LOLA MONTEZ
Lola Montez wasn’t born in Australia. She didn’t live here. But her tour of Australia in 1855-1856 made her a part of Australian legend.
Lola was born in Limerick, Ireland. Her real name was Maria Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert. Lola Montez made a better stage name. She was very beautiful, with black hair and flashing blue eyes, and a lot of men found her irresistible, even though she had a scary temper.
By the time she arrived in Australia, she had been married several times and her boyfriends had included the composer Franz Liszt and King Ludwig of Bavaria (in what is now Germany). If she were alive today, she would be in all the gossip magazines, going out with Hollywood stars and millionaires.
Lola was a dancer. Not just any kind of dancer. You wouldn’t see her in Swan Lake or Sleeping Beauty. Lola had created her very own dance, known as the Spider Dance. In it, she wore a gauze dress with spiders on it and the dance involved her trying to shake them off. Let’s just say it didn’t leave much to the imagination.
In 1855, the gold rush was on in Victoria, in Bendigo and Ballarat. Gold miners would like the Spider Dance, she decided. It had worked in California, which also had a gold rush going on. She raised money, hired some actors and took her company to Sydney.
Lola got some good newspaper reviews in Sydney for her show, Lola Montez in Bavaria, but it was time to move on down south to Melbourne and then the goldfields, where all those rich miners were working. Lola decided to get rid of some of her company, which didn’t make them happy. In fact, they sued her for damages. Someone from the sheriff’s office in Sydney boarded her ship to demand the money she owed the sacked actors.
Lola went to her cabin and, soon after, sent out a message to say that she had taken off all her clothes, but the sheriff was welcome to come in if he liked. Of course, he didn’t. Having got away with not paying, Lola continued on her way.
In Melbourne, Lola performed at the Theatre Royal, where her reviews weren’t as good as in Sydney. She put up with the disappointment, even though the police banned her from doing a second performance. In Ballarat, however, she was furious with comments made by Henry Seekamp, editor of the Ballarat Times. She decided not to put up with this.
Lola caught up with him in the United States Hotel, where he was having an after-work drink, and beat him with a horsewhip. Seekamp fought back, but Lola won the fight and he had to run away. There’s a saying that no publicity is bad publicity and this particular story, once it got around, gave Lola very good publicity. Tickets to her shows sold out and she was right about the miners. They threw gold nuggets on stage.
The show was just as successful in Bendigo and Lola also visited the goldfields themselves, where the miners adored her. They admired her courage and her willingness to go down into the deepest mine shafts.
Lola was probably glad she had visited Australia, because after she left, her life went downhill. She had had a wonderful tour, even with those people who had been shocked by her act and complained. After all, Lola was used to shocking people. She enjoyed it!
She only lived for five years after her visit to Australia, finally dying of syphilis in New York. Before that, she had found religion. It would be interesting to know how she felt about the Spider Dance by then.
DID YOU KNOW…?
In 1803, convict Joseph Samuels was condemned to hang for murder. Three times, the rope being used to hang him broke or unravelled, so he was allowed to live. It wasn’t much help to him, though – soon afterwards, he drowned while trying to escape in a boat.