Ellen Terry and Edith Craig: Sex, Suffrage and Shakespeare

Here at F Yeah History we love women who boss at everything.

Be it literature, politics, art, employment, activism – the two women you’re going to read about next had it ALL.

Ellen Terry, star of the stage, and her thespian daughter Edith Craig, were two of the jazziest, energetic, and engaging characters of the early 20th century. From defying social norms to sticking it to theatre censorship laws, Ellen and Edith shook up the world they lived in, and everybody they met along the way.

Hooked? Good. Let’s start with the mother…

If you’re a fan of Shakespeare, you’ll know he wrote some cracking leading ladies. Portia, Katherine, Viola, Sylvia, and who could forget Beatrice, queen of wit and sass?

They’ve been portrayed on stage and screen over the past five hundred years, but never with quite as much wow factor as when Britain’s best loved stage actress, Ellen Terry performed them.

D-R-A-M-A: Ellen as a stonkingly scary Lady Macbeth, painted by John Singer Sargent

And if you want a quick summary of how much Britain loved Ellen Terry, then here it is in a little poem written for her:

‘Britain’s pride,

The genius of the stage personified,

Queen-like, pathetic, tragic, contemporary, merry,

O rare, O sweet, O Wondrous Ellen Terry.’

Ellen Terry lived a dramatic life on and off the stage. Born to a family of performers, she became a child actress and grew up on the stage, before joining the Theatre Royal at Bristol and became famous for her depiction of Shakespearean heroines.

BUT it all went a bit wobbly when Ellen turned sixteen, and married George Fredric Watts, a renowned artist, for whom she had once modelled for. Watts was 46 at the time – 30 years her senior! – and the marriage was doomed (again…she was 16!), lasting less than a year.

Ellen returned to the stage, often alongside Henry Irving (who apparently inspired the looks for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, don’t you know). Henry and Ellen’s  relationship was intense, and passionate; they partnered in productions for decades.

Ellen was also close to George Bernard Shaw, exchanging letters with him for most of her life. There was even a play written about their letters! Shaw referred to their relationship as a courtship by letters, and wrote to her, in one:

‘Do you read these jogged scrawls, I wonder. I think of your poor eyes, and resolve to tear what I have written up: then I look out at the ghostly country and the beautiful night, and I cannot bring myself to read a miserable book…Yes, as you guess, Ellen, I am having a bad attack of you just at present. I am restless; and a man’s restlessness always means a woman; and my restlessness means Ellen.’

I’d say I felt sorry for his wife, but their relationship was pretty weird already…

But enough about the men. Ellen loved a romance, yes, but her career remained extraordinary.

She was unable to resist stage life, though this was sometimes for financial reasons.

Even after giving birth to her two children with Edward Godwin (who she had eloped with but didn’t actually marry) she returned to acting and slayed across theatres in the UK, USA, and Australia.

The Terry/Craig/Godwin fam: Terry and her children, Edward and Edith

Ellen was adored by legions of fans, and became the muse to many directors and playwrights. Her performance of Portia in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice was world renowned, and in her later years, she successfully toured the US, delivering lectures on the Bard himself.

Ellen’s children travelled with her as she toured the world, and as she grew older, her daughter Edith managed her career.

Born Edith Godwin, she was keen to distance herself from her illegitimacy…and thus, Edith Craig was born! 

Meet Edith

Ellen’s star may have eclipsed all others, but her daughter lived an colourful, unique, and inspiring life equal if not greater than her mother.

The ultimate stage parent!

Starting on the stage at a young age, Edith acted, like her mother, with Henry Irving’s Lyceum Theatre, and in the plays of her mum’s pen pal, George Bernard Shaw.

But she wasn’t going to be an actress, oh no! Edith took a very different theatrical direction. Inspired by the radical movers and shakers that surrounded her, Edith set up a new theatre company, the Pioneer Players.

In a move to end censorship in performing arts, Edith and the Pioneer Players, well, did what it said on the tin. They put on plays that had been previously banned – plays about social reform, humanists; and, unsurprisingly, feminism.

Because what cause was flourishing at the time of the Pioneer Players? Women’s suffrage, of course!

Now, Edith was already pretty indoctrinated into the women’s suffrage movement, having attended a forward-thinking school with a pro-suffrage teaching staff, as she said:

‘When I was at school I lived in a house of Suffrage workers, and at regular periods the task of organising Suffrage petitions kept everybody busy. Perhaps I didn’t think very deeply about it, and my first ideas of Suffrage duties were concerned with the interminable addressing of envelopes; but I certainly grew up quite firmly certain that no self-respecting woman could be other than a Suffragist.”

