Marion Winchester, the ‘Sugar Queen,’ American dancer, possessor of a casket of fabulous jewellery and sometime Italian countess

Marion Winchester (active 1899-1908), American speciality dancer
(photo: Bassano, London, probably late 1905/early 1906; postcard published by Davidson Brothers, London, circa 1906)

Marion Winchester, whose real name was Isabel Marion Brodie, was born at Monterey, California on 21 March 1882, the daughter of Charles A. Brodie. She is first mentioned professionally in her native United States in 1899, having been trained at the Alviene Stage Dancing and Vaudeville School of Acting, Grand Opera House, New York. Her first appearance in London took place in the Spring of 1903, when at The Oxford music hall she was billed as the ‘World’s Champion Cake Walker,’ City. Between then and 1905 she was in Paris, where she was described as ‘une fabuleuse danseuse américaine’ (Le Figaro, 9 December 1903), and where it was rumoured in 1905 that she had married the American millionaire Daniel G. Reid. Although Reid was married three times (twice to actresses), no such contract between him and Miss Winchester was effected and the nature of their relationship, if any, remains open to speculation. Her last known appearances were in the Paris production of Vera Violetta in 1908.

In her application to the American Embassy in Paris in 1921 for an emergency passport (no. 6532), to replace one that had been lost on a recent train journey from Italy to Paris, Isabel Marion Brodie stated that she was professionally known as Iolanda de Monte, and was then residing at 8 Rue de Bois de Boulogne, Paris, for the purpose of studying music. She was subsequently married to the Italian pianist and composer, Count Aldo Solito de Solis (1905-1973), who during 1924 gave a number of recitals in London, the first being at the Æolian Hall, Wigmore Street, on Thursday, 28 February 1924 (The Times, London, 23 February 1924, p. 8, advertisement; The Time, Saturday, 1 March 1924, p. 8), and appeared at five Prom Concerts at the Queen’s Hall, London, including the last night (18 October 1924), when, accompanied by the New Queen’s Hall Orchestra conducted by Henry Wood, he played Liszt’s ‘Totentanz.’ Solito de Solis returned briefly to London early in 1927 to give five recitals. He and his wife continued together until their divorce about 1940; he was then married on 17 August 1942 to the Hollywood actress, Gale Page (1913-1983).

Countess Isabel Marion Brodie Solito de Solis, aka Marion Winchester and Iolanda de Monte, was still living in 1946.

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‘Vaudeville and Minstrel …
‘MARION WINCHESTER, premier danseuse recently with the Devil’s Auction Co., is playing the Hopkins’ circuit. She introduces an original speciality, consisting of a cake walk toe dance, in conjunction with ballad singing and serio comic vocalisms. She will play the Keith circuit.’
(The New York Clipper, New York, Saturday, 9 September 1899, p. 558c; The Devil’s Auction, an extravaganza with ballet similar to The Black Crook, was originally produced in New York in 1867 and subsequently revived in rejuvenated form many times)

‘Marion Winchester is making quite a bit success at the Alhambra, Paris. She is a lady who had the happy knack of sowing off the grandest costumes to the best possible advantage. On the same bill are the Harmony Four, Seymour and Dupre, and Johnson and Dean.’
(The New York Clipper, New York, Saturday, 16 July 1904, p. 469a)

‘Du temps où les bals de l’Opéra existaient encore, le secrétaire du théâtre vit venir à lui un solliciteur qui lui demanda un entrée, parce que, disait-it, son médecin lui avait fait de la distraction un précepte d’hygiène. Aujourd’hui, ce setrait à l’Olympia que les docteurs enverraient les neurasthéniques se guérir: où trouveraient-ils un plaisir plus salutaire que celui d’assister à une représentation de Country Girl et d’applaudir Mariette Sully et Alice Bonheur? La délicieuse Marion Winchester, après quelques jours de repos, reprend ce soir son rôle de lady Carrington: c’est une bonne nouvelle pour le monde élégant qui viendra applaudir l’étoile de la danse américaine.’
(Le Figaro, Paris, Tuesday, 29 November 1904, p. 1e)

‘LONDON WEEK BY WEEK (By Emily Soldene.)
‘LONDON. December 16, 1904… .
‘We’ve got a ”Sugar Queen” – Miss Marion Winchester. Of course, she’s an American; equally, of course, she’s an actress – a toe dancer, recently with the Country Girl in Paris; also, of course, she’s at the Savoy. One day in Paris she met in the corridor of the Hotel Lebaudy, ”Emperor of the Sahara.” Marion was sucking a piece of candy. ”Give up sugar-stick,” said he, ” and buy sugar stock.” ”I just froze on,” said Marion. She took the tip, and £20,000 on the deal. She’s loaded up with trunks – sables, new dresses of Paquin diamonds – and is soon going on at the Gaiety.’
(The Evening News, Sydney, NSW, Australia, Saturday, 21 January 1905, p. 7e)

