Individuals >> Montez, Lola ( Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert ) (1818-1861)

Actor.

An "American dancer and adventuress," the woman later known as Lola Montez (sometimes spelled Montes) was born in 1818 in Limerick, Ireland as Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert. The thrice-married Gilbert first debuted in London as "Lola Montez" in 1843 and experienced success in Europe. In 1847, as the mistress of Louis I of Bavaria, Montez was made Baroness Rosenthal and Countess Lansfeld and was able to control the Bavarian government until she was opposed by the Jesuits and ousted by revolution in 1848 ("Montez").

Montez debuted on the American stage in 1851 as a dancer. She experienced a brief period of fame when she attracted large audiences, but her early fame and talent quickly came into question. According to George C. Odell, "she proved conclusively...that scandal does not necessarily create a great dancer. She was found to be commonplace and quite unsensational." Odell concedes, however, "Of course Lola Montes is still a name to conjure among collectors of stage curios and items of decadent import; she was, in truth, a personality of vivid and alluring interest" (6:115-116). Most likely regarded as a lower-level performer with questionable respectability, her "Farce," the play Lola Montes in Bavaria (1852) is her most memorable stage credit, even though Odell cites it as an example of "degeneracy of the stage in our own time." Montez played herself in the dramatization of her life and connections at the Bavarian court (Odell 6:119-120). The play would continue to be performed at the Bowery after her departure from the theater (Odell 6:139). Montez performed onstage in Australia from 1855-1856 ("Montez") and returned to New York, where, during the 1857-1858 season she was "but a shadow in memory of that Lola who had so proudly entered this very theater [the Broadway] only a few years before" (Odell 7:6). During this season and the 1859-1860 season, Montez seems to have participated in the lecture series that occurred in New York (Odell 7:293). Montez is also the author of Anecdotes of Love (1858) and Arts of Beauty (1858) ("Montez").

References & Biographical Resources

Quelqu'un [Winter, William]. "Dramatic Feuilleton." New-York Saturday Press. 25 Aug. 1860: 3. [more about this work]

Quelqu'un claims that Montez's "greatest mistake...was in once attempting to define and defend her position." He claims that The Saturday Press holds evidence of the "consequence" that she "exposed herself to the lugubrious and worse than Pecksniffian whines and whimperings of the Sunday press." Discusses how she was subjected to a "sermon" by a Sunday editor as she was "lying at the point of death." Describes her as a "brilliant and fascinating woman" (3). [pages: 3]

"A Hopeful Convert." New York Saturday Press. 21 May 1859: 2. [more about this work]

"Brutal and Atrocious [from the Philadelphia Sunday Mercury, Sept. 2]." New-York Saturday Press. 8 Sep. 1860: 3. [more about this work]

A Saturday Press review of Lola Montez's impending retirement is criticized. [pages: 3]

Figaro [Clapp, Henry Jr.]. "Dramatic Feuilleton." New York Saturday Press. 30 Sep. 1865: 136-137. [more about this work]

Figaro clarifies that the piece Lolah being performed at the Haymarket in London is not a version of Lola Montez, but an adaptation of The Sea of Ice (137). [pages: 137]

Holloway, Emory. Free and Lonesome Heart: The Secret of Walt Whitman. New York: Vantage Press, 1960. [more about this work]

[pages: 109,115]

Leland, Charles Godfrey. Memoirs. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1893. [more about this work]

[pages: 107, 160, 380, 426]

"Lola Montez." New-York Saturday Press. 18 Aug. 1860: 2. [more about this work]

"Montez, Lola." Merriam-Webster's Biographical Dictionary. Merriam-Webster's Inc., 1995. [more about this work]

Odell, George Clinton. Annals of the New York Stage: Volume VI (1850-1857). New York: Columbia University Press, 1931. [more about this work]

A benefit was held for her on January 9,1852. Montes' burlesque was performed at the Bowery again in the summer of 1852 both with Lola Montes starring in the lead role and after her departure from the theater. [pages: 68, 115-116, 118(ill.), 119-120, 121, 138-139, 191,586]

Odell, George Clinton. Annals of the New York Stage: Volume VII (1857-1865). New York: Columbia University Press, 1931. [more about this work]

Montes also gave a series of talks: two autobiographical lectures and two lectures on other topics. Odell also mentions that Montes lectures in 1859-60 season "considerably chastened" (293). [pages: 6, 293]

Personne [Wilkins, Edward G. P.]. "Dramatic Feuilleton." New York Saturday Press. 5 Mar. 1859: 3. [more about this work]

Personne describes Menken as "a prarie Lola Montez" (3). [pages: 3]

Seitz, Don Carlos. Artemus Ward (Charles Farrar Browne): A Biography and Bibliography. NY: Harper & Brothers, 1919. [more about this work]

[pages: 139]

Theweleit, Klaus. Male Fantasies. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 1987. [more about this work]

[pages: 178]

Wilson, James Grant and John Fiske, eds. Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume IV, Lodge-Pickens. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1888. [more about this work]

[pages: 368]