The other side of Lillie Langtry

In this episode of the *Small Island Big Story Sessions*, we're exploring the life of 'the Jersey Lillie' born Emilie Charlotte Le Breton on October 13 1853, Lillie Langtry has been famous for her acting career, her immense beauty and her presence, and often she's been talked about due to her somewhat scandalous affairs.

Today we are going to be looking at the other side of Lillie, the entrepreneur, the witty woman of London's high society, we're going to be looking at her achievements and exploring who she was as a person. 

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Transcript

Jersey Heritage Podcast; Small Island, Big Story Sessions 
The other side of Lillie Langtry 
Perry (00:00:02):
Welcome to the Jersey Heritage Podcast,
Mel (00:00:05):
The Small Island Big Story Sessions.
Perry (00:00:08):
You are listening to Mel and Perry.
Mel (00:00:11):
In today's episode, we're going to be exploring the life of the Jersey Lily, born Emily Charlotte Le Breton. On October 13th, 1853. Lily Langtry has been famous for her acting career, her immense beauty and her presence, and often she's been talked about due to her somewhat scandalous affairs. Today we are going to be looking at the other side of Lily, the entrepreneur, the witty woman of London's high society. We're going to be celebrating her achievements and exploring more about who she was as a person. 

First up, we have Lucy Layton who will be sharing where it all began.
Lucy (00:00:50):
Well, Lily was born in Jersey. She grew up in the rectory at St. Saviors. Her father was actually the dean of Jersey. So you might be thinking, oh, you know, quite a quiet, respectable well to do family. But actually it was a bit misleading that scenario because her father, despite being the dean of Jersey, he was actually had quite a reputation as a philander, had fathered several illegitimate children. So it isn't quite the peaceful, quiet childhood you would imagine. Also, Lily was one of seven children. She was the only girl. So she grew up in a household of boys. And so by all accounts, she was a bit of a tomboy, climbing trees, racing around with her brothers. At one time, she did have a French governess who left in despair because <laugh> was so sort of uncontrollable. So in fact, she was actually brought up and educated alongside her brothers. So she had a much more kind of robust, wide ranging education than most girls of her age. She had lessons for Latin maths, Greek, German, French music, and Wow. You know, so it was not of conventional childhood. And, you know, perhaps that's reflected in her unconventional life that she went on to lead.
Mel (00:02:03):
Do we know why she was called Lily and not Emily? Throughout her life,
Lucy (00:02:09):
I think she became known as Lily by the family because she struggled to say Emily. So Lily was a sort of shortened version. I think the Jersey Lily nickname came about, probably because of Millie's painting. He painted her in 1878 and he titled the Painting a Jersey Lily. So I think that's probably where the nickname stuck or where, where it was created. I dunno whether that was a name that she was already being sort of known as, because she had, this came from Jersey, obviously, and had the lily white complexion. So I dunno whether it was a name that was perhaps being used. And then he sort of yeah, cemented it in the sort of, you know, canon of names by naming the portrait that or whether he invented the name and then it became her nickname. Yeah, I'm not quite sure, but he, it's definitely the name of the portrait, so I think that's really significant.
Mel (00:03:04):
Yeah. 'cause I think there's also potentially, you know, obviously we all have our own nicknames in our family, our terms of endearment, so yeah. Lily.
Lucy (00:03:11):
Yeah. Yeah. So I think she was always Lily because she struggled to say Emily when she was little, and then when she went to London, she became the Jersey Lily. Yeah.
Perry (00:03:19):
Do we know much about her early relationships with, with perhaps other people in Jersey at the time? Is there much recorded of her time in Jersey early on?
Lucy (00:03:28):
There is really, I think we just know that sort of brief outline of, of her family sort of beginnings growing up in this, you know, quite masculine household. I get the impression that she was quite determined and ambitious. She was already being, you know, regarded as quite a beautiful young woman. And I think she saw marriage as a way to escape the island. I think Jersey was probably just a bit too small for her, and she wanted to get to London and marriage offered a way outta the island for her. So I think when she had a, a marriage proposal from a widower called Edward Langtry, who had spent some time in the island and he had a yacht MAED here. And I think he definitely gave the impression that he was quite a, a, a wealthy man. I think she sort of saw this as a way of escaping the island. So she, she got married to him in 1874, and eventually they did move to London. She persuaded her husband to take her there. I think he was more of an outdoorsy kind of person, quite happy with his boots and things. So I think he was rather reluctantly drawn into London society, but I think Lily definitely saw marriage to someone with means was way out of the island and, and to get her to London. So
Mel (00:04:50):
When Lily arrived in London, did she, did she go straight into her acting career? Was that something that grew,
Lucy (00:04:56):
That's something that came later and outta financial necessity? I mean, I think originally when she first entered London Society, she caused quite a sensation because very tragically her youngest brother had actually been killed in Jersey in a riding accident. Oh, no way. So she was a mourning. But actually this sort of worked to her benefit because when she went into society, everyone was, you know, in very sort of ornate, flamboyant dresses and very complicated hairstyles. And Lily turned up in this very plain, simple black dress. And I think she was renowned for having this very lily white, pure complexion. So she caused a real sensation because she looked so different to everybody else. And that's when she started to get the attention of the leading artist at the time, like Sir John Everett Mille. And he had a Channel Island collection as well.
Lucy (00:05:48):
So there was that immediate link. And people like Oscar Wilde as well, I mean, he became a devoted fan of hers and a very close friend. And so I think she, she used her beauty, her good looks to make connections to make a way in society. She then became quite notorious because she caught the eye of the Prince of Wales later, ed the seventh. He was known for having several affairs, lots of affairs, and she caught his eye and she went on to have an affair with him. And actually she was the first acknowledged mistress of the king. All his other relationships have been kept very quiet, but they were actually, you know, it was fairly well known that they were having an affair. So this gave her enormous cache in London society. You know, she was stunningly beautiful. She had the attention of the king.
Lucy (00:06:40):
She was very much in his favor. And she was actually good friends with with his wife as well. She became a very famous name. So all the London newspapers would, you know, cover her, her story. And, you know, she was very, very well known. The move to the stage really came when she fell out of favor with, with the King. I think it all became a little bit too risque and a bit scandalous. And I think there was talk of her husband citing the king as a correspondent in a divorce case. And I think sort of people swooped in and sort of managed to brush it under the carpet. But it was all becoming a bit too embarrassing, I think, for the royal family. So, so Lily was kind of dropped a bit and then was sort of ostracized by other people. And people started to call in their debts because she was living a very lavish lifestyle, which actually her husband wasn't quite as wealthy as she had perhaps been led to believe when he, you know, proposed marriage to her.
Lucy (00:07:42):
So it was really out of necessity that she turned to the stage she needed, she needed money to finance this lifestyle. She was living, and I think it was Oscar Wild who suggested that a, a career in the theater might be, might be a way to, to make a living. By all accounts, she wasn't a good actress. I don't think she really had any experience on the stage. But what she did have was a famous name and also this sort of freestyle scandal around her name as well. So, you know, when she appeared in the theater, people wanted to see the famous Lily Langtry. So that, you know, ended up being quite a lucrative career for her, but one that came out of financial necessity.
