Though her theater career is not well remembered, Fania Marinoff was known in her day as a lovely and talented actress who was not afraid to take risks on stage. She proved this especially when she appeared in Frank Wedekind’s overtly sexual and scandalous Spring’s Awakening, a play that was performed just once before the cast was arrested. Marinoff had dramatic flair offstage as well; as guests at all the best parties and the hosts of frequent parties of their own, she and her eccentric husband Carl Van Vechten were fixtures in New York’s artistic circles. The Van Vechtens’ parties, where Harlem’s finest writers and performers mingled with Greenwich Village bohemians and the city’s high society, were famous in New York and among American expatriates in Paris.