Edith was a member of the Women’s Social and Political Union, but soon left in protest at the Pankhursts’ autocratic rule and joined the Women’s Freedom League with other suffrage bigwigs, including Teresa Billington-Greig and Charlotte Despard.

As theatre became even more prolific in the suffrage world, with plays by Ciecly Hamilton and Elizabeth Robins depicting pro-suffrage and feminist narratives, in 1908 Edith became instrumental, along with her fellow actresses, artists and playwrights, in forming the Actresses’ Franchise League.

Apart from bearing one of the most gorgeous suffrage banners of all time (don’t @ me), the AFL didn’t use tradition campaigning tactics, but used performance as propaganda. The organization grew and got stronger, thanks to Edith’s strong, organizational mad skills.

Edith dedicated her life to challenging, questioning, and fighting social norms. With the drama and passion that her mother applied on-stage, Edith applied it to fighting injustice and inequality.

She openly lived in a ménage-a-trois with playwright Christabel Marshall (known as Christopher St John) and aritst Clare Atwood, to which her brother said was a result of her ‘hatred of men’ (really original, Edward, round of applause to you).

Edith was a wee bit of a battle-axe; she was hard-faced and uncharismatic, unlike her mother, who once said she was too afraid to kiss her own daughter, she hated affection so much.

Despite this revulsion for PDA and hugs, Edith was absolutely dedicated to her mother. 

She lived next door to Smallhythe, Ellen’s country house – although out of hatred for Ellen’s third husband, she built a hedge between their houses so she never had to see him, quite literally.  

When Ellen died, she transformed the house into a museum so that her mother’s memory would be preserved forever, and the story of her stardom would shine on. Though she was estranged from her brother (who was the father of Isadora Duncan’s daughter…), she continued to share the story their family’s life, dominated by their  mother, by going into partnership with an organization dedicated to saving stories of then nation…the National Trust. She died in 1947. Right up to her death, she flaunted social conventions, and lived life the way she wanted to.

Just like her mother.

How show girls bolstered the blitz

In September 1940, when bombs first fell on London, there were forty two theatres in the city’s West End. But as the dust settled, only one remained, its lights on, the show still going.

The Windmill Theatre, known for its show girls, fan dances and naked tableaux, was the capitals unlikely Blitz stalwart. But what made this little strip show that could even more incredible was that it not only positioned itself as London’s go to wartime theatre, but actively worked to make itself a key player in the allied fight to win WW2.

Press photo of The Windmill Theatre and its infamous ‘We Never Closed’ signage

In the early 1930’s, Laura Henderson (more commonly known as ‘Mrs Henderson’) bought The Windmill Theatre. Previously a cinema, she had it totally pulled apart and transformed into a tiny theatre that she hoped would celebrate Britain’s many storied variety acts.

Sadly for Mrs Henderson, variety was on its last legs. The audience were nowhere to be found, and down and out variety performers far outnumbered those in work.

So Mrs Henderson roped in entertainment maestro, Vivian Van Damm (more commonly known as VD) to think up a way of making her variety theatre a sell-able form of entertainment.

VD re-branded the theatre as an all British home for a truly British art form and its homegrown British acts (can you see a theme here?). Alongside the patriotic love fest, The Windmill was also sold as a sort of charity, after all, Mrs Henderson was giving previously unemployed performers work, which if you squint hard enough, could technically be counted as charity.

But all of this wasn’t enough to put the theatre in the black. You see, no matter how much you re-branded it, at its core The Windmill just wasn’t doing anything different. It was still just another theatrical revue.

So, with rival revues running all over London, ones that offered tons of acts and ran all day long, why pick the Windmill over anything else?

Answer: Naked Tableaux

A 1934 tableaux, entitled, My Pearls

The brainchild of VD, the idea of naked women on a London stage was at once, new, taboo and a must see ticket.

Sure the idea of half dressed women creating a picture on stage, had clear roots in regency era theatre, BUT it hadn’t been done to the level that The Windmill was offering.

Which is exactly why The Lord Chamberlain took such an interest in The Windmill girls.

The Lord Chamberlain was the censor for all theatrical pursuits and thus the person who could license The Windmill’s use of nudity to this level. But, a stiff upper-class Lord, licensing erotic theatre in the 1930s? Doesn’t seem likely right?

Enter Mrs Henderson… who just happened to know Lord Cromer, the current Lord Chamberlain. Mrs Henderson hounded Cromer, showing him how The Windmill ran and that everything was above board, crucially arguing that her show wouldn’t be titillating audiences, but would in fact be a true artistic endeavour.

After all, you wouldn’t argue that the Venus Dimilo put her boobs away. So much like a statue, if the naked windmill girls didn’t move, they couldn’t possibly be considered ‘vulgar’ public pornography.