Perry (00:08:22):
It sounds like a very messy life with being an acknowledged mistress, friends with the wife, the king, and having a husband at the same time. I mean, I couldn't even imagine the Yeah, the
Mel (00:08:35):
Situation. <Laugh> busy, busy times, <laugh>. Yeah. We know that Lily wrote her own autobiography. What can you share with us about that?
Lucy (00:08:44):
Well, she wrote the biography in 1925, so only four years before she died. So it was very much, you know, an older woman reflecting on her life. It was very sanitized, very discreet. So she really didn't dish the dirt on any of her conquests. In fact, I mean, you wouldn't even know from the biography that she had a relationship with the Prince of Wales. You just think they were, they were friends, <laugh>. So it was incredibly discreet and obviously, you know, I'm sure she was thinking of her legacy and yeah, painting a, a, you know, a portrait. It's, it's, it's, it's quite funny. There are quite a few sort of, sort of mild jokes and things in it, but it, it, it doesn't, it doesn't, definitely doesn't dish the dirt on the celebrities. She was involved with <laugh>. It, it was funny actually, 'cause when I, I was just checking the date of the book because I couldn't quite remember when it was published and I came across a, a review on Good Reads.
Lucy (00:09:38):
So it shows that even today there are still people interested in Lily Langtry and want to find out about her life. But I thought this was really funny 'cause the review was, oh, Lily, Lily, Lily, I was hoping to find the secret of your allure, that mystique that made you the it goal of an entire era. I read your memoir the days I knew, but Lily, we want to know about the nights you knew <laugh>. All you give us is the encyclopedic list of your star-studded acquaintance, a veritable Rolodex of who was who. What I cannot forgive is that you wrote a tell. All that tells nothing. Your book is the EQ Edwardian equivalent of Gwyneth Paltrow's blog of Paris Hilton's Twitter account of Lindsay Low's memoirs,
Perry (00:10:16):
<Laugh> <laugh>.
Lucy (00:10:17):
So I thought that was brilliant. It really summed it up as the, this very discreet account of her life, but actually all the stuff that people really wanted to know. Yeah, none of it was in there, but
Mel (00:10:29):
It just goes to show how, so, so many people have obviously feel a very personal connection to Lily and they seem to know a lot about her character based on really, quite frankly, very little.
Lucy (00:10:39):
Yeah, well I was actually quite fascinated there. Were people still reading her? Yeah, well that's, you know, it's nearly a hundred years old, her autobiography. I, I was amazed that people still reading it. I mean, it's still in print. You can get a hold of it. When we were talking about the podcast, I thought we're all assuming, 'cause we know about Lily lre that, you know, she's, is this a big name? But I just don't know whether young people would, would know about her. I mean, there was a really famous television series in 1978 with Francesca Annis, which was like a 10 part dramatization of her life on, I think it's probably on the BBC. And that was really popular. Everyone watched it, and I think it probably had that sort of rack effect and that everyone knew about Lily Ry and her story and all the scandal and her relationship with the Prince of Wales. But obviously that's a long time ago now. So I don't know whether she's still such a familiar name. But then you have the Langtry Pub in town, the La Tree races, Lantry Gardens Goods. So Langtry Gardens, of course, yes. So, I mean, her name does still survive, but I wonder how much information people actually know about her. Mm-Hmm.
Perry (00:11:45):
Yeah, it's, it's certainly one of those things that because she, you know, kind of died before, you know television or, or film in that kind of mass accessible way, or even recordings of voice. We don't really have much to, to physically view her or remember her by other
Lucy (00:12:05):
Than she did actually make one film. Yeah. Apparently. I mean she mainly had a stage career and obviously by the 1910s it was, it was falling out of fashion, the kind of work she was doing. But apparently in 1913 she did make a single silent film called His Neighbor's Wife <laugh>. So you can imagine <laugh> what, what the subject matter of that was <laugh>.
Mel (00:12:31):
So like moving, moving on from Lily's career in terms of her, like her domestic life. So she had, she had children, she had, was it just one,
Lucy (00:12:41):
She had one daughter, Jean-Marie. Yes, it's interesting. I actually did an exhibition about Lily Ary back in 1998. And as part of that, I somehow, I can't remember now the details, but managed to make contact with Lily's granddaughter. Wow. Mary Malcolm or Mary Mc as she was then, she lived in London and she was probably quite elderly when I met her. She herself actually was a she was one of the first female presenters on the BBC back in the 1950s. So she was quite a household name herself, which is quite interesting how that sort of legacy is passed on. And she loaned us some items for the exhibition we did, and then ended up donating some of the material. And it included two letters, one from Lily Lare in 1982 to her daughter Shamar, who was in London and hadn't been to see her.
Lucy (00:13:36):
And then a responding letter from Shamar a day or two later. And yeah, they're really quite hard hitting. The difficulty was that Jeanmarie was her parentage was not clear, it's still actually not clear now, but it definitely was a, a secret within the family. So she definitely wasn't Edward Lang Tree's daughter, but there was some confusion as to whether she was the daughter of an affair Lily had with Prince Louis of Battenberg, who they then anglicized their name and became the Mount Batten family. So there were royal connections there, or whether she was the daughter of someone she had a slightly longer relationship with a gentleman called Arthur Jones. But basically Prince Louis was led to believe that he was the father. I think Lily had some financial support from the Prince of Wales, and she went to Paris and had her baby in great secrecy.
Lucy (00:14:35):
And then the baby was brought back to Jersey. She named her Jeanmarie, but she, Jeanmarie was actually brought up thinking Lily was her aunt. So she didn't know she was, her mother didn't know it was her mom. No. And she didn't know until a few days before her wedding. So you can imagine how Lily's life is scandalous <laugh>. I know you can imagine how distressing that would be to suddenly discover that this woman who thought your aunt was, was your aunt, was actually your mother just before you get married. And it was, they're really, you know, painful letters. Very difficult. Yeah. So Jeanmarie got married in October, 1902, so I think this must be around the time of her wedding. And Lily has sent a letter on October the 13th saying, you know, I'm in London and I'm so upset that you haven't been to see me.
Lucy (00:15:20):
And you know, sort of, you know, I, I absolutely adore you. I've always shown great love to you. I can't believe you know, you, you wouldn't pay me a visit. So then Paul Shamar writes this letter, I feel sure you cannot have forgotten the unhappy instant, which occurred on the eve of my marriage when it became my painful duty to ask you a certain question concerning my parentage. So even at that stage, she obviously has some doubts who her parents were, but it's, it's obviously, you know, huge pain going on in their relationship after having been left to ascertain the cruel truth for myself, I came to you, my mother, to either confirm or deny it atlass. I knew the latter to be impossible and was quite prepared for what I felt you would, would be your answer, remembering as you must the emphatic denial I received.
Lucy (00:16:10):
Can you wonder that from that moment, my feelings should have changed so much towards you. God, it's really, that is really like intense. Yeah. It really is. That answer coming from the one person whom all my life I had loved and respect is shattered my ideals and killed all affection in me. But I suffered the last days under your roof. Knowing this changed to have come upon me, yet feeling myself powerless to alter it. And with the shame of my new discovery fresh in my mind, had it not been for the support and the pure love and devotion of the strong man who wished to make me his wife, and spite of all spite, I think I should have gone mad. So it is, she doesn't dispell out exactly what she having told at that stage, but presumably Lily must have told her who her real father was.
