7. Isadora Duncan scandalized the arts world on both sides of the Atlantic, and then she shocked Russia too when she married a Communist poet 18 years her junior
At the very start of the 20th century, the American dancer Isadora Duncan took the arts world by storm. Her unique style was a huge shock to audiences in New York and London, and, while she had many admirers, many ballet fans believed she was bringing the art-form into disrepute. And it wasn’t just her dancing that scandalized polite society on both sides of the Atlantic. Duncan was not only a vocal atheist, she was also openly bisexual and took a string of both male and female lovers, many of them much younger than herself.
In her diary, Duncan wrote how she spotted a young Italian man on the street and, without knowing his name, propositioned him. Still grieving from the accidental death of her two young children, she begged him to sleep with her and help her have a third child. While she did indeed get pregnant from the encounter, the infant died soon after the birth. After that, she embraced Communism and moved to Moscow. Here, she married Sergei Yesenin in 1922. An acclaimed poet, he was 18 years her junior. They split and Yessenin killed himself soon afterwards.