The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Montez, Lola

MONTEZ, Lola (assumed name of Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert), adventuress: b. Limerick, Ireland, 1818; d. Astoria, N. Y., 17 Jan. 1861. Her parents took the child to India, where her father died, and her mother, again marrying, sent Lola back to Europe. In 1837 she married a Captain James, went to India with him, tired of him and returned to England in 1842. She next became a public dancer, performing in London and in cities of the Continent, and in 1846 went to Munich, where she fascinated the old artist-king Louis I of Bavaria who made her his mistress, created her Countess of Landsfield and granted her a large annuity. For a while she also exercised great political power, which she directed against the Jesuits and in favor of liberalism; but with the outbreak of the Revolution of 1848 she was once more set adrift. In London she married a guardsman, Stafford Heald, was soon divorced from him and in 1851 sailed for the United States. After touring through this country with a play called ‘Lola Montez in Bavaria,’ she went to Australia, returned here, was twice married in California and in 1858 lectured in New York where she settled and spent her last days in rescue work among women. Her writings include ‘Lectures,’ with an autobiography, and ‘The Arts of Beauty’ (1858).