Lucy (00:16:54):
And it is just, yeah, it's really painful, isn't it? So basically she ends the letter, I have felt within the last year or two that our tastes are so widely different, therefore, in future we had best each live our own lives apart. In conclusion, if I believe that painful as I know it must be to you to receive this letter, the necessity of writing it causes the intenses misery to your daughter. Whoa. So isn't that just so tragic? So a complete breakdown of their relationship in 1902 around the time of Jan's marriage. It was interesting that that Mary Lilly's granddaughter was happy to hand this over to the archive. It felt almost slightly intrusive to read them as part of this podcast, but she, she gave them to the Jersey Heritage Collection. They've been on display in the exhibition back in 1998. So yeah. So I, I felt quite
Mel (00:17:50):
Liberty to read them. Well, I didn't even know, I didn't even know these letters existed. So, and that does really paint a very clear picture as to where Lily was at with her daughter.
Lucy (00:18:00):
Yeah. She obviously had a really complex chaotic love life. And you know, the fallout of that was this estrangement from her daughter. I don't know whether, you know, in later years before Lily died, they may have been reconciled. I don't know the detail of that. But Lily actually ended up her final years living in, in Monaco. She had eventually divorced Edward Langtry when she had enough money to be financially independent. And then she did marry and acquire a title, which I think she enjoyed. She married someone 19 years, her junior. Wow. So Hugo Deba, so when his father died, she became Lady Deba and she she retired to Monaco and lived in a, in a beautiful villa called Villa Lily. So the Lily name continues, continues with the house, but in fact she and her husband lived apart.
Lucy (00:18:53):
He lived further down the coast just beyond niece, whereas she lived in Monaco and I don't know about any reconciliation with her daughter, but she did have a companion, Matilde Pete, who lived with her in Monaco. I dunno quite the extent of their relationship. But Matilde actually was given the house and some bequests of money and Lily's car upon Lily's death. So they were obviously very close. Mm. And when she died, Lily requested in her will that her body be returned to Jersey. So although she hadn't spent much time living in Jersey, she always maintained a close connection. She, when the refurbished opera house was reopened in 1900, she was the first person to perform on the stage there. So she always had a close connection to the island. And yeah, that's where she requested that her body be returned and buried. And she's now buried in St. Xavier's graveyard, just a stone's throw from where she grew up.
Perry (00:19:51):
Yeah, it's interesting. She, she kind of grew up then in, in quite a, you know, quite a messy household as a child. And then, I dunno whether it would be fair to, to assume that her own relationships kind of echoed that, you know, as she,
Lucy (00:20:04):
Well, it definitely sounds like her father had a lot of extramarital relationships. There were talk of, you know, stepbrothers and stepsisters that his legitimate children didn't know about. So, you know, I think it was quite a complicated messy childhood. And, and it seems that, you know, she took that with her into her adult life.
Mel (00:20:24):
Do we know much about Lily's mum?
Lucy (00:20:26):
Well she brought up Jean-Marie, so they obviously, you know, did keep in, in, in in close touch. She brought up li Lily's daughter in Jersey. And actually there's a reference in one of the letters. 'cause Lily had a little cottage here at BeMore, which she named after Merman after one of her favorite race horses. We haven't even touched on her, her career as a owning and racist racing horses.
Mel (00:20:50):
We discuss that later in the pot. <Laugh> keep listening guys.
Lucy (00:20:52):
But in the le in that letter I've just read from Jan mentions how she had stayed in the cottage Memon when she was in Jersey, but she says, I did it because I didn't want to upset my grandmother. I didn't want her to know that we were estranged. So, you know, to save face, I acted normally and stayed in, she stayed in her mother's house.
Mel (00:21:12):
Wow. That's such, I had no idea about this side of Lily's story. Yeah, it's actually really, that's really heartbreaking.
Lucy (00:21:19):
Yeah. And I think it's only so because these very private family letters have been given to us that you get a sense of, you know, the real person behind all the newspaper stories and the society news and gossip and all that kind of thing. You know, you, you see the real person behind all that. And it seems from Lily's letter to Jan, which, which to which Sharon was responding in that letter that she really didn't see that she had done anything wrong and couldn't understand why her daughter didn't wanna spend time with her and come visit her in London. She was, yeah. So it must have been a bit of a shock when she got this letter from her daughter. We're
Perry (00:21:59):
Really very lucky then that we, we've got these, 'cause we didn't know any of this before. Was it 1998? Is that when you got them the letters
Lucy (00:22:07):
Or, yes, yes. And that was just because we were doing an exhibition and we were, you know, looking for new material, new stories. And I, for the life of me, I can't remember how I managed to get in contact with her granddaughter, but
Mel (00:22:23):
Because you're a pro Lucy <laugh>.
Lucy (00:22:24):
That's right. But I remember going, she lived in St. John's Wood in London, a very nice property. And I, I went to, went to visit and we had a chat about Lily and the story. And and then she, she loaned us these materials that eventually she decided to donate to the collection.
Perry (00:22:40):
What did what did Jeanmarie end up doing then?
Lucy (00:22:44):
I suspect Jeanmarie, I think she married well despite her slightly dubious parentage mm-hmm <affirmative>. And she references that in the letter that she said, you know, he, he's going to marry me despite, you know, this potential scandal associated with her name. I think her, her husband was a, a solicitor and I think she probably just led a, yeah. Quite privileged lifestyle. And then I had this daughter, Mary who, and plus other children as well, but Mary is the one obviously we're interested in because of the, the Lily connection. That's how we got the letters.
Perry (00:23:16):
Did, did Mary meet Lily at all? No,
Mel (00:23:20):
Her granddaughter
Lucy (00:23:21):
Lily died in 1929. 29. Yeah. So I think, I think probably not, I can't quite remember the, the birth date of Mary Malcolm. Do
Mel (00:23:32):
We know how Lily died? Like what did she die of?
Lucy (00:23:34):
I think she died of pneumonia. I mean, she was quite elderly by then. 1929.
Mel (00:23:39):
She was 75.
Lucy (00:23:40):
Yeah. So she, and she was living in, in Monaco with this companion Matilde. But yeah, she died of,
Mel (00:23:47):
It's a long life for a Victorian woman. Really?
Lucy (00:23:50):
Hmm. Yeah. I imagine being Monaco probably helped with the climates. Oh,
Mel (00:23:55):
<Laugh>. Yeah. But considering that the life that she had, it was so, it was kind of like go, go, go. She was always on, on some sort of kind of like, kind of steam train, it seems like. Yeah,
Lucy (00:24:06):
Yeah. And obviously she spent a lot of time traveling, touring America, you know, going backwards and forwards across the Atlantic. Yeah, she was very busy. I mean, she was a, you know, a working woman. She needed to earn her own living, so well, absolutely. Yeah. No, she was very busy
Mel (00:24:23):
Speaking to Lucy. We realized how deeply emotional Lily's relationship was with her daughter. These letters truly highlight the complexities of Lily's life, and they show us how much of her story has been somewhat assumed.
