Women have one mission in life: to be beautiful. When one gets old, one must learn how to break mirrors. I am very gently expecting to die. – La Belle Otero
Regular readers have probably noticed by now that most of the courtesans of whom I’ve written have two things in common: many die in their forties, and the details of their lives tend to be vague and often contradictory. For the former, I have no explanation except perhaps that “the light which burns twice as bright burns half as long”; a quick scan of the harlotographies will demonstrate that the causes of their deaths vary widely, from communicable disease to cancer to execution, which rather eliminates any common factor. But as for the vagueness of their biographies, that I can explain; it’s simply that when one is in the business of selling an illusion, the details of one’s life may become as fluid and embellished as advertising copy, and one’s biographers are forced to choose between conflicting reports from letters, rumors, the rose-tinted memories of favored clients, the gossip of rivals and the propaganda of moralists. Carolina Otero was unusual in that she lived to a greater age than any of the others I’ve written about, but typical in that it’s difficult to separate the facts of her life from the romantic legend of La Belle Otero.
One thing is for certain; she was definitely not the illegitimate child of a Greek nobleman and a gypsy from Cadiz. She was in fact born on November 4th, 1868 of a poor family in Galicia, nearly as far as it’s possible to get from Cadiz without leaving Spain. She was baptized Agustina Otero Iglesias, but changed her name to Carolina Otero sometime in her teens. As was not uncommon among the desperately poor of that time, her mother placed her as a maid when she was still quite young, and she is said to have been violently raped at ten; though I was not able to confirm this, it was not at all an unusual fate for pretty servant girls of the time, and could account for her sterility. About two years later she ran away to Lisbon with a boy named Paco in order to become a dancer, and though she later claimed to have married a handsome young Italian nobleman named Count Guglielmo when she was 14, this hardly seems credible considering that she had nothing to show for it and on other occasions claimed to have been the mistress of at least three different Spanish noblemen during the same time period. It does seem as though she married someone around the age of 15, but was divorced by the time she turned up in Barcelona as a 19-year-old café singer and prostitute.
She soon attracted her first long-term patron, who took her to Marseilles and financed her debut on the French stage; the affair lasted only as long as she needed it to, and soon she was billing herself as La Belle Otero, the gypsy dancer who had launched her career on funds she had won in Monte Carlo. By the early 1890s she made it to the Folies Bèrgere, where she soon became a star; by 1895 she was the most desired courtesan in Europe, and her list of patrons eventually included King Edward VII of the UK, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, Czar Nicholas II of Russia, King Alfonso XIII of Spain, King Alexander II of Serbia, Prince Albert I of Monaco, Grand Dukes Nicholas and Peter of Russia and a number of other noblemen and business tycoons. She did marry again in 1906, to an Englishman named René Webb, but this does not seem to have lasted very long. She claimed that six men had committed suicide over her, and though this was almost certainly just part of her hype it is known that at least one duel was fought over her. In August of 1898, she was filmed performing a dance called “La Valse Brillante”; the one-minute movie was played in music halls all over Europe, further increasing both her fame and her demand.
The late Victorian and Edwardian periods in France are referred to as La Belle Epoque, and while England and the United States were descending more deeply into persecution of whores France loved hers, especially Les Grandes Horizontales (as the great courtesans were called). They were in a sense the first modern-style celebrities; reporters followed them about to the opera, the theaters or Maxim’s restaurant (a favorite of the demimonde), and newspapers reported on their doings, including their pastimes and rivalries (such as the infamous competition between Otero and Liane de Pougy, who was less famous but probably wealthier). They even licensed their images for postcards (as Princess Clara did), producing a sizeable secondary income for the most popular.
Otero was sought-after until she was 50 years old, and retired just after the First World War to a large and well-appointed mansion; she had accumulated a fortune of about $25 million (about $360 million in today’s dollars), but neglected to adjust her extravagant lifestyle to her greatly reduced income and burned through it all in the next three decades. Probably the greatest contributing factor was her love of gambling in Monte Carlo, because unlike her fantasy persona she lost prodigious sums. The sale of her estate and the modest success of a musical based on her life (La Bella Otero, 1954) kept her going through the ‘50s, but by the time of her death on April 12th, 1965 she was living in a one-room apartment at the Hotel Novelty in Nice in a state of poverty nearly as abject as that in which she entered the world 96 years earlier. The last of Europe’s great courtesans had outlived her fame, her fortune and her era; France had turned her back on harlots and declared herself officially “abolitionist”, and the time when a woman of Caroline Otero’s profession could be an admired celebrity had faded with her wealth and beauty.
