Lillie Langtry (October 13, 1853 – February 12, 1929), usually spelled Lily Langtry when she was in the U.S., born Emilie Charlotte Le Breton, was a British music hall singer and stage actress famous for her many stage productions including She Stoops to Conquer, The Lady of Lyons and As You Like It. She was also known for her relationships with nobility, including the Prince of Wales, the Earl of Shrewsbury and Prince Louis of Battenberg.
Biography
Born as Emilie Charlotte Le Breton, Langtry was the only daughter of Deanof Jersey, Rev. William Corbet Le Breton. He gained an unsavoury reputation because of a number of extramarital affairs and, when his wife finally left him in 1880, he left Jersey.[1] He had eloped to Gretna Green with Lillie's mother, Emilie Davis (née Martin),[2] who was known for her beauty.[3] In 1842, he married her at Chelsea. One of Langtry's ancestors was Richard le Breton, one of the reputed assassins of Thomas Becket in 1170. She had six brothers, all but one older than she. Of her six brothers, only William and Clement did not die young from accident or disease. Clement, who died in 1927, was her last surviving brother.[4] Proving too much for her French governess, Lillie was educated by her brothers' tutor, becoming unusually well educated for women of the time.[citation needed]
From Jersey to London
A Jersey Lily by Millais
In 1874, twenty-year-old Lillie married twenty-six-year-old Irish landowner Edward Langtry, a widower who had been married to the sister of her brother William's wife. They held their wedding reception at The Royal Yacht Hotel, in St. Helier, Jersey. He was wealthy enough to own a yacht, and Lillie insisted that he take her away from the Channel Islands. Eventually, they rented a place in Belgravia, London.[citation needed]
In an interview published in several newspapers (including the Brisbane Herald) in 1882, Lillie Langtry said,
“It was through Lord Ranleigh and the painter Frank Miles that I was first introduced to London society… I went to London and was brought out by my friends. Among the most enthusiastic of these was Mr Frank Miles, the artist. I learned afterwards that he saw me one evening at the theatre, and tried in vain to discover who I was. He went to his clubs and among his artist friends declaring he had seen a beauty, and he described me to everybody he knew, until one day one of his friends met me and he was duly introduced. Then Mr Miles came and begged me to sit for my portrait. I consented, and when the portrait was finished he sold it to Prince Leopold. From that time I was invited everywhere and made a great deal of by many members of the royal family and nobility. After Frank Miles I sat for portraits to Millais and Burne-Jones and now Frith is putting my face in one of his great pictures."
Lord Ranelagh, a friend of her father and sister-in-law, invited Lillie Langtry to a high-society reception at which she attracted notice for her beauty and wit. In contrast to more elaborate clothing, she wore a simple black dress (which was to become her trademark) and no jewellery.[3] Before the end of the evening, Frank Miles had completed several sketches of her that became very popular on postcards.[5] Another guest, Sir John Everett Millais, eventually painted her portrait. Langtry's nickname, the "Jersey Lily," was taken from the Jersey lily flower (Amaryllis belladonna) – a symbol of Jersey.[citation needed]
The nickname was popularised by Millais' portrait, entitled A Jersey Lily. (According to tradition, the two Jersey natives spoke Jèrriais to each other during the sittings.) The painting caused great interest when exhibited at the Royal Academy. Langtry was portrayed holding a Guernsey lily (Nerine sarniensis) in the painting rather than a Jersey lily, as none were available during the sittings. She also sat for Sir Edward Poynter and is depicted in works by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. She became much sought after in London society, and invitations flooded in. Her fame soon reached royal ears.[citation needed]
Acting career
At the suggestion by her close friend Oscar Wilde, Lillie embarked upon a stage career. In December 1881, she made her debut before the London public in She Stoops to Conquer at the Haymarket Theatre.[6] The following autumn, she made her first tour of the United States, to enormous success, which she repeated in subsequent years. While the critics generally condemned her interpretations of roles such as Pauline in the The Lady of Lyons or Rosalind in As You Like It, the public loved her.[6]
In 1903, she starred in the U.S. in The Crossways, written by her in collaboration with J. Hartley Manners.[6] She returned to the United States for tours in 1906 and again in 1912, appearing in vaudeville.[6]
The Prince of Wales, Albert Edward ("Bertie", later Edward VII), arranged to sit next to Langtry at a dinner party given by Sir Allen Young on May 24, 1877.[7] (Her husband Edward was seated at the other end of the table.) Although the Prince was married to Princess Alexandra and had six children, he was a well-known philanderer. He became infatuated with Langtry and she soon became his semi-official mistress. She was even presented to the Prince's mother, Queen Victoria. Eventually, a cordial relationship developed between her and Princess Alexandra.[8]