Perry (00:24:35):
We now welcome Vic Tanner Davy, who will share more about some of the misconceptions of Lily's character.
Vic (00:24:42):
I think some of the misconceptions about Lily Langtry are around the fact that she was an actress, and that's it. That that's all you get. You know, there are blue plaques in London that say, you know, Lily Langtry actress and she was far more than that. And I think that's the biggest misconceptions conception, is that it was all about her beauty. And she was an actress and she made her way through affairs with influential and powerful men. And that's not the case at all.
Mel (00:25:13):
It's really interesting how lots of people kind of fixate on those, on those kind of elements of her life. I was actually saying to Perry before, how it's really interesting how in that time period, you know, people were fixated on what men did. What were their achievements in terms of business, in terms of their kind of contribution to community? Didn't really know very much about a man's personal life when it came to women. Everyone was obsessed with their personal lives and didn't really give any credit to what they had done for the community or business wise. So how does Lily, how is Lily different to all of that?
Vic (00:25:47):
I mean, I think that's probably much the same these days actually, that there's a double standard in society. I think if you were, if you were writing Lily's biography and she was a man, you would say entrepreneur, you wouldn't say beauty socialite, actress. That would be the, the strap line would be ENT entrepreneur. She's very business savvy. She's very smart. She's witty. She's got a real grip of her business, finances and, and the money side of things in terms of her mar her original marriage to, to Ned Tre. She's, she's the one who's got the grip on the finances of the household. And I think it's those elements really that, that we need to, to reexamine and, and bring out about Lily,
Mel (00:26:35):
Come and visit our exhibition, LA Terry Jeri at the Jersey Museum. This exhibition tells the story of jersey's unique and complex history from our neolithic past to more contemporary stories. This exhibition really does have something for everyone. It's free to visit and open all year round.
Perry (00:26:58):
Looking at, looking at these elements and this kind of independence that, that she clearly had. Would you say she, she's kind of almost like a modern style celebrity compared to what was around at the time? Because, you know, there's lots of celebrities now that that do many different things.
Vic (00:27:14):
Yeah, she's definitely one of those sort of celebrities that reinvents herself time and time again. And when hardship hits her, she then goes, okay, looks around. What can I do? What's the next business opportunity? What's the next thing that's gonna keep me, you know, financially sound? So yes, she is modern in that sense. And, you know, a a modern business woman, she's looking for those opportunities. She knows her brand, she knows that Lily Langtry is a brand. And, you know, that's something that we would recognize today in terms of people like Madonna and Lady Gaga. You would recognize that as, as being, you know, it, it's a brand. It's something that they've curated. It's something that they look after. It's something that they guard as, as being precious. And Lily was the same. So, you know, one of the early things that she does is she endorses Pears soap.
Vic (00:28:02):
So she's the first celebrity to endorse a product ever anywhere in the world. Wow. So she endorses Pears soap, but it backfires because in endorsing Pears soap, there's a little kind of testimonial from her. And she signs it. She signs it Lily Langtry with her signature, her real signature, and that is on Billboards and Hoardings and posters all over London and, and the rest of the uk. And the problem is that that signature gets forged then. Oh, no. And she gets, she, she gets caught in, in a, in a forgery of her signature. So she realizes very early on that she has to be very careful about what she puts out there and very careful about her brand. So that signature then she never ever puts it publicly again. So she, she's, she's, you know, she's canny in that sense, you know, she, she has a business acumen.
Perry (00:28:53):
Strange to think, you know, in this day and age that a signature really matters that much in, in any regard. You know, I mean, we don't really use them much now. No.
Mel (00:29:02):
You know, no, I don't really sign documents. No. Unless they're like official ones.
Perry (00:29:06):
My, my signature looks different every time I put it down. Anyway, <laugh>,
Vic (00:29:09):
It's like internet security, you know, we're all told to be really secure about our passwords and our, our ID and our banking apps and all of that. And it was, you know, this was the, the Victorian equivalent of that. You know, don't put your signature out there 'cause it can be you used in a way that you didn't intend.
Perry (00:29:26):
So you said she, she adapted and changed and obviously, you know, one of the things she was known for was being sort of young socialite actress. How did her business decisions and, and what she'd do, what she did change as she, she kind of aged and,
Vic (00:29:41):
Well, let's start with the, the socialite bit. So she, she gets to London and she's, she's living with Ned Langtry, her, her husband at that point. And in 1880, they're living beyond their means. Ned had, you know, high aspirations of being this sort of gentleman, but he didn't actually have the means to sustain that. So Lily has to sell all of her possessions basically in 1880 to make sure that the family is, is financially viable and can continue. And she pays off Ned's debts at that point. And it's at that point that you get the first reinvention. So she's a socialite at that point. She's known as a beauty. She's being painted by Millet and Pointer and those, those famous pictures. And that's the first reinvention then comes in 1881 where she starts to, to, to look to the stage as being a viable opportunity for her to, to keep them financially sound.
Vic (00:30:35):
So she goes out to work as an actress, and that's her first reinvention. And she's, she's on the, the London stage and she does very well, and she's very popular. But I think what's interesting is that literally within a year of her doing that, she is starting her own company to her own touring company. So she's not just an actress, even at that stage, she's looking to, to make it more sound, more, more of a business. And she takes her, her company round the UK as a tour and round the USA as well. And by 1883, the US tour has made her a very good profit. So that's the first kind of reinvention that we get is that she's a, an actor manager, which is, you know, not something to be sniffed at. You know, this is, this is something that she's built and she's achieved and it's doing very well for her. And how
Mel (00:31:30):
Does that compare to what other women at the time were doing? Was that a common thing for women to do?
Vic (00:31:35):
Not at all. No. I mean, you know, women's sphere at that, in those, in that in that time was very much the domestic sphere. And, you know, Lily is, is unusual in this you know, she's, it's not something that women would normally have done. You know, you certainly had male actor managers, you know lots of famous ones. But for a woman to be doing that is yeah, pretty unheard of.
Perry (00:31:59):
She has, she has so much agency for a woman of the time, at least a visible agency that we, we we can see publicly. Was there like a pushback against this? Was, was it sort of scandalous that she even looked after her own business and stuff like that?
Vic (00:32:16):
I don't think by this stage it was scandalous because by this stage she'd had her affair with the, the Prince of Wales. And I think that that, that that's the scandalous bit, really. So she's almost done the worst thing she can do. She
Mel (00:32:33):
Got outta the
Vic (00:32:33):
Way <laugh>. Yeah. And, and, and, and that, that happens early on when she first gets to London. So I think probably by the time she's, she's doing the actor to manage a bit, it's not, it's certainly not seen as a, a scandal in society. And she is somebody who has a kind of a force of personality. So I think her force of personality and her wit and the way that she is good with people you know, she can, she can maneuver herself into situations where it would be unusual for a woman to be in that position and get away with it, as it were.