And so, The Windmill not only got their license, but censorship backing that prevented morality groups from forcing them into closure.

Programme from a 1930s-production at the Hammermsith Lyric direct from the Windmill Theatre

Throughout the 1930’s, The Windmill ran under the banner:

‘Naughty specialities, gorgeous girls and comics who are destined to go places’

Female dancers, singers and show girls, were sandwiched between male comedians sets, with the highlight of each show being the multiple nude tableaux’s, offering depictions of art, historical events and fiction all told by nude female live statues.

Suddenly The Windmill ticket office was buzzing! But if you thought that audience inside the theatre would be the same, you’d be wrong.

Audiences to the show were often deathly quiet. And as one former Windmill Girl, Doris Barry remembered, much of the audience were:

‘Men with raincoats over their knees, half of them playing with themselves’

It was far from a good experience for the girls on stage. Many of whom were young and wanted to perform, not be openly masturbated at.

Then WW2 hit and everything changed.

Staged photo of Windmill dancers performing in gas masks

After the blitz truly started in 1940, The Windmill found fame as one of the only theatres not to close up shop. Dubbed the ‘Great little windmill’ by press.

But just staying open when there was no bomb insight, wasn’t good enough for VD. He wanted The Windmill Theatre to never close.

The theatre’s layout meant that -hypothetically- bombs could be raining right outside it’s doors, but those in its theatre would still be safe.

The way VD saw it, The Windmill could and should be the one place in London that could keep its lights on during those hellish nights and do it with laughter and a healthy dose of nudity – it was a hell of a way to give Hitler the middle finger!

And so, VD militarised The Windmills workforce. Staff were put on bomb and fire watching rotas and they strengthened the theatre exterior with sandbags.

Most of the company moved into the theatre itself, both to be able to take on extra shows and for safety, with an emergency bunker being installed.

Shows were altered to include wartime themed numbers and tableauxs. With VD ensuring around 500 free tickets per week were given to soldiers. Soon the brigade of creepy mac wearers were gone and The Windmills audience were allied soldiers from all over the world.

The girls became pin ups, not only during performances but in the everyday. With staged pictures of their ‘daily lives’ in their new underground dorms being released to the public. Catipulted into a strange type of duel celebrity, the Windmill Girls became postcard pin ups for soldiers a long way from home. But they also served as a type of propaganda on the home front, providing Britain with a much needed reminder that life, laughter and fun could still go on.

Staged photo of Windmill performers sleeping

And this really cannot be overstated: The Windmill girls, were risking their lives to do their jobs.

They were working right in the middle of the blitz, in a target area. Members of The Windmill’s staff died whilst working there.

A bomb actually landed on the doorstep of The Windmill and though it did not explode, it lay there, a ticking time bomb. Upon seeing the bomb, VD purportedly proclaimed:

‘Get this bloody bomb off my doorstep! I’ve got a show to put on’

Often the girls on stage could hear the bombs falling right outside. Yet only a few times did a girl make any movement whilst in their tableaux. Once when a bomb dislodged a dead rat from the rafter and it fell at her (who wouldn’t have moved for that, to be fair)

On another occasion, a bomb hit a hotel in the same street. At the sound of the enormous impact, one of the women performing supposedly turned her head ever so slightly in the direction of the bomb and thumbed her nose at it.

Windmill girl, Sonia Stacpoole walks the corridors of the windmill with both her costume and helmet

An example of just some of the immense bravery shown by these women, is the story of Margaret McGrath. Who was one of the Windmill’s most beloved performers (in 1942, she was actually named The Windmills no1 girl, by Life magazine!)

In addition to her work on stage, Margaret took turns on fire watch, looking out from the theatres rooftop to ensure that no spreading blaze was coming close. Then in October 1940, Margaret was thrown into action when a bomb hit a cafe, which sat just opposite the theatre.

Bodies and debris were strewn across the street. Worse still, The Windmill staff quickly realised that someone was missing, a teenage electrician who’d been by the cafe at the time of the explosion. He was also the brother of one of Margaret’s fellow showgirls.

Someone needed to go out into the street, walk amongst the pile of bloodied and mangled bodies and identify if their boy was one of them. Margaret stepped up.

Almost immediately after, she was back at work. Which was fortunate for those around her, as pretty soon after, a fire bomb hit some stables right by the theatre.

Margaret put on her metal helmet and rushed to the blaze, along with fellow Windmill girl, Annie Singer.

The fire was ferocious, killing several people. None the less, Margaret and Annie managed to rescue six horses.

They then led the panicking horses through Piccadilly Circus, singing the whole time to calm both themselves and the horses. Until another bomb hit. The horses bolted, but Margaret and Annie stayed firm, despite the very obvious continuing danger. Going after the terrified animals and eventually leading them to safety.

