That Summer they lived on board the 80 ton yawl  ‘Gertrude’, Lillie, as she liked being called, led a dull and uneventful life until she contracted typhoid fever and was convalesced to London apartment in Eaton place.

Whilst living here although initially knowing only a handful of families became well known for her beautiful looks, even though she dressed in a very simple gown and was duly painted by John Everett Millais, an eminent English painter. Sittings for various other artists followed after that, including one for the young Frank Miles, who sketched the fine pencil portrait depicted below.

of tobogganing tea-trays down the stairs of Cunliffe Brooks’ house at Geln Tanar, Scotland. Her dislikes of convention being typified by her wish not to register her name in the visitor’s book at Balmoral at about the same time.

Taking an interest in the theatre, Lillie soon appeared on the stages of several London theatres including the old Haymarket and the Lyceum before making a provincial tour. About a year after her debut, she signed a contract for an American appearance, initially at the Park Theatre New York. After her successful American debut, the theatre was burnt to the ground, an event that the papers deemed as ‘The biggest and costliest advertisement ever designed to welcome a star to America’s shores!’

Lillie soon came to feel more affection for the ‘Stars and Stripes’ than she had for the ‘Union Jack’, playing in numerous different roles, both in modern costume and Shakespearean adaptations. In the five consecutive years that followed of touring the different states, she felt as if she knew the country better ‘than most Americans.’

Apart from having many children christened after her, she even had the privilege of having a town in Texas renamed in her honour during her second year by Justice of the peace Roy Bean. Lillie however, never visiting the town during his lifetime. During her brief visit a short time after his death, she was presented with his revolver, which was said to have been used to keep order in the early years of the town.

As Lillie earned a great deal of money whilst touring in the US, she invested a large proportion in land which she was to retire to between tours. Situated in Lake County, the 6500 acre ranch included a large wooden house, a stud farm, and many acres of orchards and vineyards.

On her return to England, Lillie Langtry was soon following her acting career again, making appearances in the ‘Degenerates’, ‘Belladonna’, ‘As you like it’ and ‘Anthony and Cleopatra’. A trip was then arranged for her to visit South Africa, where which she talks freely of her experiences in her usual detail, but ends the account with the words ‘though I enjoyed my six months tour, and reaped a fair harvest of gain, I have never had the idea of revisiting it’.

As Lady Ormonde in ‘Peril’ (right)

Aside from her love of the theatre, Lillie had a passion for horses, her biography detailing all of her dealings with the animals from an early age and her attempts at breeding blood stock on her ranch in the United States of America, to the race horses she owned towards the end of her life.

She lived out her last years in Monaco in the South of France, where she was to pass away early Tuesday morning, February 12th. 1929. It was by her own request that she should be buried in the churchyard next to the rectory where she was born

as Marie Antoinette

Lillie’s own account of her life makes for fascinating reading in her autobiography ‘The Days I knew’(1925), with her fastidious attention to detail revealing the lighter side to her personality; though regretfully she manages to hide a great deal about her innermost thoughts and feelings in the process. Whilst including passages which often make mention of the most insignificant persons she met on her travels, she fails to even acknowledge the existence of the illegitimate child Jeanne Marie she bore, a fact that could hardly have be deemed a secret by the time the book was written. The novel published by Pierre Sichel in 1958 called ‘The Jersey Lily’, makes an attempt to fill in the gaps that she chooses to leave out.

Ignoring these omissions, there is little doubt that Lillie Langtry was a most remarkable woman. Starting out in life as a girl on a small island with little chance of making a name for herself, and nothing to aid her with the exception of her natural beauty, she became the King’s mistress and eventually achieved the title of  ‘Lady’ by her second marriage to Sir Hugo de Bathe. Whilst not ranking as one of the best actresses of her time, she made several memorable performances that helped her make her career in the theatre a success.