LOLA MONTEZ

stage name of Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert (dau. of Edward Gilbert, ensign 44 foot, d. Dinapore, India 1825). b. Limerick 1818; ed. at Montrose and in Paris; resided at Bath with her mother; ran away to Ireland with Thomas James, captain 21 Bengal N.I., whom she married at Meath 23 July 1837; she returned from India to England early in 1842; he obtained an order for a divorce in consistory court, London 15 Dec. 1842, retired from the army 28 Feb. 1856 and d. 17 May 1871; made her début at Her Majesty’s theatre 3 June 1843 as ‘Lola Montez Spanish dancer,’ but being badly received did not appear again; danced at Dresden, Berlin, Warsaw and St. Petersburg; appeared as a dancer at Munich 1847 when she captivated the king of Bavaria, Ludwig Carl August us, naturalised by a royal ordinance 7 March 1847, created baronne de Rosenthal and comte e de Lansfeld, the king built a splendid mansion for her and gave her a pension of 20,000 florins; ruled the kingdom of Bavaria with great ability, banished March 1848 and the king was forced to abdicate 21 March; m. at St. George’s, Hanover sq. 19 July 1849 George Trafford Heald, cornet 2nd life guards, she fled with him to Spain Aug. 1849 to avoid punishment for bigamy, he sold out 1849 and was drowned at Lisbon 1853 or 1856; danced in ballet of Betley the Tyrolean, at Broadway theatre, New York 29 Dec. 1851, and played Lola Montez in Ware’s drama ‘Lola Montez in Bavaria’ 18 May 1852; m. in California 2 Aug. 1853 P. P. Hull, proprietor of the ‘San Francisco Whig’ but soon left him; played at Victoria theatre, Sydney, N.S.W. 23 Aug. 1855; played at Melbourne 1856 where she horsewhipped Mr. Seekamp, editor of the Ballarat Times, for reflecting on her character; appeared at Green st. theatre, New York 1857 in The Eton Boy, The follies of a night, and Lola in Bavaria; a public lecturer in the United States 1858, lectured at St. James’s hall, London 7 April 1859; spent her time visiting the female outcasts at the Magdalen hospital near New York 1859–60. d. in a sanitary asylum at Asteria, New York 17 Jany. 1861. bur. Greenwood cemet. 19 Jany. Autobiography and lectures of Lola Montez (1858), portrait ; Les Contempo rains, Lola Montes. Par Eugène de Mire court. Paris (1870), portrait ; F. L. Hawks’s Story of a penitent, Lola Montez. New York (1867); C. H. Ro ’s Painted Faces (1891) 78–88; H. H. Phelps’s Players of a century (1880) 265–7, 297; Temple Bar , July 1880 pp. 362–7; Mortemar’s Folly’s Queens (1882) 10–14, portrait ; You have heard of them. By Q. (1854) 98–106; I.L.N. x 180 (1847), portrait .