One Year Ago Today
“Backwards Into the Future” demonstrates how South Africa, once considered among the worst regimes for human rights because of its apartheid policies, is now moving forward on that account while the US slides steadily backwards.
Awesome post Maggie – what an AMAZING woman she was!
Thank you, Susan! I think it’s time for a new movie of her life, a truthful one this time. What a vehicle for a gifted young actress!
Truly “La Belle” was one of the all-time greats.
That era shows that there is no natural reason why courtesans cannot be as famous or as admired as the stars of cinema (or previously, the theater); and while her longevity was unmatched, the other two of the “Trois Grâces” – Liane de Pougy and Émilienne d’Alençon – also had very long lives.
It’s sad that she didn’t have the spending discipline to maintain her lifestyle till her death. It is noteworthy though – that her “retirement” lasted her until she was at least 80 years old … and I’m not sure I would have planned a budget to get me to my 81st birthday either.
I would think that retirement planning would be a top priority for a full-time harlot since, as is the case in my line of work, at a certain point you just can’t do the job anymore. You need a backup plan.
However, what’s NOT the case in my line of work – is the possibility of tucking away a $360 MILLION DOLLAR nest egg! LOL! It’s something I wonder about, if hookers think about that when they’re engaged in the work? Prostitution is a HARD gig … it would be nice to know the women engaged in it were also looking out for their futures. I suspect they are like most other people though – some probably DO save hard for retirement while others just blow in the wind without a real plan.
My retirement plan?
P O W E R B A L L !!!
LOL!!
Actually, most courtesans in the 17th and 18th centuries were constantly ‘retirement’ planning. A typical courtesan, several rungs higher in the prostitute food chain than your average street corner hooker, received extremely valuable jewels when they received their conge and would later sell the jewels once they were no longer desirable. There was no need to worry about day to day expenses, as whomever they were “with” at the time paid for the house, servants, clothing, etc. Since most aristocratic men in Europe kept mistresses, it was pretty lucrative.
La Belle Otero is one of my idols, along with Ninon de L’Enclos, Veronica Franco, and of course, my namesake.
The account I heard about Caroline’s rape is that it was so violent that her pelvis was broken, contributing to her sterility.
Also, there was a movie about La Belle Otero made during her lifetime. However, she was so displeased with the actress cast to play her, Maria Felix who was very beautiful, but not beautiful enough in Otero’s opinion, that she stormed off the set. But even until her dying day, she reportedly spoke with fond nostalgia about her courtesan days.
Thanks for another great bio Maggie.
I always enjoy reading about successful “professionals”. I see them as beacons of sexual hope in a sea of ignorance, prejudice and outright hate.
In my mind, I prefer to think of prostitutes as “professional women”, in the same sense that we call accountants and lawyers professionals – practitioners of a skilled craft (not the derogatory slang “Pro”)- and treat them accordingly whenever I have dealings with them. This includes appropriate courtesy and respect, a clear understanding (on both sides) of the terms of engagement and the fees, and the expectation of fair dealing, again from both parties. I expect to have to specify any required special services and to pay a premium for them, but I also expect the professional to carry out the services willingly and competently to completion once agreed.
I would add that I was trained as a “professional” myself. 🙂
It was always nice to deal with clients who had that same attitude, V.W; perhaps unsurprisingly, I found that most who did were professional men (doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, etc) themselves. 🙂
Wow! Ninety-six years old, and back in the day to boot. Most people today don’t make it to ninety-six, though more and more are.
I just checked Netflix for the 1954 movie. They don’t have it. They do, however, have five of the Happy Hooker movies. I think that’s all of them. Would you recommend one or more of them?
Those of us who find ourselves fascinated with the life of Caroline Otero also might find the novel Forever Amber, written by Kathleen Winsor, of interest. Since I read the novel prior to learning about La Belle Otero (thanks to Maggie McNeill), this site immediately resonated with me.
I just find sad that she didn’t think about the future, but admire that she was so savvy and intelligent to get were she got at young age.
I just read a book about her, fascinating!
which book Madeleine?