‘Never be alone’: Nance O’Neil dished about intimate dinners with Lizzie Borden in great detail

The relationship between Nance O’Neil and Lizzie Borden took centre stage in the final episode of Monster, but I wouldn’t really call it a friendship. 

When we first met Nance in Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, the titular character was starstruck by Nance O’Neil’s acting chops. She popped up again for dinner at the Borden household, but by the end of the series, the relationship had flipped. What began as an artist and her fan turned into a desperate artist and her patron. 

In real life, the order of the events was slightly different, with Nance and Lizzie striking up a friendship after the murders. Still, Nance regarded her well and never believed the murder claims. 

“Of course, the tragedy itself was never mentioned between us; never was there ever so much as an allusion to it,” she said. “I simply felt a great sympathy for her, and a great deal of admiration for the way she carried on. She was always so alone.”

Despite those kind words, her opinions seemingly changed in later life. 

Credit: Netflix

Lizzie Borden often asked Nance O’Neil to quote Medea

In the early 1950s, decades after Lizzie Borden’s death, poet Eugene Walter was invited by his friend, Joseph Cameron Cross, to the theatre. At a dinner afterwards, he was introduced to noneother than Nance O’Neil. 

“She had dyed red hair which she obviously did herself because it was different shades in different patches of hair. There was one bit over her left ear which was almost purple,” he wrote, according to The Hatchet. 

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“She must have gotten the wrong mix or something. She had dead white skin. And she must have put on that mascara with a teaspoon, you know. Just dug it up and went flip, flip, and dug little holes to look out of. And she had rouge in the old-fashioned way. I mean right on the cheekbones, a well-defined patch of rose red.”

Credit: Netflix

It was during that dinner that Walter found the courage to ask about Nance’s earlier friend, the infamous Lizzie Borden. 

“I won’t say I was nervous being in a house with Lizzie Borden. After all, there were a lot of us together. You can be sure we looked out for each other and made a point never to be alone with her. And to notice how sharp her dinner knife was. But there was one thing I do remember as striking me,” Nance reportedly said. “She would often make me repeat for her at teatime Medea’s famous speech.”

The quote Lizzie loved reads: “Often the night of thunder I have a message from the gods on high. They ask me why I have not slept. Why in the morning I will touch no food. Then I’d tell them of my sleepless night and why I did not sleep. Because, I tell them, this house smells of blood.”

It’s hard to ignore the potential similarities between Medea’s speech and Lizzie’s own story. 

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Featured image credit: Netflix