Although she failed to achieve artistic and professional distinction, de Acosta is known for her many lesbian affairs with celebrated Broadway and Hollywood personalities including Alla Nazimova, Isadora Duncan, Eva Le Gallienne, and Marlene Dietrich.

De Acosta attended elementary school at the Convent of the Blessed Sacrament on West 79th Street in Manhattan where Dorothy Parker was a classmate.

"[8] De Acosta was involved in numerous lesbian relationships with Broadway's and Hollywood's elite and she did not attempt to hide her sexuality; her uncloseted existence was rare and daring in her generation.

Shortly after marrying Abram Poole in 1920, de Acosta became involved in a five-year relationship with actress Eva Le Gallienne.

Over the next decade, she was involved with several famous actresses and dancers, including Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Ona Munson, and Russian ballerina Tamara Platonovna Karsavina.

[17] In any case, they remained friends for thirty years during which time Garbo wrote de Acosta 181 letters, cards, and telegrams.

[18][19] About their friendship, Cecil Beaton, who was close to both women, recorded in his 1958 memoir, "Mercedes is [Garbo's] very best friend and for 30 years has stood by her, willing to devote her life to her".

In 1959, when she was destitute, de Acosta sold her papers to the Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia and claims to have reluctantly included romantic letters from Garbo.

[27] In the early 1930s de Acosta developed an interest in Hinduism and was encouraged to seek out Indian mystic Meher Baba when he arrived in Hollywood.

[29] Later, she studied the philosophy of Hindu sage Ramana Maharishi who introduced her to yoga, meditation, and other spiritual practices she hoped would help ease her suffering.

But as Alice B. Toklas, lover of Gertrude Stein and de Acosta's long-term friend, wrote to a disapproving critic, "Say what you will about Mercedes, she's had the most important women of the twentieth century".

[39][40][41] De Acosta has usually been described disparagingly, dismissed as a "notorious lesbian" who was a dishonest nuisance to her lovers and who consistently "stalked" Garbo.

But Robert A. Schanke, de Acosta's recent biographer, attempts, on the basis of extensive research, to provide an accurate picture of her.

[43] She was, Schanke acknowledges, flawed and imperfect, a complex woman who impaired several of her relationships and failed to achieve her professional and romantic aspirations.

A comprehensive compilation of these three books appeared, for the first time, in Spanish translation under the title Imposeída (46 poemas) (Las Cruces, NM: Eds.

Composer Joseph Hallman memorialized de Acosta in the song cycle "Raving Beauty" for flute, harp, cello, and soprano.