smock at an easel as her guests enjoyed lively discussions and piano playing. Berlin finished composing What'll I Do at McMein's piano during one of her Round Table parties. McMein provided the cover illustration of Berlin's biography by Alexander Woollcott. Walt Disney, Ethel Barrymore, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, H.G. Wells, and George Bernard Shaw were friends. Dorothy Parker moved in with McMein in 1920 before renting an apartment in the same building. McMein's mother died in 1923. The same year, McMein married John G. Baragwanath, a mining engineer and author, whom she met at a party given by Irene Castle. Baragwanth was interested in the striking, fine-featured woman playing the piano while others danced and sang around her. McMein and Baragwanath had a daughter Joan in 1924. Theirs was an open marriage, and though the proprieties generally were observed, there were exceptions. In his memoirs, the lyricist and publicist Howard Dietz recalled hearing that on one occasion, when Neysa noticed that her model for the day was impatient to leave, she asked: "Have you got a heavy date?" Model: "Yes, with a great guy, Jack Baragwanath." Meanwhile, Neysa was involved for several years with the Broadway director George Abbott, leading Alexander Woollcott to say that "we now call Neysa’s place in Port Washington the 'Abbottoir.'" She also had affairs with Robert Benchley, Charlie Chaplin, who had a house near her cottage in Port Washington, and a platonic relationship with Irving Berlin. This occurred during a period when "[w]omen are for the first time demanding to live the forbidden experience directly and draw conclusions on this basis," according to Beatrice Hinkle in an article for The Nation. McMein lived a varied life in search of fun. She interspersed her life as an artist with riding on the back of an elephant in a parade, taking a swim on a whim, and enjoying parties. She hosted parties with games for adults to entertain artists, writers, actors and other celebrities. Her guests—like Bing Crosby, Anne Shirley, Robert Young, and Bennett Cerf—engaged in games like a quickfire, multiple team version of charades called "The Game", that is sometimes attributed to McMein. The spelling game, where each person on a team wore a sign with one letter and played against another team so see who could arrange themselves the fastest in the proper order to spell a word, was played at her parties. McMein and