Queer Places:
Hotel Sevillia, 117 W 58th St, New York, NY 10019
Nella Webb (1876-1954) was an astrologer who numbered stage and screen stars among her clients. She lived in an apartment in the Hotel Sevillia, 117 W 58th St, New York, NY 10019. She was a musical comedy star and appeared in the original New York production of Babes in Toyland before taking up astrology as a profession.
She was a longtime friend of actress Marie Dressler, and beginning of the 1920s Webb moved into the New York apartment of Dressler to keep the actress company and also busied herself with various plans to get Dressler’s career on track again. They again shared an apartment together in 1934. Dressler never mentions Webb in her 1934 autobiography after the year 1927, but there is no doubt the two women kept in touch: Webb was one of the beneficiaries of Dressler’s will. Dressler described Webb as small, dark, animated, with the grace of a hummingbird and the persistence of a bull pup. She and I have known each other since the days of my early Broadway success, Lady Slavey.
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