The affair lasted from late 1877 to June 1880.[9] The Prince of Wales had the Red House (now Langtry Manor Hotel) constructed in Bournemouth, Dorset in 1877 as a private retreat for the couple[10] and allowed Langtry to design it.[10] He once complained to her, "I've spent enough on you to build a battleship," whereupon she tartly replied, "And you've spent enough in me to float one".[11] The folklore is that their relationship finally cooled when she misbehaved at a dinner party,[12] but she had been eclipsed when Sarah Bernhardt came to London in June 1879.[citation needed]
In July 1879 Langtry began an affair with the Earl of Shrewsbury; in January 1880 Langtry and the earl were planning to run away together.[13] In the autumn of 1879 there were rumours published in Town Talk that her husband would divorce her and cite, with others, the Prince of Wales as co-respondent. For some time, the Prince saw little of her. He remained fond of her and spoke well of her in her later career as a theatre actress.[citation needed]
With the withdrawal of royal favour, creditors closed in. The Langtrys' finances were not equal to their lifestyle. In October 1880 Langtry sold many of her possessions to meet her debts but Edward Langtry did not officially declare bankruptcy.[14]
Daughter
Langtry as Lady de Bathe c. 1915
In April 1879, Langtry started an affair with Prince Louis of Battenberg, although she was also involved with Arthur Clarence Jones (1854–1930), an old friend. In June 1880, she became pregnant. Her husband was definitely not the father; she led Prince Louis to believe that it was he. When the prince confessed to his parents, they had him assigned to the warship HMS Inconstant. Given some money by the Prince of Wales, Langtry retired to Paris with Arthur Jones. On March 8, 1881, she gave birth to a daughter, Jeanne Marie.[15]
The discovery of Langtry's passionate letters to Arthur Jones in 1878 and their publication by Laura Beatty in 1999 support the idea that Jones was the father.[16] Prince Louis's son, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, had always maintained that his father was the father of Jeanne Marie.[17]
In 1902 Jeanne Marie married the Scottish politician, Sir Ian Malcolm. They had four children. Lady Malcolm died in 1964. Her granddaughter Mary Malcolm was one of the first two female announcers on the BBC Television Service (now BBC One) from 1948 to 1956, during which time she became a household name in the UK. She died on 13 October 2010 at the age of 92.[18] Her grandson Ian Malcolm was the first husband of the English actress Ann Todd.[citation needed]
Thoroughbred racing
From 1882 to 1891, Langtry had a relationship with the New York City millionaire Frederic Gebhard. With him, she became involved in the sport of thoroughbredhorse racing. In 1885 she and Gebhard brought a stable of American horses to race in England. On August 13, 1888 Langtry and Gebhard traveled in her private car attached to an Erie Railroad express train bound for Chicago. Another railcar was transporting seventeen of their horses when it derailed at Shohola, Pennsylvania at 1:40 in the morning. Rolling down an 80-foot (24 m) embankment, it burst into flames. One person died in the fire, along with Gebhard's champion runner Eole and fourteen racehorses belonging to him and Langtry. One of the two horses to survive the wreck was St. Saviour. He was named for St. Saviour's Church in Jersey, where Langtry's father had been rector and where the actress chose to be buried.[19][20] In 1900, Langtry's horse Merman, ridden by American Tod Sloan, won the Ascot Gold Cup.[21]
Langtry became an American citizen in 1897. She divorced her husband Edward Langtry the same year in Lakeport, California, and he died a few months later following an accident.[22] A letter of condolence later written by Langtry to another widow reads in part, "I too have lost a husband, but alas! it was no great loss."[23]
In 1888 Langtry purchased a winery with an area of 4,200 acres (17 km2) in Lake County, California, which produced red wine. She sold it in 1906. Bearing the Langtry name, the winery and vineyard are still in operation in Middletown, California.[citation needed]
Langtry was involved in a relationship with George Alexander Baird, millionaire amateur jockey and pugilist, from April 1891 until his March 1893 death in New Orleans.[24]
In 1899, she married the much younger Hugo Gerald de Bathe.[6] He inherited a baronetcy and became a leading owner in the horse-racing world, before retiring to Monte Carlo. During her final years, Langtry resided in Monaco, with her husband living a short distance away. The two saw one another only when she called on him for social gatherings or in brief private encounters. Her constant companion during this time was her close friend, Mathilda Peat, the widow of her butler.[citation needed]
From 1900 to 1903, Langtry was the lessee and manager of London's Imperial Theatre.[25]
Langtry died in Monaco in 1929. She was buried in the graveyard of St. Saviour's Church in Jersey.[citation needed]
Cultural influence
Langtry used her high public profile to endorse commercial products such as cosmetics and soap, becoming an early example of celebrity endorsement. Her famous ivory complexion brought her income as the first woman to endorse a commercial product, advertising Pears Soap. Her fee was allied to her weight so she was paid 'pound for pound'.[citation needed]
Caricature of Langtry, from Punch, Christmas 1890. The soap box on which she sits reflects her endorsements of cosmetics and soaps.
