. She also appears prominently in the early diaries of Anaïs Nin.
June Miller was born in Bukovina, Austria-Hungary (Miller would mention she was 'of Romanian origin' in Sexus) as Juliet Edith Smerdt (or Smerth) (later Juliette), the daughter of Wilhelm and Frances Budd Smerdt, a poor Jewish family. She emigrated with her parents and four siblings to the United States in 1907. At the age of 15, she dropped out of high school to become a dance instructress (a euphemism at the time for a dance partner) at Wilson's Dancing Academy (renamed the Orpheum Dance Palace in 1931) in Times Square, and began going by the name June Mansfield, and occasionally, June Smith.[2][3] June is quoted as saying, "My formal education amounted to about three and a half years of high school. I was working on a scholarship to Hunter College."[3] In Sexus, Henry Miller writes that June claimed she graduated from Wellesley, but in Nexus, he writes that she never finished high school.
She would reside in New York City for much of her life, excepting a tour of Europe and stints in Paris and Arizona.
Life with Henry Miller
In 1923, while working as a taxi dancer at Wilson's, she met Henry Miller; she was 21 and he, 31. Miller left his first wife (Beatrice Sylvas Wickens) and child to marry June in Hoboken, New Jersey, on June 1, 1924.[4] Their relationship is the main subject of Miller's semi-autobiographical trilogy, The Rosy Crucifixion. June is also featured in his best-known works, Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn.
In October 1926, Jean Kronski, an artist and poet, moved in with them at June's urging. June, who was likely bisexual, cultivated a very close relationship with her, often preferring Jean's affections to Henry's. This living arrangement soon fell apart and Jean and June left for Paris together in April 1927. However, two months later the two women started to quarrel, and June returned to Henry in July.[5] The following year, June and Henry left for a tour of Europe, settling in Paris for several months before again returning to New York.[6] June's relationship with Jean is the central piece of Henry's autobiographical novels Crazy Cock (1930, unpublished until 12 years after Miller's death) and Nexus (1959), the third volume of The Rosy Crucifixion. Around 1930, Kronski committed suicide in an insane asylum in New York.[7]
In 1930, Henry moved to Paris unaccompanied. In 1931, while visiting Henry, June met writer Anaïs Nin. Nin quickly became obsessed with her and, like Henry, used her as an archetype in many of her writings. June and Nin became involved in a flirtatious relationship, although Nin denied it was sexual. However, June would figure prominently in her published and unpublished diaries, upon which the movie Henry & June was loosely based. In the film, she was portrayed by Uma Thurman. June was not pleased with the publication of Nin's expurgated diaries, which omitted Nin's affair with Miller and thus omitted the role Nin played in the breakup of the Millers' marriage.[8]
June and Henry divorced by proxy in Mexico City in 1934.[3][9]