Perry (00:33:11):
So how did she interact or involve herself, if at all, with the kind of women's rights movement then? Was she concerned with,
Vic (00:33:19):
There doesn't seem to be any great evidence to suggest that she was she was her own person. She was doing what she was doing. And we can look back on it now and see how groundbreaking and, and, you know, forward thinking that was, but it wasn't a political move. Mm.
Mel (00:33:37):
So she, we know that she was also invol involved with horse racing, but what were some of her other entrepreneurial ideas that came to fruition?
Vic (00:33:48):
Well, the horse racing one's interesting because the horse racing one, it, it's, she's not just racing a horse, you know, she's not just got like a part ownership in a, in a, in a horse. She's actually got stables and she's breeding horses and she's, you know, she really is fully into it as a business. It's, you know, it's not just a I'll, I'll buy a bit of a horse and, and put a flutter on kind of thing. This is, this is serious stuff. And that comes about when she's in the us. So her relationship with the, the millionaire, Freddie Gabard introduces her to the world of horse racing. And they, they buy a stable of us horses and they bring them back to England to race them in England, which was no small thing to do. You know, there was a risk to, to moving horses across the Atlantic.
Vic (00:34:30):
But they did it and they raced the horses. And I mean, Lily carries on racing right the way through to the sort of 1890s. She's still got horses. So she's got horses for a good 20 years. So it's a serious, you know, business for her. And she ends up with stables that at New Market. So she has horse racing stables. She actually owns property. And she lives there and she races as Mr. Jersey. Oh, right. Because she as a woman can't own and register horses with the Jockey Club, so she puts her fake name in, which is Mr. Jersey. Come on, Lily. Yeah, <laugh>. And she does very well. So she wins her horse horses win various things. Her most famous horse was Merman and Merman won the Rovic, the Goodwood Cup, the Ascot Gold Cup. And what's interesting is that since 2014, the glorious Goodwood meat has had a Lily lantry steaks race. So she still has a, her name associated with good book. Yeah.
Mel (00:35:35):
They still pay tributes. Yeah. That's lovely.
Perry (00:35:37):
Well, we spoke about this in a previous podcast and she seems to be a, a bit of a tomboy possibly, and she seems to be quite involved in sort of traditionally masculine pastime in various ways.
Vic (00:35:50):
Yeah, I think that's probably true. And, and it's largely to do with her upbringing in Jersey. She was, she had several brothers and she was allowed to, you know, involve herself in their games and be educated. So those two things made her quite unusual that she had this kind of tomboy-ish upbringing in Jersey that was very, you know, robust and outdoorsy. Whereas most women were, most girls were brought up as, as you know, for the domestic, you know, so you, you don't go outdoors and you don't run around and climb trees. You, you learn to sew and knit and sit by the fire. And Lily didn't have that upbringing. So I think that there's a large portion of her kind of drive comes from that, those very early years where she had this unusual for a woman upbringing.
Mel (00:36:41):
And also having interaction with males is, is a completely different thing in, in terms of, you know, like you said at the time women were probably spending a lot of time with women and men were spending a lot of time with men. So to have that kind of cross-gender engagement would've been really rich. It would've been really enriching for her to then go out into society and know the male mind and kind of have that ability to be charming and, you know, talk business or, or whatever is she was doing. I think it's really interesting that she had that experience growing up.
Vic (00:37:10):
Yeah, I think it certainly helped. And, and her initial introduction into London Society, one of the things that made her, if you, if you actually look at Lily's features and you actually examine her features, she's probably not really a great beauty in, in terms of the classical lines that you would expect. But because she's got a personality that, you know, enlightens those features people then see her as a great beauty. I think what is probably more accurate is rather than beauty, she's, she's extraordinary, she's different and that's what makes her interesting in society. And that's largely down to her personality rather than her facial features.
Mel (00:37:50):
So interesting. Yeah, because you can actually imagine, I can imagine her lighting up a room, people being really kind of enchanted by her. Like, who is this woman? Like,
Vic (00:38:00):
There's lots of stories about that, you know, that, that at dinner she's, she's very good conversation. And I think you're right, Meline, what you said about her being able to talk to men on, on a level that is, is equal rather than not really coming from two different worlds and not really communicating. Mm. But I think Lily probably did make that cross that boundary and therefore was able to communicate very well with men. Yeah.
Mel (00:38:28):
They were probably thinking, who is this magnificent creature that can speak to me
Perry (00:38:31):
<Laugh>? Yeah. I, I do think there's something to be said for, for someone, you know, kind of taking you aback and surprising you Yeah. And making you remember them a lot more than, you know, if it was just, oh, it was just another person,
Mel (00:38:43):
Like the cookie mold of what women were made to be at that time. Yeah. She was, she was completely different.
Perry (00:38:48):
And then maybe not scared to say her opinion or use her, her agency and in these different ways, you know?
Vic (00:38:55):
Yeah. I certainly think Lily wasn't afraid to, to voice an opinion and, and it got her into trouble. You know, it was one of the reasons I think why the, the, the affair with the Prince of Wales began to falter was because Lily did begin to overstep the boundary of what the Prince decided was acceptable for her to say. And, and the familiarity that she showed to him in public sometimes was irksome term him. And, and he, I think, began to withdraw from her as, as she got a little bit too kind of comfortable as it were in, in, you know, being his mistress.
Perry (00:39:30):
Yeah. Because he's got to worry about his, his kind of PR really, doesn't he, and Yeah. Being taken seriously. Yeah. So what kind of class background did, did Lily come from? Did she come from a class background where she would've understood this kind of higher society? Or did she have to learn it on the
Vic (00:39:48):
Way? No, she had to learn it. I mean, she's a, she's a, the daughter of a vicar basically in Jersey, and Jersey is, is not London Society. You know, it, it's, it's a backwater, you know, in, in Victorian times. So she's having to learn that very quickly. When she gets to London and she gets taken up by society, she has to learn those rules which she does and navigates them very well. But no, it was a, a big step up for her.
Perry (00:40:19):
Do we know much about like the, her accent or anything like that? Like, did she have like a Jersey accent? Was it commented upon or did she very quickly lose it?
Vic (00:40:28):
There's no, there's nothing that I've seen within the documentation that, that does comment, particularly on the way she speak it, it comments on, on what she says and the, the kind of the way she engages with people. But not that she had a particularly strong jersey accent or anything like that. So I would imagine with her acting talents, she could have polished anything that she particularly, you know, had within her, her accent. Anyway. She could have polished that quite quickly, I would think.
Perry (00:40:55):
Yeah. I think the thing that was kind of the done thing, even, even recently or even today, people kind of scrubbed their accents, didn't they? A little bit. Yeah.
Mel (00:41:03):
So we also know that she dabbled in wine making.
Vic (00:41:07):
Well she wasn't treading grapes <laugh>, but <laugh>,
Mel (00:41:10):
Or was she Exactly. Yeah,
Vic (00:41:12):
Definitely not, but she did. Yeah. With, when she was in the US with, with Freddy Gabbard in 1888, they, they bought a, a ranch adjoining ranches in California, in, in the Napa Valley, the wine making region. And that, that ranch is still going today. So that winery, you can go and buy Lily Langtry wine still, it's called Langtry Farms, and they are still producing to this day. So the way that vines work, you know, you could potentially still buy a bottle of wine that has been made from grapes, from a vine that, you know, Lily and her to her day. She, she planted. So that's
Perry (00:41:49):
Interesting. I would love to try some of that. I bet it's probably at my price range,
Mel (00:41:52):
But field trip to California. Yeah.