‘OUR LONDON LETTER.
‘Dec. 16 [1905] …
‘Tonight Marion Winchester, well known in the theatres of two continents as a dander, will be seen in the cast of The Spring Chicken, at the Gaiety Theatre.’ (The New York Clipper, New York, Saturday, 30 December 1905, p. 1146b)

‘MULTI-MILLIONAIRE REID MARRIED A STAGE DANCER
‘Beautiful Marion Winchester Becomes Mistress of $20,000,000 Fortune.
‘NEW YORK, March 1. [1905] – Marion Winchester, the beautiful American dancer, has become mistress of a $20,000,000 fortune by her marriage to Daniel G. Reid of Indiana, organizer of the tinplate trust and director of more than a dozen of the largest corporations in the country. The announcement of the marriage, which took place in Paris recently, reached New York to-day from London, where the couple are now living.
‘This is the second wife Reid has taken from behind the footlights.
‘Miss Winchester was a popular member of the New York Theater company, under the management of the Sire Bros.’
(The San Francisco Call, San Francisco, Thursday, 2 March 1905, p. 5f)

‘THE ”SUGAR QUEEN” AND PROTECTION.
‘Miss Marion Winchester, the ”Sugar Queen” who is appearing in the Spring Chicken at the Gaiety Theatre [London], although an American, is an ardent Free Trader, her experience of Protection, in her native land, being the reverse of pleasant. On March 30 last year [sic; it was actually 20 March1905], the young actress returned to New York [from Southampton] on the St. Louis, and in answer to the usual inquiry of the customs office, stated that she had nothing to declare. On an examination of her luggage however, the official remarked that she had far too many jewels to pass, and she was asked to accompany him to the chief office.
‘The jewels were carefully weighed and tested, and Miss Winchester was staggered with the demand for £12,000, the amount of the duty due. In vain the beautiful dancer protested, tears and anger proved equally unavailing, and finally she declared her intention of departing by the next steamer, rather than pay money or deposit her jewels. On this understanding, after being detained either hours, she was allowed to retain possession of her treasures; but during the two days she remained detectives were continually shadowing her. Before the steamer sailed the jewels were carefully checked, to see that none had been disposed of.
‘Miss Winchester has purchased a house at 35A. South-street, Park-lane [Mayfair (where the actress Eleanor Souray lived in about 1908], with the intention of making her home in London, and emphatically states that the next time she visits her native land her jewels will remain in her London bank.’ (The Northern Argus, Clare, South Australia, Friday, 4 May 1906, p. 3)

Palace Theatre, London, week beginning Monday, 4 May 1908
Marion Winchester ‘fresh from her Continental successes.’
(The Sunday Times, London, Sunday, 3 May 1908, p. 15f)

‘Paris, Nov. 10 [1908].
‘Vera Violetta, Redelsperger’s spectacular operetta, which had a big run in Vienna, was produced by Victor de Cottens and H.B. Marinelli at the Olympia on the 6th [or 7th November 1908]. Mr. Baron, of the Varietes Theatre, has been engaged for a part that suits him admirably, though this popular actor is getting old and is now rarely seen. Marion Winchester, from the Gaiety, London, plays with much charm and especially pleases by her graceful dancing. M. Fereal, a popular baritone, Girier, the rotund comic, Mlle. Maud d’Orby, the 16 ”Olympia Girls” (Tiller’s), Mathilde Gomez, Mlle. Relly and the Delevines contribute to the success of this piece.’
(Edward G. Kendrew, ‘Paris Notes,’ Variety, New York, Saturday, 21 November 1908, p. 11a)

‘Daniel Gray Reid, the multimillionaire financier, who has been served with summons in an action for divorce brought by his third wife, Margaret Carrier, refused to discuss the affair yesterday. At his apartment on the eleventh floor of 907 Fifth avenue Mr. Reid’s butler said Mr Reid had nothing to say about the divorce… . ‘She married Reid in the fall of 1906, when she was 23 and he 54. she was a chorus girl and played in ”A Chinese Honeymoon” and later ”The Runaways.” ‘Mr. Reid’s first wife was Clarisse Agnew, an actress, who was playing at the old Hoyt Theatre. Following her death Mr. Reid met Marion Winchester in 1905, a dancer, on one of his trips to Paris and after a short courtship married her.
‘Three months after her death, in 1906, he married Margaret Carrier.’ (The Sun, New York, New York, Sunday, 2 March 1919, p. 8d)

Gabrielle Ray’s birthday, 28 April; views on the effects of motoring on kissing

Gabrielle Ray (1883-1973), English musical comedy dancer and actress, who celebrated her birthday on 28 April.
(photo: Bassano, London, circa 1909)

