Lola Montez was born Eliza Gilbert in County Sligo, Ireland, in 1821. Her father, an army ensign, died of cholera soon after the family reached India, and her teenage mother remarried and sent the unruly girl to school in Britain. At 16 she eloped from Bath with Lieutenant Thomas James; the marriage collapsed in Calcutta, and the separation terms barred her from remarrying while he lived. In June 1843 she debuted in London as the Spanish dancer Lola Montez, but audiences recognized her as Mrs. James. In Paris critics found her dancing weak, yet she moved among Franz Liszt, George Sand and Alexandre Dumas and took up with Alexandre Dujarier, a newspaper owner and drama critic who was killed in a duel.
In 1846 she reached Munich and captivated King Ludwig I, who made her Countess of Landsfeld. She pushed liberal, anti-Jesuit causes, had the cabinet of Karl von Abel dismissed when it opposed her citizenship, and got the university closed after student protests. In the revolutions of 1848 Ludwig abdicated and she fled in disguise. A bigamy suit followed her marriage in London to George Trafford Heald. She toured America playing herself in Lola Montez in Bavaria, settled for a time in Grass Valley, California, then shocked Australia with her spider dance. She ended as a lecturer and author, did rescue work for women leaving prostitution, and died in New York in 1861, buried in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery under the name Eliza Gilbert.
- Legend says she tore open her dress when Ludwig questioned whether her figure was real.
- In Grass Valley she encouraged a young neighbor, Lotta Crabtree, who became one of America’s top-paid entertainers.
- The Argus called her spider dance utterly subversive to all ideas of public morality.
- She attacked Ballarat Times editor Henry Seekamp with a whip after a scathing review.
- Her lectures of 1857 were written by the clergyman Charles Chauncey Burr, and she published a beauty guide, The Arts of Beauty.
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