Perry (00:41:54):
We can get work to pay for that.
Speaker 5 (00:41:55):
Should we sort this out? Should we get this an agreement?
Vic (00:41:58):
Yeah, well I think we should at least be selling the wine in the shops here.
Mel (00:42:01):
Yeah. But I'll go get it <laugh>. Okay.
Speaker 5 (00:42:03):
That's a good idea. Yeah,
Mel (00:42:05):
There were, but there is a lot more that she's done. 'cause I remember seeing a list that we discussed in one of our DNI panels and I was actually taken back at just the sheer amount of achievement that she had in her. Yeah. 'cause She, I mean, she lived a really long life. I think she was 75 when she died. So that's quite a good stint for that, you know, for the Victorian era. But there were other things in there, which you'll have to jog my memory. Yeah.
Vic (00:42:30):
I mean by, by the time she's sort of, so she, by the time she's, she's done her American bit and, and she's, she's done the, the winery and she's done the horse racing. Then in 1900 she takes on the lease of London's Imperial Theater. So she becomes a theater manager, theater owner at that point. And she does that for three years. And then she starts to write. So she writes a novel. It's, so in 1909, she publishes her novel All at Sea, which is not the greatest work if you've read it. It's,
Mel (00:43:01):
No, I need to read it. Yeah.
Vic (00:43:02):
And it, she does only publish one novel. It doesn't, you know, that's it. There's, there's no more after that. And in 1925 she publishes her autobiography the days I knew. So, you know, she's even to, to literally to, to the end of her, her days, you know, she is looking to do new stuff. I think one of the most interesting things is age 60. So she, this is 1913, early days of cinematography, very early days of what we would recognize as cinema. She's in a movie, his neighbor's wife. So she's embracing the new technology even then in her sixties. Wow. that, again, that is the only, the only cinema that she does. She doesn't do any more movies. But, you know, the fact that she's doing that in 1913, you know, is, is quite extraordinary, really. She's, you know, she's just one of those people who obviously is, is a workaholic. They keep going, they keep going. And they, they're always looking for the, the new, the latest thing to that they can do to, you know, keep themselves going, keep the money coming in.
Mel (00:44:00):
So she clearly had like a thirst for experiencing like, how the world was changing. She obviously had a real, you can tell she's a very forward thinking individual. 'cause She's always, it seems to be on, on the bandwagon to, to just keep going and evolving. And that is in itself quite a, an amazing feat for a woman of that time. Yeah. I know we keep saying that the women of that time, but it is, I think we underestimate how, how much bravery she would've needed to, to have to be able to kind of present herself in the world in this way. Yeah. So, yeah, hats off to her.
Perry (00:44:40):
How did she sort of take her rise, rise to fame and, and if it happened kind of fall off of fame? Because that can really affect, you know, even celebrities today. They can kind of be quite negatively affected by a sudden rise in fame or, or negatively affected by sort of falling into the backgrounds. Do we know of how much that affected her?
Vic (00:45:03):
I don't think there's a, there's a huge amount kind of psychologically around how she felt about the, the, as you say, the sort of falling from fame bit. She seems to be quite an optimistic person. She seems to be somebody who is always looking for the positive outcome. So it's possible that it didn't affect her terribly much. But one of the things I think is interesting is her, her choice of male partners relationships is not always a good one. There's definitely some dysfunction going on in terms of the, the kind of men that she chose to, to be around and mean. We, we know that a couple of them were, you know, abusive to her. So I think that there, there is something in, in, in Lily's psychology that is not always a great judge of who she should choose as a partner.
Vic (00:45:55):
But generally she seems to be an optimistic person who's, you know, who is, is trying to find the best, you know, possible outcome in, in any given scenario. So I don't think she sits around and, and kind of gets depressed about stuff very easily. You know, she, she kind of is a, a doer and thinks, right, well, how can I practically get myself out of this situation and, and start again. Which, you know, in, in 1880, she does, you know, and, and she, she's the one who kind of sorts out the, the family finances and gets them back on their feet. It's not her husband.
Perry (00:46:31):
Was there a concept of, of fandom out there in a way that we kind of understand it today with modern celebrities? You know, were there, were there, I don't know, Lily, its that were obsessed with everything she did, or
Vic (00:46:46):
Do we know that Yeah. Well, yes, certainly in, in, in the early days in London. I mean, that, that is how she rises to, to, you know, in society is, is because people adopt her way of doing her hair, which was a very plain, simple knot at the back of the neck. And people copied that and, and that, so the link Lily Langtry, you know, hairstyle was copied. The idea of, of wearing a very plain, simple black dress, which is again, was extraordinary in society again, it was something that marked her out. So she did that as that, that as well kind of became a bit of a fashion for a while. And obviously all the, the card postcards of the photography that, that was made into little postcards that people could buy. And the huge paintings that we've obviously got in, in collection, you know, all of these added to the sort of the fandom bit. But yeah. You know, people used to buy these little postcards of, of women who were, you know, seen as great beauties in society and they, you know, the gentleman would pin them up on their wall or whatever. Mm. So yeah, there was a, a, a fandom that existed. It's not quite what we'd recognize now, but it, you know, it, it definitely was, was there and, you know, gave her a boost in terms of, as I say, curating that lily Ry image, that Lily Ry brand.
Perry (00:47:58):
I'm, I'm interested in, in the kind of black dress you mentioned, because I was
Mel (00:48:01):
Just about to say she
Perry (00:48:02):
Was gonna say 'cause 'cause I wonder also if that could be construed as a sort of masculine thing. 'cause I know that men's suits by that time, if I'm correct, were actually mostly dark, mostly black colored. So do you think wearing a black dress kind of is related to this? You know, yeah, maybe.
Vic (00:48:24):
I mean, Lily will tell you that in her, in her bar water biography, that the reason for the black dress was, 'cause it was the only dress she had that was, you know, halfway decent to be able to go to, to dinner in. Now, whether that's true or not, or whether Lily chose the black dress because it was a statement piece, that it was different from what the, you know, the rest of the, the women would've been wearing at dinner. You always have to take Lily's, you know, very carefully curated image in her autobiography with a bit of a pinch of salt. But anyway, that's the story. And yeah, I think probably she did stand out quite dramatically. I mean, if you look at the two paintings, the pointer and, and the, and the, and the mille. You've got the mille where she's wearing the black dress and you've got the pointer where she's wearing what other women in society would've been wearing the kind of the silk, floral and floral and, and more pastel colors. So she would've looked extraordinary at that, at that dinner table especially.
Mel (00:49:17):
'Cause She was quite, she was quite fair skinned as well, wasn't it, with really intense blue eyes. Mm-Hmm. So she would've looked really elegant. I would've imagined. So, hang on. So Lily literally coins the little black dress. Is this like,
Vic (00:49:32):
Probably Yeah. Before, before Chanel.