‘THE MOTOR MOUTH.
‘EFFECTS ON KISSING.
‘The medical specialist who recently had the hardihood to assert that motoring would ultimately put an end to kissing, because it made the lips hard, will find few supporters among lady motorists, who are practically unanimous in describing his prophecy as nonsense.
”’King goes by favor,” said one young lady, ”and perhaps it is because no one will kiss him or take him for a motor drive that the poor man is setting up to be an authority on something that we understand better then he does.”
‘From the many inquiries made recently a Daily Mail representative arrived at the conclusion that ladies will not accept as a scientific fact that statements of the medical pessimist.
”’Motoring will go out of fashion before kissing will,” said Miss Marie Studholme. ”The gold wind makes one’s face hard for a little while, but most of the kissable people in the world are now motoring.”
‘Miss Gabrielle Ray thinks the medical specialist is a very funny man; ”but as I don’t go in for kissing,” she said, ”I don’t know much about hard mouths. I have done a lot of motoring, but very little kissing. At the same time, I think it would be a pity to discourage those who like kissing because it seems to please them very much. If I have by accident kissed anyone I have never heard any complaint about my mouths; but there, you see, I put cream on my face when going out in a motor-car, because before I used to do so the wind made my face very dry.”
‘Mlle. Mariette Sully, the charming French actress at Daly’s Theatre [in <HREF=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merveilleuses>Les Merveilleuses], says it is very wicked of the doctor to talk like that. ”If he had said that motoring sops kissing because the automobile shakes so much,” she could understand him; ”but hard lips, oh, no, not at all.”
‘At the Apollo Theatre Miss Carrie Moore [who is appearing in The Dairymaids] holds the same views. ”Motor drives do not make the lips hard. Of course not. Motoring is lovely, and I am sure it won’t put kissing out of fashion.”
‘At the Gaiety Theatre [where The New Aladdin began its run on 29 September 1906] Miss Kitty Mason suggested that motoring will cause wrinkles round the eyes. ”People screw up their eyes when motoring,” she said, ”and I think that must eventually cause wrinkles.” ”Oh, I hope not,” said the other ladies so loudly that Mr George Edwardes had to call for order to allow the rehearsal to proceed.’
(The Grenfell Record and Lachlan District Advertiser, Grenfell, NSW, Australia, Saturday, 27 October 1906, p. 3c)

Mariette Sully

Mariette Sully (1874-?1940), Belgian born French actress and singer, as Pervenche in The Merveilleues, Daly’s Theatre, London, 27 October 1906 (photo: probably Foulsham & Banfield, London, 1906)

‘”GYM-CO-VAU-DE-PA-O.”
‘The dramatic profession across the water possesses no such thing as a distinctive club. It has, that is to say, no professional club-house. Paris can show nothing in the nature of the London Garrick, and provides nothing in the shape of the Beefsteak, or a Green Room, or a Savage. The clubability of ”the’ profession has never extended to anything of this kind. Its individual members appear to find quite sufficient everyday accommodation in the café of their predilection. Still, there are actors’ clubs of sorts in Paris, and the hieroglyphic seeming rubric above is, or rather was, the name of one of them.
‘This particular society meets in the good old Johnsonian fashion, at a tavern, and there, once a month, it dines. The tavern lies outside the ruck of restaurants, in a quiet and sequestered quarter, whither the feet of the roysterer never stray. But the dinners to be had there are none the worse for that, and the liquors all the better.
‘When the ”Gym-Co-Vau-Dé-Pa-O” was started a decade or so ago its members numbered thirty. The method of election was eclectic, and the original name of the club implies as much. Writ long it means, ”Gymnasc, Comédie Française, Vaudeville, Déjazet, Palais Royal, Odéon.” Not, however, that members of the companies of these theatres only are eligible.
‘The original designation of the Club, however, has been changed, and more than once. It became first the ”Petites Vedettes,” then the ”Mentons-Bleus,” or Blue Chins. To-day it is known fondly as the ”Guignot,” and the monthly symposium is thus a monthly Punch Dinner. But once a year, in this present month of January, the Punch dinner takes the form of supper; and, on these occasions, the Punchmen have a pretty custom of asking a lady – of course, a member of the profession – to preside. The first lady president was Mdme. Blanche Pierson, of the Gymnase. One of her successors was Mdme. Alice Lavigne, the désopilante soubrette of the Palais Royal. Last year Mdlle. Cheirel took the chair and the other night the revels were ruled by Mlle. Mariette Sully, the bewtiching heroine of Audran’s Poupée, who found under her serviette a counterfeit presentment of herself as she appears upon the stage of the Gaieté – a Doll of Dolls, which a floral tribute in her wooden hands, the offering of the gallant Guignol.
‘After reflection, and with the cigarettes, comes the literary portion of the entertainment. This habitually takes the peculiarly Parisian form of a ”revue,” or rhymed skit upon things in general, as wicked and as witty as the club pens can make it. Sarah in excelsis [i.e. Sarah Bernhardt], Sarcey in his critic’s seat, and M. Antoine in the shades, formed its features on this occasion.
‘The whole concluded with a tombola, conducted on professional lines, and lasting till the traditional baked apples had all given out.’ (The Pall Mall Gazette, London, Tuesday, 12 January 1897, p. 3c)