Lillie Langtry
Emilie Charlotte, Lady de Bathe, known as Lillie 'Langtry and nicknamed "The Jersey Lily'", was a British socialite, stage actress and producer.
Born and raised on the island of Jersey, she moved to London in 1876, two years after marrying. Her looks and personality attracted interest, commentary, and invitations from artists and society hostesses, and she was celebrated as a young woman of great beauty and charm. During the aesthetic movement in England, she was painted by aesthete artists. In 1882, she became the poster-girl for Pears soap, and thus the first celebrity to endorse a commercial product.
In 1881, Langtry became an actress and made her West End debut in the comedy She Stoops to Conquer, causing a sensation in London by becoming the first socialite to appear on stage. She starred in many plays in both the United Kingdom and the United States, including The Lady of Lyons, and Shakespeare's As You Like It. Eventually she ran her own stage production company. In later life she performed "dramatic sketches" in vaudeville. From the mid-1890s until 1919, Langtry lived at Regal Lodge at Newmarket in Suffolk, England. There she maintained a successful horse racing stable. The Lillie Langtry Stakes horse race is named after her.
One of the most glamorous British women of her era, Langtry was the subject of widespread public and media interest. Her acquaintances in London included Oscar Wilde, who encouraged Langtry to pursue acting. She was known for her relationships with royal figures and noblemen, including Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, Lord Shrewsbury, and Prince Louis of Battenberg.
Langtry refused to write her "real reminiscences", and remains somewhat of an enigmatic personality. Even though she lived the most public of lives – as a ‘professional beauty’, as a royal mistress, as an actress, as a racehorse owner, as a squanderer of fortunes and collector of lovers – she remains elusive. Opinions about her are contradictory. To some, she was simply a calculating, cold-hearted creature who used her physical attractions to further her own career; to others she appeared charming, open, with “far more heart than she was given credit for”.
Life
Born in 1853 and known as Lillie from childhood, she was the daughter of the Very Reverend William Corbet Le Breton and his wife, Emilie Davis, a recognised beauty. Lillie's parents had eloped to Gretna Green in Scotland, and, in 1842, married at St Luke's Church, Chelsea, London. The couple lived in Southwark, London, before William was offered the post of rector and Dean of Jersey. Emilie Charlotte was born at the Old Rectory, St Saviour, on Jersey. She was baptised in St Saviour on 9 November 1853.Lillie was the sixth of seven children and the only girl. Her brothers were Francis Corbet Le Breton, William Inglis Le Breton, Trevor Alexander Le Breton, Maurice Vavasour Le Breton, Clement Martin Le Breton, and Reginald Le Breton. Purportedly, one of their ancestors was Richard le Breton, allegedly one of the assassins in 1170 of Thomas Becket.
In an 1882-interview Lillie said: 'Yes, I was born and educated in Jersey, but it is not correct for you to say that I spent my bread-and-butter days there. I never had any bread-and-butter days. As the only sister of six stout brothers I shared their outdoor sports in a most boyish fashion. It would be more accurate to describe my girlhood as my " tomboy days," I think.'
Lillie's French governess was reputed to have been unable to manage her, so Lillie was educated by her brothers' tutor. This education was of a wider and more solid nature than that typically given to girls at that time. Although their father held the respectable position of Dean of Jersey, he earned an unsavoury reputation as a philanderer, and fathered illegitimate children by various of his parishioners. When his wife Emilie finally left him in 1880, he left Jersey.
Life in London
On 9 March 1874, 20-year-old Lillie married 26-year-old Edward Langtry, a landowner from Ulster in the north of Ireland. 'Ned' Langtry was the widower of Jane Frances Price, whose sister, Elizabeth Ann Price, was the wife of Lillie's brother William. Lillie and Edward held their wedding reception at The Royal Yacht Hotel in St Helier, Jersey. Ned Langtry owned a large sailing yacht called Red Gauntlet, and Lillie insisted that he take her away from the Channel Islands. In 1876 they rented an apartment in Eaton Place, Belgravia, London.In 1877, Lillie's brother Clement married Alice, an illegitimate daughter of Viscount Ranelagh, their father's friend. After meeting her in London, Ranelagh invited her to a reception attended by several notable artists at the home of Sir John and Lady Sebright on 29 April 1877. Here she attracted notice for her beauty and wit. Langtry was in mourning for her youngest brother, who had been killed in a riding accident, so in contrast to the elaborate clothes of most women in attendance, she wore a simple black dress and no jewellery. Before the end of the evening, Frank Miles had completed several sketches of her that became very popular on postcards. Lady Sebrights' salon, where artistic and aristocratic audiences overlapped, was 'the ideal springboard' for Langtry. This company was 'always on the outlook for new diversion, new sensations and new faces'. File:Lillie Langtry by Millais.jpg|thumb|upright|right|A Jersey Lily by Sir John Everett Millais. Exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London to large crowds, this 1878 portrait popularised her nickname, the "Jersey Lily".In an 1882-interview, Langtry told how "y life in Jersey had been spent almost entirely in the open air, and as Mr Langtry was fond of yachting I became an expert yachtswoman and was very fond of all sorts of outdoor exercise, but I longed to see something more of the world." She would later remember Miles as one of her "most enthusiastic" friends, who first saw her at a theatre then asked around about the unknown "beauty". After learning Lillie's identity, Miles "begged to sit for a portrait." The painting made then was purchased by Prince Leopold, and Lillie became famous and popular among the nobles of London and the royal family.