All this and still, when she was aged 97, Margaret told the Daily Mail:

‘The war years at The Windmill were the best of my life. And boy, have I had a life!’

Pin up postcard of Margaret McGrath

Margaret was not a rare case! All The Windmill girls stepped up and risked a lot, many being only being in their late teens or early twenties.

They witnessed horrors right outside their front door and went on stage minutes later. They met and fell in love with soldiers by the stage door, who were killed just days later. And yet no matter what, these women acted as the positive, cheerful, sexy, fun face of the war effort.

And of course, they did all this whilst being publicly put on trial by the morality police.

And still, STILL, they got up every day and did it all again. That is bravery.

This was interesting! Where can I find out more? – check out Nights Out: Life in Cosmopolitan London, by Judith R Walkowitz. It’s a fantastic read and contains so much more info on The Windmill

Natasha Tidd is 1/3 of F Yeah History. She’s worked at museums and heritage sites across the UK. A huge history nerd, she will happily talk your ear off about women’s history, over several glasses (be real, bottles) of wine

Come up and seize me sometime: the arrest of Mae West

Mae West was arrested for -what else – sex. BUT not the sex you’re thinking about… Sex the play

You see, long before Mae West was lighting up Hollywood, with her trademark heavy innuendo, she was in New York, trapped in a brutal battle with the law, fighting to promote equality, freedom of speech and,of course, sex.

So let’s jump into the arrest, incarceration and surprising rebirth of, Mae West:

1959 article on Mae West’s arrest

By the 1920s Mae West was a theatrical veteran. Now in her thirties, she’d trod boards across New York, learning her craft from burlesque acts, musicians, dramatic actors and everyone in between.

Yet, though her name was known, Mae had never actually had a big break. As she delved further into the years after the big 3-0, younger models started taking what, until then, had always been Mae’s roles. It was starting to look like her dream of a big break was never going to happen.

BUT Mae West wasn’t the kind of woman that would go down without a fight. So she decided to make her own big break.

Mae started writing plays, and after knocking out a couple of practice pieces under the pseudonym, Jane Mast, she wrote what she knew would be her ticket to the big time. This being Mae West, the play was -of course- titled:

 

SEX

Like she’d have called it anything else…

Sex follows the ups and downs of sex worker, Margy LaMont. When writing her, Mae West was adamant that Margy would be totally different to other sex workers that had previously been portrayed on stage.

Margy is funny, likeable and smart as hell; more importantly, at no point in the play does she need saving, nor does she repent; instead she pushes back against the idea that her work as a sex worker somehow makes her lesser.

Naturally, there was only one actress Mae West had in mind for this plum part: Mae West.

And so, in April 1926 (thanks to a donation by her Mum) Sex opened in New York.

Posters for the shows included strap lines like :

‘SEX WITH MAE WEST’

Because, you know, subtlety.

A late run poster for Sex

Sadly for Mae, Sex was not met with favourable reviews.

Not only was the shows subject seen as obscenity of the highest order, the shows star made things worse by adding race into the mix.

Mae West had insisted that Sex include what was then known as ‘black music’. This combined with the shows scandalous stance on gender and sexuality, was just too much. And sex soon proved the perfect breeding ground for a powder keg of riotous fury.

BUT nothing seemed able to stop Sex. Despite the constant bad press, audiences kept coming. In a year where New York’s other big plays included work by the likes of Noel Coward, it was Mae Wests little Sex engine that could, that outlasted them all.

Truer words were never spoken

Sex wasn’t the only show Mae was running. Inspired by her friends, many of whom were LGBT+ and often forced to keep their sexuality and relationships hidden, Mae wrote her next play, Drag.

Drag’s hero, Rolly Kingsbury, is a closeted man who is stuck in a loveless marriage, and has to put up with arguably the worst family in the world; his Dad is a homophobic judge and his Father in Law is a conversion therapy pioneer (I told you they were the worst family ever)

Drag looks at Rolly’s use of his wife as a ‘beard’, his secret relationships with men and his family’s horror that Rolly could ever be one of ‘them.’

Oh, and the whole thing ends in a HUGE drag ball before *spoiler* Rolly is killed, which his Dad (a judge remember) covers up as a suicide, for fear of having Rolly’s sexuality discovered and the family’s honour tainted by homosexuality.

Yeah. I think we can all agree that this play was just a tad controversial for the 1920s (*cough* understatement of the year *cough*)

Thank God, Drag gets semi-regular reprisals, because it sounds like an amazing ride that I need to get on!

But the plot wasn’t enough for Mae. You see with Drag , Mae wanted to do something never done before. She wanted to cast LGBT+ actors.

