Lola Montez 1821 – 1861

Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, Countess of Landsfeld 1821 – 1861, known by the stage name Lola Montez, was an Irish born dancer and actress.

Lola Montez was a staunch supporter of homeopathy, and Ludwig I of Bavaria granted an annual award of 4000 florins for the Homeopathic Hospital of Munich on her behalf (Anon, Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Massachusetts Medical Society, Volume 38,  (New England Surgical Society, (1848). Page 332).

Lola Montez also sought out homeopath James John Garth Wilkinson, as he was a follower of Emanuel Swedenborg, and she was also a patient of James John Garth Wilkinson (Cecilia Helena Payne Gaposchkin, Katherine Haramundanis, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: an autobiography and other recollections, (Cambridge University Press, 1996). Page 81), and a friend of Marie, Comtesse d’Agoult, Alexandre Dumas, Emile de Girardin, Franz Liszt, George Sand,

Like many other aspects of her life, discrepant reports of her birth have been published. She was born in Grange, County Sligo in 1821, She was baptised at St Peter’s Church in Liverpool on February 16, 1823. Lola’s mother was Eliza (or Elizabeth) 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 after she married Lola’s father, Ensign Edward Gilbert of the 25th Regiment.

In 1823 the Gilberts moved to India, where Edward’s regiment had been dispatched. But, shortly after arrival, he died of cholera. Her mother, who was now 19, married another officer, Lieutenant Patrick Craigie, the following year. Craigie quickly came to care for Lola, but her spoilt and half wild ways concerned him greatly.

Eventually, it was agreed she would be sent back to Britain to attend school, staying with Craigie’s father in Montrose, Scotland, at first. But the “queer, wayward little Indian girl” quickly became known as a mischief maker. On one occasion, she stuck flowers into the wig of an elderly man during a church service, on another, she ran through the streets naked.

At the age of ten, Lola was moved on again – this time to Sunderland. When her stepfather’s older sister, Catherine Rae, set up a boarding school in Monkwearmouth with her husband, Lola joined them to continue her education.

Lola obviously made an impression on her teachers, as a Mr Grant, who taught art at the little school, was later to recall her as “an elegant and graceful child.” He described her as having eyes of “excessive beauty”, an “orientally dark” complexion and an air of “haughty ease”. But he also revealed: “The violence and obstinacy of her temper gave too frequent cause of painful anxiety to her good kind aunt.”

Lola’s determination and temper were to become her trademarks. The little girl’s stay in Sunderland lasted only a year, as she was then transferred to Bath for a more “sophisticated” education.

In 1837 sixteen year old Lola eloped with Lieutenant Thomas James. The couple separated five years later, in Calcutta, and Lola became a professional dancer under a stage name. Her London debut as “Lola Montez, the Spanish dancer” in June 1843 was successful, but she had been recognized as Mrs. James and a scandal arose over the imposture.

The resulting notoriety hampered her career in England and she departed for the Continent, where she became famous more for her beauty and quick temper than for her dancing. At this time she was almost certainly accepting favours from a few wealthy men, and was regarded by many as a courtesan.

She met and had an affair with Franz Liszt, who introduced her to the circle of George Sand, which was one of the most sophisticated and advanced in European society. After performing in various European capitals, she settled in Paris, where she was accepted in the rather Bohemian literary society of the time, being acquainted with the elder Alexandre Dumas, with whom she was rumoured to have had a dalliance.

After the 1845 death of her lover, newspaperman Alexandre Dujarier, in a duel (unrelated to her), she left Paris.

In 1846, she arrived in Munich, where she was discovered by, and became the mistress of, Ludwig I of Bavaria.She soon began to use her influence on the king and this, coupled with her arrogant manner and outbursts of temper, made her unpopular with the local population, particularly after documents were made public showing that she was hoping to become a naturalized Bavarian citizen and be elevated to the nobility.

Despite the opposition, Ludwig made her Countess of Landsfeld on his next birthday, August 25, 1847. The entertaining rumour that at the time they met Ludwig had asked her in public if her bosom was real, to which her response was to tear off enough of her garments and prove itis entirely unfounded, and the story only first appeared many decades after Lola’s death.

It seems likely that Ludwig’s 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 power behind the throne at an end.

After a sojourn in Switzerland, where she waited in vain for Ludwig to join her, she made one brief excursion to France and then removed to London in late 1848. There she met and quickly married George Trafford Heald, a young army cornet (cavalry officer) with a recent inheritance.But the terms of Lola’s divorce from George Trafford Heald did not permit of either spouse’s remarriage while the other was living, and the beleaguered newlyweds were forced to flee the country to escape a bigamy action brought by George Trafford Heald’s scandalized maiden aunt.

Mr. and Mrs. Heald resided for a time in France and in Spain, but within two years the tempestuous relationship was in tatters, and in 1851 Lola set off to make a new start in the United States, where she was surprisingly successful at first in rehabilitating her image.

From 1851 to 1853 she performed as a dancer and actress in the eastern United States, then arrived at San Francisco in May 1853. There she married Patrick Hull, a local newspaperman, in July and moved to Grass Valley, California, in August.

This marriage failed shortly after, and Montez remained in Grass Valley at her little house for nearly two years. The restored Home of Lola Montez went on to become California Historical Landmark No. 292.

Lola served as an inspiration to another aspiring young entertainer, Lotta Crabtree. Lotta Crabtree’s parents ran a boarding house in Grass Valley, and Lotta Crabtree soon attracted the attention of a neighbor, Lola Montez, who encouraged Lotta Crabtree’s enthusiasm for performance.

In June 1855, she departed for a tour of Australia to resume her career by entertaining miners at the gold diggings during the gold rush of the 1850s arriving at Sydney on August 16, 1855.

Historian Michael Cannon claims that “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 (actually a salacious rumour). 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.”

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.

She earned further notoriety in Ballarat when, after reading a bad review in The Ballarat Times, she attacked the editor, Henry Seekamp with a whip. The “Lola Montes Polka” composed by Albert Denning was later rumoured to have been inspired by this event, but as the song was published in 1855 and the incident with Henry Seekamp occurred months later in February 1856, this is scarcely probable.

She departed for San Francisco on May 22, 1856, having had her fill of the turbulent Antipodes.

In America, she did some acting and lectured on gallantry. She finally moved to New York, where she lived out her last days visiting outcasts of her own sex. 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. 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 tombstone states: “Mrs. Eliza Gilbert, Died Jan. 17, 1861”. It also reads that she was 42 at time of death.