The Jersey Lily

This being a hare started by a chance purchase of the Lillie Langtry TV series of reference 1 in CEx for a tenner or so. A series from the late 1970’s running to 13 episodes with three or four parts to the episode. BH had a certain amount of bother keeping track.

A costume drama about a lady who was new-to-me but famous in the last 10 years of the 19th century and who lasted another 30 years after that. A costume drama without all the blood, sweat, tears and expletives of ‘Deadwood’. A costume drama which sagged a bit in the middle, probably not helped by watching it in larger chunks than was originally intended, but things picked up and we got through it. And we are very pleased to have chanced upon it.

Now supplemented by the two books that Surrey Libraries could offer, references 3 and 4. The thin reference 4 has more pictures than words, including quite a lot of theatre programmes and publicity shots, which were interesting. While reference 3 at 300 pages is rather fatter, and rounds the television series out nicely, even though I get the feeling that the lady author does not like her subject very much. Whereas, contrariwise, the gentleman author of reference 5 which I am reading presently, does not seem to like the prince, also known as Bertie, very much. More evidence that we tend to be more forgiving of the opposite sex than our own: ‘What on earth do you expect? Can’t help themselves you know. Children really’.

I ended up by being very impressed with her. From a standing start, with not much more than her looks, she fought her way into society and when that flagged, fought her way into the theatre – and made a lot of money there – a lot of it in the US. She was also very lucky – or good – with her race horses. All helped along by her being healthy, intelligent, sociable and having an enormous amount of energy. She also had a good head for business, not making that many mistakes.

It seems that she first flapped her wings in London at just about the time when photographers were selling large numbers of picture postcards of what were called professional beauties, more or less all of whom who would have counted as courtesans or demi-mondaines in the Paris of the day. And she managed to tap into this business, which made her a feature of the London scene and brought her a succession of rich admirers. Not all of whom were just munificent geriatrics – this being a splendid phrase I picked up more than forty years ago. And one of whom was the Prince of Wales.

Curiously, I find most of the pictures of her rather unattractive. I suppose tastes may have changed in the intervening century.

She also tapped into the painting scene of the day, and had her portrait painted by several eminences, including Millais, above. Brough of reference 5 has it that the props department at the Millais studio made a serious error, in that the flower is a Guernsey lily, not the same thing as a Jersey lily at all.

The Poynter version.

And one of her long-time associates was the publicity hungry Oscar Wilde; with each rather feeding off the other. An association which did not end very well with Langtry not caring to play the aging lead, which appeared to be modelled on her own rather complicated life, in ‘Lady Windermere’s Fan’ and with Wilde embarking on his foolish libel case, which ended up with him in Reading jail.

An impressive lady, but whose rather Faustian bargain with life ended rather sadly, more or less by herself, in Monaco; rich but rather lonely. More or less estranged from her only daughter, whom she had treated rather carelessly as a child, although she got on well enough with her son-in-law and her grandchildren.

Oddments

You might get your board when riding the country house circuit, but you needed a lot of expensive clothes – which was tricky for the early Langtry with no income to speak of.

Her husband got a bit of a rough deal. So he was not what she wanted: he was dull, he liked boating and fishing and became a tiresome drunk - before eventually expiring in a mental asylum up north. But he was what she signed up for - and then more or less dumped him once he had got her to London. She used him and expected him to play to her tune.

She could be rough, not to say cruel, with other people too. So apart from her daughter, whom she dragged about with her on the repertory and vaudeville circuits for years, there was, for example, the cabinet maker who spent weeks lovingly polishing some expanse of expensive walnut veneer – then when he had finished, telling him to cover it with white enamel – seemingly the latest thing. Which struck me as gratuitously unthinking and cruel. It was as if she had to flaunt her power and money because that was all she had left.

She was quite old when she made her career change to the stage, certainly quite old for a change of that sort, travelling by way of tableaux vivants a popular form of entertainment at the time, sometimes a form of soft-porn, this being possible due to some quirk in the censorship laws, although Langtry did not go in for that end of the business. But I did learn about one Olga Desmond who did. For which see references 7 and 8.

A slightly shabby period towards the end of her working life when she was attracted to young men at tea dances. Where the lady paid the man for a dance, rather than the other way around.

A walk on part for the slightly younger Elinor Glynn, a successful author of romantic fiction in her day, fiction mostly drawn from her own social life, which necessitated a certain amount of moving on. Probably little read now. Another product of Jersey, with a life not so far removed, if rather less flamboyant, than that of Langtry. I first learned about her from a book picked up on a table outside a lifeboat station on the Isle of Wight.

I have learned that you no longer reserve a book at the library. You put a hold on it.

Conclusions

A lucky find. Will we manage to get through the series again one day?

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillie_(TV_series).

Reference 2: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077042/. More on the series.

Reference 3: Lillie Langtry : manners, masks and morals – Beatty, Laura – 1999. 

Reference 4: Lillie Langtry : Her Life In Words & Pictures – Jeremy Birkett, John Richardson – 1979. 

Reference 5: The Prince and the Lily: The story of Edward VII and Lillie Langtry – James Brough – 1975. 

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Windermere%27s_Fan. 

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tableau_vivant. 

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_Desmond.