Washington has known its share of prominent hostesses. As the sociable wife of the nation’s fourth president, Dolley Madison brought together the warring members of Congress at her fabled Wednesday evening “drawing rooms.” Then there was Alice Roosevelt Longworth—the strong-willed, sharp-tongued daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt and the wife of Nicholas Longworth, speaker of the House. A throw pillow in her living room was embroidered with the words: “If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me.”
But Dolley and Alice were pikers compared with Perle Mesta, the wealthy widow from Oklahoma who reigned over Washington’s social scene from the 1930s until her death in 1975. One of the most recognizable women of her era, she is little known today—unless you’re familiar with Irving Berlin’s 1950 Broadway musical “Call Me Madam,” which was inspired by Mesta’s exuberant personality and her 1949 appointment as U.S. minister to Luxembourg (de facto, the U.S. ambassador). The show’s signature lyric refers to the star—played by Ethel Merman in the original production—as “the hostess with the mostes’ on the ball.”