Lola Montez - Influential Women in History

This book is part of a series on historical female figures. It features Lola Montez, a dancer and actress born Eliza Gilbert in Ireland who made a career as a Spanish dancer and courtesan. Her elopement and subsequent marriage to a Lieutenant at the tender age of 16 ended five years later in Calcutta, where she began her career as a dancer. Upon return to London, she adopted the stage name Lola, and caught the attention of Franz Liszt and Alexandre Dumas, both rumoured to be lovers of Lola Montez. In 1846 she moved to Munich and became mistress to Ludwig I of Bavaria who made her Countess of Landsfeld, but she was forced to leave when Ludwig abdicated. She met her second husband in Switzerland, but a bigamy case meant Lola and her husband were obliged to relocate to France and Spain. Shortly after, the marriage ended, and Montez crossed the atlantic to reestablish her reputation in the States. Lola went on tour to Australia in 1885, but it was in America that she died, aged 42, of pneumonia. An extraordinary tale of a most extraordinary character.