Langtry is a featured character in the "tongue-in-cheek" western novel, Slocum and the Jersey Lily by Jake Logan. She figures prominently in Death at Epsom Downs by Robin Paige, the pseudonym of Bill and Susan Wittig Albert, who wrote a series of Victorian novels based on historic people.[citation needed]
Langtry is a featured character in the fictional Flashman novels of acclaimed writer George Macdonald Fraser mentioned as a former lover of arch cad Harry Flashman. Flashman describes her as one of his few true loves.[citation needed]
Langtry is used as a touchstone for old-fashioned manners in Preston Sturges's comedy The Lady Eve (1941), in a scene where a corpulent woman drops a handkerchief on the floor and the hero ignores it. Jean Barbara Stanwyck begins to describe, comment, and even anticipate the events that we see reflected in her hand mirror. Jean says: "The dropped kerchief! That hasn't been used since Lily Langtry ... you'll have to pick it up yourself, madam ... it's a shame, but he doesn't care for the flesh, he'll never see it" (Pirolini 2010).[27]
The song "Lily Langtry" appears in a few albums by the folk group New Christy Minstrels.[citation needed]Langtry was possibly the subject of The Who's 1967 song, "Pictures of Lily", about a young man infatuated by the image of a woman named Lily; the fact that her death occurred in 1929 (as mentioned in the song) gives credence to this theory. A British feature film used the song title Pictures of Lily in 2011.[citation needed]
In The Simpsons episode in which Montgomery Burns auditions children to be his new heir, the theatre in which the auditions are held on Burns' estate is called the Lillie Langtry Theater.[citation needed]
Places connected with Lillie Langtry
Blue plaque memorial at Langtry's former address 21, Pont Street, London
Lillie Langtry lived at 21 Pont Street, London from 1892 to 1897. Although from 1895 the building was actually the Cadogan Hotel, she would stay in her old bedroom there. A blue plaque (which erroneously states that she was born in 1852) on the hotel commemorates this, and the hotel's restaurant is named Langtry's in her honour.
While she was Edward VII's mistress, Lillie Langtry frequently performed at the in-house theatre of a hotel on 1–9 Inverness Terrace, in Bayswater, on the north side of Hyde Park, London W2. The in-house theatre is known as 'Lillie's theatre'. A grade II listed building, the hotel was originally built by Ritz architects Charles Mewès and Arthur Davis and continues to function as a hotel today – renamed 'The Jones Hotel', its in-house theatre continues as the venue for nightly cabaret-style performances. The hotel is now named the Grand Royale London Hyde Park – part of The Shaftesbury Hotels company.[28]
The Langtry Manor Hotel (now a boutique hotel) is located at Derby Road in Bournemouth. The Manor House was built in 1877 by the future Edward VII and was used as a love nest for them. It is now a hotel/restaurant and run by Tara Howard, it is one of Lorraine Kelly's top 20 Wedding venues. Also according to Paranormal Dorset by Roger Guttridge a female presence has been felt in the Manor House at 4pm in the kitchen, which is the time when Langtry would make her afternoon tea.
Bibliography
Langtry, Lillie, The Days I Knew, 1925. (autobiography)
^"Mrs Langtry sold the theatre to Wesleyan Methodists who in turn sold [the interior] to the company owning the Royal Albert Music Hall, Canning Town, who re-erected it stone by stone as the Music Hall of Dockland" (Source: Templeman Library, University of Kent at Canterbury). On the site of the theatre is now the Westminster Central Hall.
^Wolfe, Julian, "The Adventuress of Sherlock Holmes", cited by Baring-Gould, William S.(ed.), The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, vol.1 p.354.
^Pirolini, Alessandro. The Cinema of Preston Sturges: A Critical Study, McFarland & Co., 2010. ISBN 978-0-7864-4358-1