Mel (00:49:34):
Yeah. So every single woman in the world that has the little black dress, it goes down to, to li factory, her thing that is ama. I even, I have a little black dress. Yep.
Vic (00:49:44):
Yeah.
Perry (00:49:44):
Wow. Jersey really does punch above its weight for exports, doesn't
Mel (00:49:47):
It, mate? We do. Well, <laugh>.
Perry (00:49:50):
Yeah.
Mel (00:49:50):
I guess my, my last question for you though, Vic, is why do you love Lily so much?
Vic (00:49:56):
Oh gosh. Why do I love Lily so much? I just think she's very underestimated and I like that about her. And I also like the fact that she's very cheeky and she's very, this is me. This is my brand. This is who I am and I'm gonna curate the hell out of this. And the autobiography is, it's a master work in, in how to tell a story that makes you look good. <Laugh>. Yeah.
Perry (00:50:23):
Are there, are there any normal biographies of her written by other people of, around that time that do contradict anything she says? 'cause I'm interested in seeing if we can find the middle ground of
Vic (00:50:35):
Not contemporaneous with Lily, but, but later scholars. There's a very good one by Laura Beatie, who, you know, I, I think's one of the best ones. And she does try to bust some of the myths that Lily puts out there in her own autobiography and to really look at the truth of what, what actually happened.
Perry (00:50:54):
Cool. Well, I've gotta read Lily's novel and then read about her, or maybe the other way around.
Mel (00:51:01):
So what evidence do we have of Lily's life here in Jersey? What legacy did she leave and how can you connect further with her story? Louise Downey shares more insight into how our collection tells us more. Welcome Louise. Thanks for joining us.
Louise (00:51:16):
Hi. No problem at all.
Mel (00:51:17):
<Laugh>. So part of our collection is we have two, we hold two portraits of Lily. Yeah. So we have the Millie and the Pointer. Which one was painted first?
Louise (00:51:30):
They were actually both painted around the same time. They're both painted in 1878. Both exhibited together at the Royal Academy in London, which was the prestigious place to exhibit at that time. They were exhibited alongside each other so people could see both together. And they were so popular that they had a policeman there to guard them, to protect them from the crowds of people that came to see the Lily portraits.
Mel (00:51:58):
Wow.
Perry (00:51:59):
Well, the paintings kind of have a very different feel to them, don't they? One's a lot more colorful than the other. Why, why is that?
Louise (00:52:07):
I think the two artists have represented Lily in two different ways, whether that's because that's how they saw her or how she wanted to be presented. I'm not quite sure. The millet portrait, she's wearing a very dark black dress with a white collar and a white flower and some white ruffles at her at the wrists. So it's a very plain dress, which really with the white sort of band around her neck, really brings light to her face. And really that white reflects the kind of creamy complexion of her face. And we think that she wore this dress for the portrait because it was what the dress she was wearing when she first met Millet. She met him at a dinner party in London Society and apparently made a real impression wearing this very plain black dress compared to, you know, a lot of the other people that were wearing very colorful dresses.
Louise (00:53:15):
So she really did make, make a big impression with this dress. But it also worked for millet as an artist. 'cause This was his way of painting people. He usually had quite dark background and a dark clothing so that he could actually bring a lot of attention to a person's facial features and has used the collar again to kind of reflect that, the, the, the light into her face. So it worked for him to actually have her dressed in that black, that very plain black dress. And wearing her hair in what became her trademark lily bun as well. So very plain painting, kind of three quarter length. And the other thing of note on this painting is that although Lily was obviously from Jersey and the artist Millet had a Jersey background, his family came from Jersey, they made a bit of a botanical faux pa 'cause it's actually a Guernsey lily that she's holding rather than a jersey Lily. Oops.
Mel (00:54:23):
Wha wha wha
Perry (00:54:24):
<Laugh>. I mean, I wonder, I wonder if they thought the Guernsey one was more aesthetically pleasing, or maybe they just completely,
Louise (00:54:30):
Or maybe they just made a mistake,
Perry (00:54:31):
<Laugh>, maybe they made a mistake. Maybe. Yeah, I say no, it almost looks like and there's kind of almost like a, a sort of halo around her of, of light, and I guess that's to stop the dress from kind of disappearing into the background. But it's quite striking that she sort of outlined in that way.
Louise (00:54:48):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. Yeah, absolutely. We've got another portrait by Milli Millie and our collection of his daughter Alice. And it uses a very sim similar technique of the kind of dark around that face to really kind of highlight, highlight the the facial features of the person that he's painting. So it's a very Malay technique.
Mel (00:55:10):
What I love, what I love about this portrait is that she comes across as a very, has has her kind of like, posture is very straight. She comes across as like a really strong woman, but you can also detect a real sense of vulnerability in her in this portrait. It feels very different to the pointer.
Louise (00:55:27):
Yeah. She's very young in this this painting. And she's represented as quite young and almost naive in many ways. Yes.
Mel (00:55:37):
Yeah. You can really see that it's like this angelic kind of like this features. Yeah, it's a really, it is a very striking portrait, Al albeit it's more dark and moody than the pointer. I do, I do have to say this one is my favorite of the two. Are you a Jersey Heritage member? If not, head to our website and sign up today. Your membership unlocks the doors to all of our sites, offers special discounts and benefits, but above all else, it supports the important work that Jersey Heritage does to preserve and share our Rich Island story. So how is the pointer different?
Louise (00:56:14):
So the pointer is very different. It's got Lily kind of half pose this time, and she's kind of lying back on a, on a shaded launch. Rather than that standing upright head turned away the same as the Malay portrait. And in this portrait, what she's wearing is very, very different. She's wearing a very ornate, decorated gold brocade dress with a white collar and holding roses in her hand, which were part of the kind of Victorian language of flowers. Had very kind of specific meanings in, in art and in Victorian life. But yeah, she's kind of posed in the, in the pointer painting. She's lying back on this. She's long, so much more, it's a much more sensuous kind of portrait, very kind of textural, and her beautiful skin is highlighted again, the sort of creamy, creamy skin, but it's much more luxurious in nature than the, than the Millie so suggests it's much more sensuous. And it's a different woman that's painted here, a different impression of of Lily that's painted here. Yeah.
Perry (00:57:35):
It's interesting looking at them side by side. She's holding, you know, a flower in both with very different meanings. Like as you said, it's a very different woman that maybe the the Millie is like Lily before, you know, she was a famous actress or, and this, the next one was after or something. The, the pointer.
Mel (00:57:56):
It's funny how, like, looking at the portrait, the rose really the rose that she's holding by her chest completely takes you into like that cleavage area that dec tage it and the neckline being so low. You are right. It's a very, it's a really sexualized image really in comparison to the mille where she's wearing a really high top dress and it's, yeah, it's, you can really, now that we discuss it like this and we see them side by side, you can really see how they're, they depict her in completely different lights, but there is still that vulnerability in her face, like that side angle, the way that she's not, she's like kind of looking away. It's, it is, there's this real depth to both images.
