ADAH ISAACS MENKEN, American actress, born (d: 1868); An American actress, painter and poet, the flamboyant performer got around. Menken was born of a free black male parent and a mixed race Creole mother although she reinvented her background and birthplace numerous times throughout the relatively short course of her life.

She was reputed to be only slightly less man-hungry than the legendary Cleopatra, who, nicknamed “Thick Lips,” is said to have blown a hundred Roman soldiers in a single night.

Her reputation notwithstanding, which seems to have been encouraged to provide cover, Menken was a man-hater whose Infelicia, a collection of Sapphic poems, clearly reveals her delight in women. She was, for a time, the lover of novelist Georges Sand.