Another guest, Sir John Everett Millais, also a Jersey native, eventually painted her portrait, titling it A Jersey Lily after the Jersey lily flower, a symbol of the country. The portrait popularised Jersey Lily as Langtry's nickname, although Langtry was portrayed holding a Guernsey lily in the painting, as no Jersey lilies were available. According to tradition, the two Jersey natives spoke Jèrriais during the sittings. The painting attracted great interest when exhibited at the Royal Academy and had to be roped off to avoid damage by the crowds. A friend of Millais, Rupert Potter, was a keen amateur photographer and took pictures of Lillie during her visit to Millais in Scotland in 1879. She also sat for Sir Edward Poynter and is depicted in works by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. In early 1878, the Langtrys moved to 17 Norfolk Street off Park Lane to accommodate the growing demands of Lillie's society visitors.
Lillie Langtry arrived in the late 1870s, the heyday of 'the Professional Beauties'. Margot Asquith later explained that Langtry's youth was the time 'of the great beauties. London worshipped beauty like the Greeks'. According to Asquith, Langtry became the centre of a social excitement excelling that around the other 'Beauties'. '"The Jersey Lily" – as Mrs. Langtry was called – had Greek features, a transparent skin, arresting eyes, fair hair, and a firm white throat. She held herself erect, refused to tighten her waist, and to see her walk was as if you saw a beautiful hound set upon its feet. It was a day of conspicuous feminine looks and the miniature beauties of to-day would have passed with praise, but without emotion.' Langtry was beautiful in an 'unusual' way in vogue with pre-Raphaelite ideals: 'the column of a neck, the square jaw, the well-defined lips, the straight nose, the slate-blue eyes, the pale skin, even the hair loosely knotted in the nape off the neck'.
Her looks offered a good opportunity for painters: 'y sketches of Lillie during her first London season', wrote Miles twenty years later, 'earned far more than I've ever made on the largest commissions for my most expensive paintings.' Winning Lillie even wider recognition were her photographic likenesses, a relatively new art. The 'Professional Beauties', all members of high society, were photographed in every conceivable attitude. The craze for collecting these pictures – a craze foreshadowing the popularity of first film stars and then pop stars – was not confined to the middle classes. Also many an aristocratic drawing room boasted a leather-bound, brass-locked album featuring the faces of the "Professional Beauties" of the season.
Asquith heard from her sister, Chartie Ribblesdale, about a ball at which "several fashionable ladies had stood upon their chairs to see Mrs. Langtry come into the room. In a shining top-hat, and skin-tight habit, she rode a chestnut thoroughbred of conspicuous action every evening in Rotten Row. Among her adorers were the Prince of Wales, and the present Earl of Lonsdale." Ribblesdale also remembered a story about Langtry and Lonsdale "paus at the railings in Rotten Row to talk to a man of her acquaintance. I do not know what she could have said to him, but after a brief exchange of words, Lord Lonsdale jumped off his horse, sprang over the railings, and with clenched fists hit Mrs. Langtry's admirer in the face. Upon this, a free fight ensued, and to the delight of the surprised spectators, Lord Lonsdale knocked his adversary down.'
The royal biographer Theo Aronson has highlighted the importance of social changes that formed the backdrop of Langtry's success. In the late 1870s, high society became less exclusive following the example of the Prince of Wales, who preferred the company of 'very rich men', regardless of whether they had an aristocratic lineage. By the time Langtry was introduced, 'usiness acumen, beauty and, to a lesser extent, brains were becoming enough to get one accepted'. This 'opening-up' partially explains the success of Langtry. While she was not an aristocrat and would not have been welcomed during previous decades, her husband was a wealthy landowner and her father, as a clergyman, counted on the same level as landed gentry. Her behaviour was in line with aristocratic expectations: 'her air, despite her vivacity and sensuality, was well-bred: she knew how to conduct herself in public'.
In 1878, Langtry attracted a lot of attention during the Ascot races, being 'at the height of her beauty and fame'. Crowds followed her everywhere she went, and she became 'the most advertised beauty in Europe'. According to Lady Augusta Fane's recollections, Langtry was made so popular by her 'naturalness' and charm; 'she had no affectations and no "make-up," either of face or mind; she was just herself, so no one could help loving her, with her gay, light-hearted nature'. However, there was another reason why Langtry attracted so much attention in 1878: the Prince of Wales was often seen in public with her.