Louise (00:58:35):
Mm-Hmm. It's very rare that you'd get a woman looking direct at you in a Victorian portrait. Right, okay. Like this, it's, it's mostly kind of gaze turned away and with both the sort of slightly downturn head. Really the other thing to mention on this is that you mentioned that the flowers in her hand and the rose at her chest, but the other rose in her other hand, she's holding an a white rose in her left hand, which she's kind of half hidden in her lap and half hidden her wedding ring. So you can only just about see this wedding ring. So it's kind of, again, this like, you know, I'm not actually acknowledging that part of, of who I am and what, why I'm a married woman, but I'm actually not gonna show you that I'm gonna almost discarding that bit of her life.
Perry (00:59:30):
So interesting. Do you know how she felt about these paintings? Did she ever comment on them? Do we have any record of that?
Louise (00:59:36):
I don't know if she ever commented on them, but the pointer painting was actually, did actually belong to Lily at one point. And it actually came into our collection from Lily herself.
Perry (00:59:51):
Interesting. Maybe she preferred that one or something.
Louise (00:59:53):
Yeah, it was a real popular painting. It was actually a favorite of Oscar Wilde as well. So he had it in his flat for quite a long time. You know, he was one of his favorite paintings. He loved Lily, he really worshiped, worshiped her beauty. And it was one of his favorite things in his flat. So Oscar
Mel (01:00:12):
Wild had the painting that we currently have at the J Museum in his flats.
Louise (01:00:17):
Yes, that's right.
Mel (01:00:18):
That's insane. That's so cool. So what are the techniques in terms of these, these artists, I'm guessing these are oil on canvas?
Louise (01:00:26):
Yeah, that's right. They're both oil on canvas paintings, which basically means that you, you use a oil paint to paint. It's a very, very long process. Oil paint as opposed to watercolor because you have to layer and then dry layer and dry. So none of this is a, you know, few days thing. It's quite a long process of doing sittings and getting the poses right and all of that kind of thing. So yeah, long process, both nicely framed now, but the lily frame's actually in a a much older frame than, than the painting itself. So we have to take special care of the, of the frame as well as the, the painting on the, on the pointer.
Mel (01:01:08):
And we can see both of these paintings at the new Terry Dije exhibition at the J Museum.
Louise (01:01:14):
That's right. There were some of our star objects within La Terry Jeri. In fact, the pointer Lily is one of the first things that you can see as you come through the door. And we've also displayed them with another thing that came to us via Lily, which is her traveling Tette case, which is a rather ornate wooden case full of bits and pieces that Lily used to beautify herself, hairbrushes perfume bottles, button hooks, all the sorts of things that a Victorian lady would've needed. A little collapsible cup, you know, a clock, a notepad, all lots and lots of little bits and pieces she would've carried with her all the time. It's a beautiful case made with Towas and Cor Mandel woods. So really, really lovely. And it was actually given to her by one of her many, many lovers Freddy Ghar. And what a gift to give. 'cause It was, it's a really beautiful thing. Lovely.
Mel (01:02:14):
And Freddy was the gentleman that, that he was the New York millionaire, wasn't he? Yes, that's right. Right. And that's the guy that she owned those vineyards with?
Perry (01:02:21):
Oh, with the wine. Yeah.
Mel (01:02:23):
You valley try and get hold of maybe in terms of how our, how the, the TWI case used to be displayed in the, in the kind of kind of the base of the main staircase at the Jazz museum. But since then it's had like a facelift because it's very shiny. It's looking very, very sparkly. So it is, it's definitely worth seeing 'cause it looks completely different in our new space than it did before. So do we have anything else in our collection that, that people could, that could help people connect to Lily?
Louise (01:02:53):
So well also in the same display case as the Twilight case, we've got a costume that she wore when she played Cleopatra in Antonin Cleopatra. It's a very risque costume, shall we say. <Laugh> <laugh> would've shown a lot of Flesh <laugh>. But yeah, that's a, that was part of her acting career when she was playing various parts on the London stage. So we've got that, that costume on display. There we've got lots and lots of bits and pieces in the collection. We've got one of her wardrobes. We've got what
Mel (01:03:30):
Physical wardrobes?
Louise (01:03:31):
A physical, physical breon wardrobe in our collection. Yes. I've got some other portraits of Lily, including one by Frank Miles, which is really beautiful. 
Mel (01:03:42):
I don't think I've ever seen that one.
Louise (01:03:44):
Yeah, it's lovely. But it's really, it's really pretty. It's a three portraits, so two side profiles and a and a, a full face kind of drawing.
Mel (01:03:55):
And how can we see those? Are they on the online
Louise (01:03:58):
Archive catalog? They'll be on the Jersey Heritage Online catalog. Yeah. Yes, so if you search under Frank Miles, you should be able to see that there. So we've got other bits and pieces in the collection as well. So definitely worth putting Li Lily's name into the, into the search fields.
Perry (01:04:16):
What do we know about pointer and, and Millie as artists? You said they, they kind of painted these around the same time. Yeah. I mean, was there a competition there? Did they comment on each other's work? Were they friends?
Louise (01:04:29):
Well, Millie by the time he painted the portrait of Lily was kind of nearing the end of, I mean, he was a well established artist by then, and he'd gained this reputation of, of paint, of painting society people mostly women. And it was real kind of society artists. Poynter was much more up and coming at the time, but was both of them really accomplished a lot in their artistic lives? Both, you know, became Becames, you know, so really accomplished artists of their day really.
Mel (01:05:10):
Which one's your favorite?
Louise (01:05:12):
I find that really difficult, <laugh>, because I love the point of bling, you know, and if it's like, you know, we put it near the entrance of the gallery so, you know, it's a real kind of visual attraction when you come in, but the millet one is just so beautifully painted. Not that the pointer one isn't, but it is really, really beautifully painted and really clever in the way that it uses light and dark as well. So it's really, really difficult to, to choose one that's like saying, choose your favorite child, <laugh>.
Perry (01:05:50):
We're gonna ask you that one next
Speaker 7 (01:05:52):
<Laugh>.
Mel (01:05:56):
And in terms of Lily's story, what, what do you, what makes her fascinating to you?
Louise (01:06:01):
I think she was a, an amazing woman who was so adaptable, took advantage of opportunities all of the time, and was just flexible in being able to see how she can, how she could change what she needed to do to make her life better, and to continue to kind of, you know, earn her own money, you know, look after herself, have relationships. So she looked after herself. She made her own way in life, and she took advantage of the opportunities that were offered to her and made her own opportunities as well. So I think that she was a really admirable person.
Speaker 7 (01:06:46):
Please
Mel (01:06:46):
Come along and visit La Terry Deje at the Jazz Museum to see our amazing Lily Langtry display. It's free.
Perry (01:06:53):
You can also walk past the house she was born into on Rectory Lane. Look out for her plaque, and then take a stroll up to St. Xavier's Church Cemetery to visit her grave.
Mel (01:07:08):
Thank you to all three of our guest speakers on today's episode. Lucy Leighton, exhibitions curator Vic Tanner, Davy head of programs, and Louise Downey, curation experience Director. It's thanks to their knowledge and passion that we're able to bring stories like lilies to life. If you enjoy today's episode, don't forget to click on the subscribe button for
Speaker 7 (01:07:29):
More.