Isabel Pell

Isabel Townsend Pell (September 28, 1900 – June 5, 1951) was an American socialite, Broadway performer, and member of the French Resistance during World War II, for which she was decorated with the Legion of Honour.

Pell was born in 1900 to Samuel Osgood Pell, a New York real estate agent, and Isabel Audrey Townsend, who had married on October 18, 1899, in Babylon. The marriage was short-lived; her mother obtained a divorce in early February 1902. Her father died on August 3, 1913, when a Long Island Railroad train struck his car at a crossing. Her mother sued for $250,000, but both she and Pell were left without financial resources. Pell was subsequently raised by her paternal uncle, Stephen Hyatt Pell, at Fort Ticonderoga, the family estate on Lake Champlain, a property listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places and designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark. Another paternal uncle was the tennis player Theodore Pell.

She received her education at the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland, and the Spence School in New York City. Pell made her social debut in 1920 at the Piping Rock Club and was recognized as an accomplished horsewoman in both Long Island and Virginia. Known by the nickname "Pelly," she was regarded by contemporaries as outspoken and athletic.

In 1921, Pell took a position in a dress shop, work considered by her social circle to be beneath her standing. The following year she left that position to pursue acting, appearing in a small role in the play Fools Errant at the Maxine Elliott Theatre in 1922, her sole Broadway credit. By 1930, she had shifted to real estate, working for the firm Pell and MacMillen in New York, where she also collaborated with fashion writer Lois Long and interior decorator Elsie de Wolfe.

After an affair with a Metropolitan Opera soprano became public, Pell relocated to Paris, where she joined a community of expatriate heiresses. There she began a relationship with Claire Charles-Roux, Marquise De Forbin, born in Avignon and raised in Morocco. The couple settled in Auribeau-sur-Siagne. When Germany occupied France in 1940, both Pell and De Forbin joined the French Resistance. Pell adopted the name "Fredericka" and joined the Maquis, operating in the mountains for four years until September 1944. She became known among resistance members as "the girl with the blonde mèche." Italian soldiers captured her and interned her at Puget-Théniers, where she continued passing information to the resistance during supervised daily walks. After her release, she disguised herself as a peasant and retreated to a mountain forest with De Forbin. In 1944, according to an Associated Press account, Pell led a group of surrounded American soldiers to safety in Tanaron while wearing the badge of Free France. She and De Forbin also joined the 1st Airborne Task Force led by Major General Robert T. Frederick, and Pell served as an attaché of the Civil Affairs Task Force of the U.S. Army, liaising between French and American forces. On November 28, 1944, the plaza in Puget-Théniers was renamed in her honor.

Among Pell's notable personal connections were the actress Eva Le Gallienne, sculptor and actress Renee Prahar, and socialite Mercedes de Acosta. She was also a frequent visitor to the Prides Crossing, Massachusetts, home of Margarett Sargent, whose husband and children knew Pell as "cousin Pell." In 1933, Pell and another woman survived a crash-landing of a flight between Copenhagen and Falkenberg into the Kattegat; a German freighter rescued both passengers and brought them to Copenhagen uninjured.

Pell returned to New York City after the war, residing at 30 East End Avenue. She died on June 5, 1951, at the age of 51, collapsing while dining with her friend Anne Andrews at La Reine Restaurant at 139 East 52nd Street.