Miss Manhattan

<p>Audrey Munson's radiant rise begins with New York's great self-glorification at the 1909 Hudson-Fulton Celebration. Centerpiece for its grand banquet: a marble sculpture of the three graces. Eighteen-year-old Audrey modeled for all three.</p><p></p><p>Soon she is posing for statues before the Plaza Hotel and atop the Municipal Building among others and she is the first woman to appear naked in a movie. But times and tastes change-and then come the horrors of the Great War when artists no longer sculpt lofty themes such as virtue and beauty. <span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>Her luminescent career eventually darkens into a trail of loss and despair.</span></p><p></p><p>Then in 1990 a young artist gradually recognizes the same face on statues throughout the city inspiring an intricate and often frustrating search that will lead two remarkable women to touch hands across generations.</p>