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Below: The ballroom at the Tony Duquette Studios on Robertson Boulevard in West Hollywood, a former silent film studio that he decorated with panels of crushed abalone shell, crystal chandeliers and a throne from a Mexico palace, 1950s. 49 plane to Europe, in a train crossing the Alps — that Duquette revealed the extraordinary particulars of his longtime friendship with legendary decorator and tastemaker Elsie de Wolfe, who took him under her wing in the 1940s. Their association lasted until she died in 1950 at age 80, and it was de Wolfe — also known as Lady Mendl — whose devoted patronage opened doors to a glittering cafe society that included Cole Porter, Louis B. Mayer, Vincente Minnelli, Judy Garland, Billy Haines, Doris Duke, and the Windsors. Duquette's exploits with de Wolfe came tumbling out in a two-volume historic novel last year, The Walk to Elsie's — written and self published by Wilkinson and his co-author and good friend, Manfred Flynn Kuhnert. "It's a 1950s romp in an Auntie Mame kind of way in Paris, Venice, and L.A.," says Kuhnert, a former Harvard professor who has directed and designed more than 35 theater and opera productions in America and the Netherlands. Duquette's own charming sketches, many done with de Wolfe at Villa Trianon in Versailles where she lived, illustrate the book and its cover (Amazon, $195). The authors are currently negotiating with St. Martin's Press for worldwide distribution of a five-volume book series. Volume 3, Disaster in the Golden Dragon Room, which focuses on Duquette and director Vincente Minnelli, comes out in June. And, in a late-breaking development that would have delighted Duquette's sense of drama, Lionsgate Entertainment Corporation (which produced Mad Men and Orange is the New Black) purchased the rights to The Walk to Elsie's and is producing a miniseries which will air September 2018, on as-yet-to-be determined network. Michael Angler of Downton Abbey fame has signed on as director and executive producer, Wilkinson says, with some of Hollywood's most sought-after actresses in discussions to play de Wolfe. I'm sworn to secrecy until an official announcement, but rest assured, it's a jaw-dropping list. E lsie de Wolfe has gone down in history as the most prominent interior decorator of the 20th century, but like Duquette, her first love was the theater. During the 1880s, she was a well-known actress in New York, later pursuing interior design as a result of staging plays. By the early 1900s, de Wolfe had launched a full-blown decorating career. She was a breath of fresh air in the brooding post- Victorian era, eschewing heavy furniture and dense William Morris wallpaper for (continued on page 50) Tony Duquette, 1940s. Tony Duquette and his wife, Beegle, 1940s.