"I was a country girl fresh from the Isle of Jersey thrust by a freak of fortune into the heart of London's gayest society." Lillie Langtry
Welcome darlings, beloved fans, and ardent admirers...
I adore you all, pray a moment of your time, come to me and let me tell you of myself.
I was born on the Isle of Jersey to the island's rector, and married Irish landowner Edward Langtry in 1874. Some say that the attraction to Edward was because of his yacht and that he insisted he take me away from Jersey and set up home in London.
I really did want to leave the isle of Jersey and I was so attracted to his yacht…who knew he would turn out to be such a bore!?
I did not begin my stage career until several years later after my husband had become bankrupt. I also had a daughter who was born in 1881, Jeanne Marie Langtry (who married Sir Ian Malcolm of Poltalloch in 1902, had four children, and died in 1964), and whose father was definitely not my husband. The child's actual father was reportedly my lover Prince Louis of Battenberg (later 1st Marquess of Milford Haven, 1854-1921), who married Queen Victoria's granddaughter Princess Victoria of Hesse and the Rhine in 1884 and became father of Earl Mountbatten of Burma, the last Viceroy of India, and grandfather of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. A recent biography of my life suggests that another of her lovers, Arthur Jones, may have been Jeanne Marie's father, though Prince Louis's son, Lord Mountbatten, always maintained that his father was the one.
My heyday as a society beauty culminated in becoming the semi-official mistress to the Prince of Wales, Queen Victoria's son Albert Edward ("Bertie"), the future king Edward VII. Other lovers included wealthy Britons Robert Peel and George Baird. Among my friends were the delightfully witty Irish writer Oscar Wilde and the sarcastically amusing American artist James McNeill Whistler. I was for a time the manager of the Imperial Theatre and also manufactured claret at my 4,200 acre (17 km²) winery in Lake County (northern) California, which I purchased in 1888 and sold in 1906.
In 1887 I became an American citizen, and divorced my husband the same year in California. In 1899, I married the much younger Hugo Gerald de Bathe, who would inherit a baronetcy, and became a leading owner in the horse-racing world, before retiring to Monte Carlo. Come to me darlings….I love you all!