This was theatrical treason.

You see, allowing anyone on the LGBT+ spectrum to perform on stage was actually banned by the actors union at this time.

But you know by now that a little thing like that wasn’t going to stop Mae.

So she set up open auditions in a gay bar in Greenwich Village, ensuring she got the cast she wanted; casually going against every rule in the book to do so.

Drag opened out of town in January 1927, to packed out houses
….until it was shut down after 2 weeks

Fricking no fun 1927

After Drag, The Society for the Prevention of Vice and other groups against obscenity, were out for Mae’s blood.

First a play on sex workers and freedom of sexuality AND THEN a play that promoted open homosexuality?!?!? It simply wouldn’t stand, Mae West and her corrupting plays HAD TO GO!

The axe fell in February 1927, just 1 month after Drag debuted. The police stormed Sex, carrying out a mass arrest of Mae and her company before completely shutting the play down.

Front page of the New York Daily Mirror

BUT those that thought arresting Mae West on obscenity charges and the threat of prison time would put an end to her, were about to be proved veeeery wrong.

Mae decided that rather than her demise, her arrest was going to be her making.

So she rocked up to court in the most amazing outfits, gave every interview going, wrote articles, signed autographs and made sure everything she said and did in court got headlines.

At one point the judge point blank asked Mae:
‘Miss West, are you trying to show contempt for this court?’
To which she innocently responded:
‘On the contrary, your Honor, I was doin’ my best to conceal it.’

Mae during her Sec trial, just casually wearing a stoll to court

After successfully turning her arrest and subsequent trial into one long press call, Mae was sentenced to 10 days in prison. So naturally Mae transformed what had been a press call into a press tour.

She arrived at New York’s Welfare Island (now Roosevelt island) in a limo, wearing a spectacular outfit.

Once inside and behind bars, Mae made herself comfy. She befriended the other inmates, as well as the staff, even dining with the Warden and his wife.

Of course she leaked all of this to the press, including the little tidbit that she ensured that under her prison uniform was the finest silk underwear.

Mae also took the opportunity to highlight how shitty the treatment of New York’s women prisoners were. Keen to make it clear that though she was dining with the warden, everyone else was treated like dirt. She then put money where her mouth was, donating to actually help make things better inside.

Throughout, Mae continued to hustle. Transforming what should have been her downfall into her long sought after big break; seriously I cannot understate how much she was smashing this! Bitch was taking busted up lemons and turning them into champagne!

By the time Mae West walked out of those prison gates she was an American Icon.

Moral of the story thus far – do not try to mess with the West!

Pretty much as soon as her days in the jail house were over, Mae was back at work, creating a new play.

The Pleasure Man was essentially a re-do of Drag. However in an effort to prevent another shut down, Mae turned the shows lead into a straight guy… though she made sure that the shows epic drag ball remained.

The play had its Broadway debut on 1 October 1928.
As soon as the curtain fell, the entire cast was arrested.

Despite the arrest of the entire cast, a matinee performance was allowed the next day.

Once more the police flooded the theatre; one of the drag queens performing managing to squeeze in a speech on police oppression, before the arrests started up again.

As the cast were dragged away, the police were met with a wave of boos from a crowd that had formed outside the theatre.

Two members of The Pleasure Man cast during their arrest

At The Pleasure Man trial, Mae and her cast were accused of:

‘unlawfully, wickedly and scandalously, for lucre and gain, produce, present and exhibit and display the said exhibition, show and entertainment to the sight and view of divers and many people, all to the great offence of public decency’

Mae West defended her work to the end; eventually seeing the charges dropped. However the fight had cost Mae $60,000 (that’s just under $1million today!)

Mae West with some of The Pleasure Man company

By 1930, the trials were over and Mae West had turned to Hollywood. Thanks to her constant work, she was now one of the most in demand actors in the world.

Mae West would become one of cinemas longest standing icons, known for her heavily innuendo laced jokes, as much as she was her business smarts; even becoming one of America’s highest earning individuals.

But Mae’s fight for equality, for alternative lifestyles to be explored and celebrated and for taboos to be dropped, has been forgotten. And that’s a damn shame, because as Mae West would say:

 

‘Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often’

This was interesting where can I find out more? You should definitely read Mae’s plays! Sex, Drag and The Pleasure Man are all in print (link here) and as the plays are still performed, you might even be able to find a performance near you (let us know if you do!!!) 

 

Mata Hari: Super spy or innocent femme fatale?

Mata Hari’s life has blockbuster written all over it-honestly it’s Oscar bait at its finest:

A small town girl finds international fame as an exotic dancer at the turn of the 20th century. She takes lovers from across Europe and is privy to secrets of global superpowers.

