Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/61757
illustration by daniel o'leary and Finally . . . Feud For ThoughT the original power couple C TODAY'S TOP DOGS MAY THINK THEY'RE BREAKING CELEBRITY GROUND, BUT CHICAGO HAS BEEN A HUB OF SOCIAL FORTITUDE FOR CENTURIES. by paige wiser hicago has its share of power couples. The Obamas. The Burkes. The Crowns. But the title of top power couple of all time goes to none other than Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, whose personas have never been hotter. They may have been based out of Springfield, but Chicago is where the future president built his reputation, giving speeches and then crashing overnight at the Tremont. Chicago is where Mary found shopping worthy of her status. For pure star power, this dramatically dys- functional duo cannot be beat. Now more than ever, directors are clamoring for Lincoln-related material. It was just last year that Robert Redford gave us The Conspirator, about the plot to assassinate Lincoln. Now Steven Spielberg is busy at work on his own prestige project, Lincoln, with a positively Oscar- rific cast: Daniel-Day Lewis plays the big man, while Sally Field takes on Mary Todd (presumably with prosthetic jowls). But these media darlings aren't just the stuff of drama. Gwyneth Paltrow has dressed up as Mary Todd Lincoln on Glee. Will Ferrell has channeled Abe for funnyordie.com's "Drunk History" series, and donned the beard again for a cameo as Lincoln in The Goods. And just wait until you get a load of Angry Abe, the axe-wielding superhero in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, due to be released June 22. In this incarnation, Lincoln is being played by Benjamin Walker, who is notable for two reasons: 1) being Meryl Streep's son-in-law, and 2) being uniquely qualified for the role. You may have caught him on Broadway as another action-packed president in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. The Lincolns have perfected the art of (posthu- mously) appearing in the news just often enough to keep the public hungry for them. Recently, a respected historian was banned from the National Archives for life after he was accused of changing a "4" to a "5" on a Lincoln document. Do I smell another National Treasure sequel for Nic Cage? And then there was the oil painting of Mary Todd that hung in the governor's mansion. Apparently it's not a masterpiece by Francis Bicknell Carpenter, but a hoax perpetrated by a hack named Ludwig Pflum. You know the old saying: "You haven't truly made it until they start faking your memorabilia." Michelle Obama may have gotten press for baring her arms, but she was hardly the first first lady to do so. A journalist described Mary Todd Lincoln as dis- playing a "well-proportioned arm," and that was without the benefit of a personal trainer. And Abraham's no slouch. At 6-foot-4, he remains our tallest president. And his most important contri- bution to history just may be that he was the only person ever to successfully rock a stovepipe hat. MA 144 michiganavemag.com Onward!