June Miller
June Mansfield Miller (January 28, 1901 – February 1979[1]) was the much-written-about and discussed second wife of Henry Miller.
Early life
She was born in Bukovina, Austria-Hungary (of Romanian Gypsy origin as mentioned in Sexus) as either Juliet Smerth or Juliet Smerdt, the daughter of Wilhelm and Frances Budd Smerth. She emigrated with her family to the United States and arrived there on July 10, 1907, aged six.
She would reside in New York City for much of the rest of her life, excepting a tour of Europe and stints in Paris.
She attended public school in New York. In Sexus, Henry Miller writes that June claimed she graduated from Wellesley College, but in Nexus, he writes that she never finished high school. Kenneth Dick, after interviewing June, quotes her 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." Somewhere around 1917–1919, she went to work as a taxi dancer at Wilson's Dancing Academy (later, in 1931, renamed the Orpheum Dance Palace) in Times Square.
Life with Henry Miller
In 1923 at Wilson's, she met Henry Miller when she was 21 and he was 31. Henry Miller left his first wife to marry June in Hoboken, New Jersey on June 24, 1924.
In October 1926,[2] Jean Kronski, an artist and poet, moved in with them at June's urging. June, who was bisexual, cultivated a very close relationship with Jean, often preferring Jean's affections to Henry's. This phase of her relationship with Jean is the central piece of Henry's autobiographical novel Crazy Cock.
This living arrangement soon fell apart and Jean and June left for Paris together in April 1927. However, two months later they started to quarrel, and June returned to Henry in July. June and Henry subsequently left for a tour of Europe, settling in Paris.
In 1931, June met writer Anaïs Nin, who quickly became obsessed with her and, just as Henry Miller did, used her as a biographical archetype in many of her subsequent writings. June and Nin became involved in a flirtatious relationship although Nin denied it was sexual. However, June would figure prominently into her published and unpublished diaries, upon which the movie Henry & June was loosely based. In the film, she was portrayed by Uma Thurman.
Later life
June and Henry divorced by proxy in Mexico in 1934.
After divorcing Miller, she married Stratford Corbett (probably) in 1935, who worked either for the New York Life Insurance Company or as a public relations officer for the U.S. Government; neither has been confirmed. Stratford left her in 1947 for the actress Rita La Roy Corbett. Her life deteriorated at this point and she lived in a series of cheap hotels around New York City, such as the Hotel Continental on 95th Street. She was in touch with Miller during this period through the post, and he sent her money through friends and bookstores such as the Gotham Book Mart.
During the 1950s, June was admitted to psychiatric wards where she received electric shock treatments, during which she broke several bones after falling off the operating table. She never fully recovered. In 1954 she began volunteering as a social worker. In 1961 she met Miller again; he was shocked at her deterioration, and the two never rekindled their relationship.
In the late 1960s, June moved to Arizona with one of her brothers. The grave of "June E. Corbett, beloved sister," in the Valley View Cemetery in Cottonwood, Arizona, is probably hers.[3]
Although she expressed a desire to write an autobiography, she never wrote anything other than letters. However, she had enormous literary influence over the works of her ex-husband Miller and Anaïs Nin. She died in Arizona in 1979.
References
- ^ Obit for June Corbett, RootsWeb
- ^ "The Real Jean Kronski?" Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company: A Henry Miller Blog, July 23, 2006.
- ^ "June's Arizona Grave" Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company: A Henry Miller Blog, October 13, 2008.
- Kenneth C. Dick, Henry Miller: Colossus of One
- Robert Furguson, Henry Miller, A Life
- Henry Miller, Crazy Cock (formerly titled Lovely Lesbians), (as 'Hildred')
- Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer (as 'Mona')
- Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn (as 'Mona')
- Henry Miller, The Rosy Crucifixion (Sexus, Plexus and Nexus) (as 'Mara' and 'Mona')
- Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin
- Anaïs Nin, Henry and June, from A Journal of Love: the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931–1932
- Anaïs Nin, House of Incest (as 'Sabina')
- Anaïs Nin, Incest: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin, 1931–1932
- Anaïs Nin, A Spy in the House of Love
- Stephen Starck, June Scattered In Fragments