But her glittering world comes crashing down when she is discovered to be a German spy. She is captured, imprisoned and takes her final bow in front of a firing squad in a small corner of France.

It’s Hollywood gold dust! A blockbuster bio pic in the making (seriously someone give Baz Luhrman a call) but is it actually true?

Eeeeer kinda but no….

Born Margaretha Geertruida Zelle in 1876. Mata was born and raised in the Netherlands. Her Dad made some incredibly canny investments which allowed Mata and her siblings a very comfortable and happy childhood. Everything was great!

…and then her Dad lost all his money and a year later Mata’s Mum died.

via giphy

Things were already pretty shit, when Mata’s Dad decided to reveal himself as the literal worst.

As soon as the funeral was over, he shrugged off his old family and started a new one. Sending Mata far away to live with a Godfather she barely knew. At just 15, Mata was on her own.

But she was hardy, she picked herself up and decided to pick up a profession – training to be a teacher.

Unfortunately when it rains it pours and the headteacher of her school had a thing for teenage Mata and he wasn’t taking no for an answer.

The ‘affair’ was quickly discovered. The headmaster kept his job (naturally) and a shamed Mata was sent packing. Returning to her severely pissed off Godfather.

Yeah, don’t look for the logic in this via giphy

Ok so the job hadn’t panned out, but work wasn’t the only thing that could get a girl money and the hell out of dodge. So Mata turned to the Lonely Hearts pages.

Aged 18 Mata married Rudolph “John” MacLeod, a twice her age, almost constantly drunk officer in the East Indies Army. I think you’ve probably guessed after that description- but- Rudolph was a notorious dick.

Great moustache. Still a dick.

Rudolph was jealous (despite constantly sleeping with anything that moved) and an all around abusive drunk who regularly beat his wife.

Despite the numerous marital issues, the couple had two children, Norman and Non and the whole family moved to Indonesia where Rudolph was now based.

As with everything until this point…tragedy soon struck.

Seriously, it’s going to be a never ending stream of shit via giphy

In 1899 Mata awoke to the sound of screams. Immediately she ran to check on her children, only to find both Norman and Non convulsing in intense pain, a doctor was called but it was to late for Mata’s eldest. Two year old Norman died in front of her.

The cause of Norman’s death was shrouded in mystery. Locals theorised that the boy had been poisoned either by a soldier that Rudolph had ruthlessly beaten or by the child’s own Nanny (who Rudolph endlessly harassed). A more modern theory is that the children were being treated for syphilis (caught thanks to dear daddy Rudolph) and were accidentally given an overdose of medication.

It always comes back to Rudolph!

The couple were barely hanging on by a thread and just couldn’t continue after Norman’s death.

Rudolph drank even more and blamed his wife for their sons death. Mata descended into a deep depression, struggling just to get through each day. Yet somehow, she clawed her way back to life and found the strength to finally leave her husband.

Don’t get too excited, it’s all about to go to shit again! via giphy

But Rudolph wasn’t done being a monumental ass hat just yet! Mata had custody of Non, but (of course) Rudolph wasn’t paying his half in full. This was pretty shitty behaviour, escalated dramatically when Rudolph never returned Non after a scheduled visit.

Mata didn’t have the connections or funds (after all she’d essentially been a single mum) to fight for her daughter.

Worse, when she confronted Rudolph, he came at her with a bread knife; Mata narrowly escaped the encounter with her life.

It was one knock too many and Mata lost her will to fight. So she gave up. Hoping that Rudolph would do right by their daughter, Mata did what felt like the only option left to her – she ran away.

‘I thought all women who ran away from their husbands went to Paris’

Surrounded by the glittering lights of Paris Mata worked to reinvent herself. She joined the circus, entertaining the masses as a horse rider.

With the circus not paying much, Mata needed to earn extra to support herself, so made up the rest by posing as an artists model and dancing on the side.

And it was this dancing that would be her making.

When told audiences that when she’d lived in Indonesia she had trained with local dancers.And it was these ‘exotic’ moves she bought to Paris.

Presenting Mata Hari

Mata Hari was born and Margaretha Geertruida Zelle was all but dead.

Mata was a Princess of noble Indian birth, raised in Indonesia and trained from childhood in the ancient art of dance. Her near naked dances weren’t for titalation – they were sacred religious acts.

Now this is obviously entirely horse shit concucted by Magaretha…but damn it sold tickets!!

Soon Mata was an independently wealthy woman, a huge achievement in this period.

via giphy

With money came men. Dazzled by Mata’s beauty and mystery, Europes most powerful men flocked to her side. With the ability to speak multiple languages, as well as a fast wit and ambitious streak – Mata had her pick.

