Lola Montez
Lola Montez | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 17 February 1821 |
| Died | 17 January 1861 (aged 39) |
Elizabeth Rosanna Gilbert (February 17, 1821 – January 17, 1861), better known by the stage name Lola Montez, was an Irish-born dancer and actress who became famous as an exotic dancer, courtesan and the mistress of King Ludwig I of Bavaria.
Early life
Like many other aspects of her life, discrepant reports of her birth have been published. She was born in Grange, County Sligo in 1818,[1] but Encyclopædia Britannica inaccurately claims that she was born in Limerick, Ireland. She was baptised at St Peter’s Church in Liverpool on 16 February 1823.
Lola's mother was Eliza Oliver, an illegitimate daughter of Charles Silver Oliver, of Castle Oliver in County Limerick, Ireland. Lola's mother was 15 when she gave birth to her, a year before she married Lola's father, Ensign Edward Gilbert of the 25th Regiment.
In 1823 the Gilberts moved to India, where her father's regiment had been dispatched. Shortly after arrival her father died of cholera. Her mother married another officer, called Craigie, the following year and sent Eliza back to Scotland to live with relatives of her stepfather.
In 1837 sixteen-year-old Eliza eloped with Lieutenant Thomas James. The couple separated five years later, in Calcutta, and Eliza became an exotic dancer under a stage name. Her London debut as "Lola Montez, the Spanish dancer" in June 1843 was disrupted when she was recognized as Mrs. James. The resulting notoriety did not hurt her career and she quickly became famous for her self-created "Tarantula Dance." It was around this time that she became involved in the practice of living as a courtesan, on money from wealthy men.[2]
Life as a courtesan
By her late teens, Montez had become aware of the financial gains of serving as a courtesan to powerful and wealthy men. Amongst her lovers and benefactors during this time were James Alexander and Tim Schwab. Liszt had introduced her to the circle of George Sand, which was one of the most sophisticated and advanced in European society. (source: Langer)
In 1846, she travelled to Munich, where she was discovered by, and quickly became the mistress of, Ludwig I of Bavaria. She quickly began to use her influence on the king and this made her unpopular with the local population, particularly after documents showing that she was hoping to become a naturalised Bavarian citizen and be elevated to the nobility were made public. Despite the opposition, Ludwig made her Countess of Landsfeld on his next birthday, August 25, 1847. She first met Ludwig when, as a dancer at the Bavarian Opera, he had asked her in public if her bosom was real, to which her response was to tear off enough of her garments and prove it.[3][4] It seems likely that his relationship with her contributed greatly to the fall from grace of the previously popular king. In 1848 under pressure from a growing revolutionary movement Ludwig abdicated, and Lola fled Bavaria, her career as a courtesan at an end.[2]
She fetched up in London, where she quickly married George Heald, a young army lieutenant with a recent inheritance. But Lola had never properly formalised a divorce from her first husband, and the couple had to rapidly skip the country to escape a bigamy action brought by Heald's scandalised maiden aunt. Within two years the relationship was in tatters, and Lola set off again, this time to the United States.[5]
From 1851 to 1853 she performed as a dancer and actress in the eastern United States, then moved to San Francisco in May 1853. There she married Patrick Hull in July and moved to Grass Valley, California, in August. By the mid-1850s this marriage too was failing. Lola moved to Victoria, Australia to make her fortune by entertaining miners at the gold diggings during the gold-rush of the 1850s.[2]
Historian Michael Cannon says "In September 1855 she performed her erotic Spider Dance at the Theatre Royal in Melbourne, raising her skirts so high that the audience could see she wore no underclothing at all. Next day the Argus thundered that her performance was 'utterly subversive to all ideas of public morality". Respectable families ceased to attend the theatre, which began to show heavy losses.”[6] She spent nearly four years in Victoria. At Castlemaine in April 1856, she was “rapturously encored” after her Spider Dance in front of 400 diggers (including members of the Municipal Council who had adjourned their meeting early to attend the performance), but drew the wrath of the audience by insulting them following some mild heckling.[7]
She earned further notoriety in Ballarat when after reading a bad review in The Ballarat Times she chased the editor, Henry Seekamp with a whip. The "Lola Montes Polka" composed by Albert Denning was inspired by this event. She later moved to New York.
Later life
On June 30, 1860, she suffered a stroke and was partially paralyzed for some time. In mid-December she had recovered enough to walk with a slight limp and went out for a stroll in the cold weather. Her life as a courtesan was over, and her money was by now gone. Lola began to seek out the word of God. In her dying days, she was cared for by a priest - though she reportedly determined first that he was not a Jesuit, having many bad memories of that order- not least from some of those who had held key posts at Ludwig's court.[8]
She contracted pneumonia, lingering for nearly a month before dying one month short of her fortieth birthday. She is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, in Brooklyn, New York where her age tombstone states: "Mrs. Eliza Gilbert / Died Jan. 17, 1861;" it also reads that she was 42 at time of death.
Lola Montez in fiction
Montez was portrayed by Martine Carol in the 1955 film Lola Montès directed by Max Ophüls and co-starring Peter Ustinov and Oskar Werner.
Montez also appears in Royal Flash by George MacDonald Fraser, where she has a brief affair with Harry Flashman. She is also a character in the film of the same name, in which she is played by Florinda Bolkan.
Montez is featured prominently in the final installment (Spider Dance) of the Irene Adler mystery series by Carole Nelson Douglas. Montez is rumored to be the title character's mother.
She has been portrayed by Carmen D'Antonio in Golden Girl (1951), Sheila Darcy in Wells Fargo (1937), Yvonne De Carlo in Black Bart (1948), and Rita Moreno in an episode of the 1950's TV show Tales of Wells Fargo.
In one of J.B. Priestley's last fictional works, The Pavilion of Masks, she is unmistakeably the original for Cleo Torres, Spanish dancer and mistress of a German prince.
Trivia
New International Encyclopedia identifies her as being Maria Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert (?1818-1861), an adventuress. Her writings comprise The Arts of Beauty and Lectures (1858), the latter containing an autobiography.
Lola Montez has a lake named after her in the Tahoe National forest in Nevada County. Take I-80 west (east?) from Sacramento and exit at the Cisco Grove exit.
References
- ^ Her name was Lola, RTE Television
- ^ a b c Lola Montez, Ballarat History Central
- ^ BBC - Woman's Hour - Jan 2007
- ^ James Morton, Lola Montez - Her Life and Conquests (2007)
- ^ Donna Moore, Wicked Women - Lola Montez
- ^ Michael Cannon, Melbourne After the Gold Rush, pp.313-4
- ^ The Intrepid Females of Forty-Nine, historic hwy 49.com
- ^ The Society Divas: Lola Montez
Further reading
- Bruce Seymour, Lola Montez: A Life
- Leila Mackinlay, Spider dance: A novel based upon incidents in the life of Lola Montez
- Nicholas Browne, Castle Oliver & the Oliver Gascoignes
External links
- Lola Montez's Gravesite
- RTE Hidden History Summary about Eliza Gilbert
- Photographs of Lola Montez
- Castle Oliver website
- Bee Wilson: Boudoir Politics Review of Lola Montez: Her Life and Conquests by James Morton · Portrait,(2007) in London Review of Books Vol. 29 No. 11 dated 7 June 2007
- Horace Wyndham, The Magnificent Montez: From Courtesan to Convert, New York: Hillman-Curl (1935). Project Gutenberg eBook.