Gladys Marie Deacon
Gladys Marie Deacon (born February 7, 1881 in Île de France , Paris , † October 13, 1977 in St. Andrew's Hospital, Northampton ) was the lover of several well-known personalities at the beginning of the 20th century.
Life
Gladys Marie Deacon was the eldest of three daughters (her only brother died as a child) of the wealthy textile manufacturer Edward Parker Deacon (1844-1901) from Boston and his wife Florence Baldwin (1859-1899), daughter of Admiral Charles H. Baldwin. After a traumatic childhood - her father shot her mother's lover in her boudoir at the Hotel Splendide in Cannes - Gladys was brought to America by her mother in 1892 from a convent in Paris . Here she received an extensive and excellent education, spoke several foreign languages and showed an interest in art , mythology , poetry and literature . Gladys Deacon was considered precocious and extremely intelligent.
The early death of their parents made Gladys and her sister Dorothy (1892–1960), later wife of Prince Albert Aba Radziwill (1885–1935), orphans and thereby wealthy heiresses.
Gladys Deacon traveled all over Europe and caused some scandals through her numerous affairs . The more extravagant and scandalous her life and love stories, the greater the fascination that emanated from her. Among her numerous admirers were Robert de Montesquiou , Bernard Berenson , Count Hermann Keyserling , King Edward VII , Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia , Prince Roffredo Caetani, Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn , and the Duke of Norfolk and Camastra.
Immortalized in portraits and photographs by numerous artists, Gladys Deacon was considered the most painted woman of her time. She was personally friends with several artists, including Giovanni Boldini , John Singer Sargent , George Moore , Jacob Epstein , Claude Monet and Auguste Rodin . Marcel Proust wrote about her: "I've never seen a girl with such beauty, intelligence, kindness and charm."
On June 25, 1921, Gladys Deacon married the British politician Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough (1871-1934), whose long-time lover she had been in the church of Sainte Geneviève in Paris . She ignored the women of higher society. The marriage, which was reportedly unhappy, remained childless and was annulled in 1931 .
In the years that followed, Lady Spencer-Churchill lived as an eccentric hermit, surrounded by countless cats and dogs, near Blenheim Palace . In the 1960s, Lady Spencer-Churchill was admitted to a mental hospital, where she was treated until her death. Her body was buried in the village cemetery at Chacombe Grange, Northampton.
Name in different phases of life
- 1881–1921 Gladys Marie Deacon
- 1921–1931 Gladys Marie Spencer-Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough
- 1931–1977 Lady Gladys Marie Spencer-Churchill
Worth mentioning
- Gladys Deacon was considered a great beauty. At the age of 16, she injected wax and paraffin into her nose for a classic profile. In the following years, the preparation decomposed and deposited in her nasal cavities, with disfiguring lipogranulomas forming.
- Her nephew, Prince Stanislas Radziwill (1914–1976), married Caroline Lee Bouvier (1933–2019), the younger sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis .
- See also: List of mistresses of the kings of England
literature
- Hugo Vickers: Gladys, Duchess of Marlborough , Hamish Hamilton Ltd (1979) ISBN 0-2411-2315-1
- Hugo Vickers: The sphinx: the life of Gladys Deacon - Duchess of Marlborough , London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2020, ISBN 978-1-5293-9070-4
- Richard Jay Hutto: Crowning Glory: American Wives of Princes and Dukes (1997) ISBN 0-9725-9517-1
- Marian Fowler: In a Gilded Cage. From Heiress to Duchess , Vintage Books (1994) ISBN 0-3942-2389-6
- Daphne Fielding: Face On The Sphinx: Biography Of Gladys Deacon , Good condition (1978) ISBN 0-2418-9314-3
Web links
- Gladys Deacon (English)
- - Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough (1871-1934) ( Memento of November 23, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- The New York Times, June 2, 1921 (English)
- Gladys Marie Deacon on thepeerage.com , accessed September 10, 2016.
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (English)
Remarks
- ↑ Online Gotha
- ↑ Blenheim Palace
- ^ Hugo Vickers: Gladys, Duchess of Marlborough , Hamish Hamilton Ltd (1979) ISBN 0-2411-2315-1
- ^ J. Glicenstein: Les premiers "fillers", vaseline et paraffine. You miracle à la catastrophe. In: Annales de Chirurgie Plastique Esthétique 52, 2007, pp. 157–161. PMID 16860452
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Deacon, Gladys Marie |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Deacon, Gladys; Spencer-Churchill, Gladys, Duchess of Marlborough |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American mistress of several personalities |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 7, 1881 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Île de France , Paris |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 13, 1977 |
| Place of death | St. Andrew's Hospital, Northampton |