She chose military men. Girl apparently had a type. 

As WW1 dawned Mata was reaching her late thirties. With younger imitators snapping at her heels, she slowed down on the dancing and instead supported herself as a courtesan, sleeping with some of Europes military mights.

She hopped from country to country, living a lavish strings free life. But when wartime hit this had to change.

Well….it should have changed.

Mata continued flitting from country to country (thanks to her neutral Netherlands passport) she slept with high ups from across Europe, no matter what side they fell on.

Now I think we can all agree: this was not a smart plan.

via giphy

Ok now here’s the thing: this next part is a bit of a cluster fuck. See some historians think Mata was a spy, some don’t and some think she was passing on information on the odd occasion but wasn’t a spy.

See what I mean…cluster fuck. So let’s just focus on the concrete facts here!

We know that Mata had access to all kinds of information from pretty much every major player in WW1 (because she was in the bed of pretty much every military higher up)

In 1916 Mata was detained during a jaunt to London and taken to Scotland Yard for questioning. The British had been tipped off by French Authorities that Mata was a German spy, an accusation she refuted under interrogation.

Extract from Mata Hari’s interrogation (released in 2016 you can find the whole thing in the National Archives)

But Britain and France weren’t convinced and at such a delicate time in global politics, these weren’t exactly people you wanted gunning for you.

Though not concrete, there was anecdotal evidence to support the spy theory.

In 1914 the Germans supposedly offered Mata money in return for secrets of those she bedded and the French had put forward a similar offer.

So was Mata a spy? A double agent? Just trying to see what she could get?

Who knows at this point there are so many different theories and strings to keep track of!        

So with the spy theory still hanging over her, Mata was released from Scotland Yard.

Free? Sadly no.

The heat was too much and Europes political powerhouses from all sides were keen to get their hands clean of the embarrassing tangled web that had become Mata Hari.

The French intercepted a (almost definitely purposefully leaked) German message detailing the actions of spy H21. The French figured this spy was Mara Hari and so on February 13th 1917 French officers marched into her Paris hotel room and arrested her.

‘I am innocent….someone is fooling me’

Mata Hari’s trial was, at best, a joke. At worst a formal slut shaming exercise.

Mata admitted to taking German funds to spy, but argued that she hadn’t actually carried out these acts. She just took the money.

The French weren’t having this and claimed that her actions directly resulted in the deaths of up to 50,000 men.

I think it’s worth noting here that at this point the war was not going well for the French. They were suffering massive losses and their men were turning against them.

The French needed a fall guy. So they created the ultimate villainess.  

Not only was Mara Hari on trial for spying but her lifestyle was on trial. Her accusers claimed she regularly bathed in milk at a time when there wasn’t enough for French children to drink. Her bed hopping and sensual dancing proved her lack of morals, which itself was proof she would be happy to spy.

There was never going to be a good outcome of this for Mata. And there wasn’t, she was sentenced to death.

Picture of Mata Hari whilst incarcerated

On October 15th 1917 Mata Hari woke at dawn in a small corner of France. She wrote two letters; one to her daughter Non. Then she dressed and was led outside to where a firing squad were waiting.

Mata refused a blindfold and stood unbound, staring directly at her executioners. Shots were fired and she fell. Her final curtain call.

Mata Hari’s story is one that shows just how easily manipulated history can be.

Once held up as an example of loose morals and villainy, documents released to time in with the WW1 centennial show a very different story. One that is still being pieced together.

Personally I don’t think she was a spy. I do think she was privy to a silly amount of information from all sides and I think she occasionally leaked this information to whatever side she was with at the time.

But this isn’t Hollywood. Mata Hari wasn’t a master spy. She was just a person, who had flaws and made some really shitty choices that she paid the ultimate price for.

This was interesting, where can I find out more? Check out Pam Shipman’s book, Femme Fatale which gives even more background on Mata’s early life.

How the Harlem Renaissance woke America

The Harlem Renaissance was a game changer. as a much a cultural awakening for the African American community as for the United States as a whole.

Thrusting black voices into pop culture, creating a new crop of black artists and cultural icons and most importantly; fostering a pride that hadn’t been allowed to exist before.

A 1928 copy of Negro American Magazine, fearing civil rights campaigner, Erma Seweatt

The first generation of people born free had a fight on their hands. Removed from the shackles of slavery, they were still oppressed and persecuted in their own country.

So, it shouldn’t come as a huge shock that throughout the 1920s and 30s many chose to leave the Southern states and instead head for Northern cities like Chicago and New York, where things were a whole lot more progressive.

Faced with these new bright lights, they didn’t back down. Forming communities and using art, literature, theatre and music to express themselves, their history and their future.

Strange Fruit

One of the most acclaimed artists to come from the Harlem Renaissance is the one and only Billie Holiday. 

Billie came up during the renaissance and it was here she grew her voice. Famed for touching upon subjects other singers shied away from; perhaps her most iconic song is Strange Fruit.

Recorded in the late 1930s, Strange Fruit deals with lynching. Blunt and unflinching it soon became a protest song.

Southern trees bear a strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root

Black body swinging in the Southern breeze

Though Billie feared repercussions for performing the song, she felt compelled to continue singing. After all it was the the truth, not just for her, but for everyone in America.

Strange Fruit became a stalwart Billie Holiday number for her – yet her record company refused to print it.  

Remember this was the 1930s. The civil rights movement was just a seed. Such public protests were unheard of and tended to end with, well, lynching. But Strange Fruit couldn’t be contained, eventually being released as a single by Comodor.

Strange Fruit remains a protest strong and a vital reminder of this dark time in Americas history. But it’s still banned by some.

When English singer, Rebecca Fergerson, was asked to perform at Donald Trumps inauguration, she agreed…if she could sing Strange Fruit. You can guess what Trump said.

He said no (because he is a wanker)

Shuffle Along

In an era when ‘one black per bill’ was the theatrical norm, musical Shuffle Along high kicked in and smashed every existing idea of what African Americans could contribute to theatre to shittery and back.

The chorus of Shuffle Along taking a break from ass kicking

Now I know musical theatre doesn’t seem like the tool with which groundbreaking cultural change occurs

Much rainbow, such social change

But forget what you think you know. Shuffle Along contains absolutely no technicolor dreamcoats, no needy scarred blokes living below opera houses and no jazz hands (ok fine-maybe some jazz hands)

Produced and written by an all black team and starring a black cast, Shuffle Along shook shit up when it made its debut on the early 1920s, with many of the cast enjoying their Broadway debut (including the incredible Josephine Baker!)

The musical revolved around a mayoral election (of course!) but the politics wasn’t confined to the stage. 

Shuffle Along took off, engaging with theatre goers from all backgrounds. It proved to Theatre bigwigs that even with a cast and creative team who comprised of waaay more than ‘one black’-the public didn’t care; they wanted to pay to see the show. In fact they wanted to see more shows led by African American casts and creatives!

Bigger than that (and it’s a pretty big biggy) the huge popularity of Shuffle Along led to the 1920s desegregation of theatres. For the first time, black theatre goers didn’t have to watch from way up in the gods; at Shuffle Along they could sit up at the front.

See, isn’t musical theatre great!

The Cotton club

For all the groundbreaking being done uptown, racism still existed in Harlem as it did across America. One such hot bed was popular night club, The Cotton Club.

Ok it looks fun…but trust me its not!

As it’s name suggests, the cotton club wasn’t a haven for any form of equality, with the clubs owner, gangster Owen ‘the killer’ Madden wanting his club to ooze ‘stylish plantation’ and insisting on only playing ‘jungle music’ for his all white patrons.

Surprising that someone with the middle name ‘killer’ is also a cock

But there was light! For all the Cotton Clubs racism, it’s all African American workforce was tenacious and somehow managed to turn the clubs stage into one of modern jazz’s early breeding grounds.

Acclaimed musical pioneer, Duke Ellington, served as the Cotton Clubs band leader during the late twenties. There He formed one of history’s greatest jazz orchestras and soon their music took over Americas radio stations.

Duke Ellington

After Duke left for far greener (and less racist) pastures, a new bandleader was appointed-the equally groundbreaking, Cab Calloway. Cab brought drama and flair to the clubs music, in addition to call and repeat scatting that can be seen in still iconic tracks like Minnie the Moocher.

Now those…those are moves.

Yet despite the acclaimed music on stage, the Cotton Club remained determinedly segregated. So it’s perhaps no bad thing that it was forced to close during the Harlem race riots of 1935.

The seeds of civil rights

1935s Harlem race riot effectively ended the renaissance. Much like the Cotton Club, Harlem was a hive of contradictions. Whilst it’s art celebrated the community and was applauded at the highest levels, many of Harlem’s occupants were essentially living in slums.

Things were uneasy. And After rumours ran rife that a young Puerto Rican teen had been beaten to death for shoplifting, the riot was sparked.

Police arrest a man during the 1935 riot

The renaissance art left its impact though. It lay a groundwork of pride and built a clear community voice that would be developed when the civil rights movement started to emerge following WW2.

The music, theatre and talent of this era would become forever synonymous of black culture. Whilst WW2 waged on and civil rights waited, the renaissance artists work served as a lingering reminder of everything that could be and one day would be achieved