Happy Solstice and Gabrielle Ray

Fame and memory are fleeting. Ten years from now the pop-culture figures that occupy our minds will be little more than generation-demarking trivia questions and a hundred years from now nobody will remember or care about what we thought of as hot or scandalous. Life works like that; it’s a blackboard not a stone tablet. What we create today will be erased by future generations and the board will be overwritten.

This deep train of thought came to me today while restoring some links after having my hard drive reformatted and Windows reinstalled. If you’ve read anything in this blog you’re aware that I have a fondness with old photographs and that has led me to add most every such site I come across to my favorites list. As I went through the process of verifying the old links actually worked, I came across a rather odd Christmas image. Since it’s solstice I figured I’d post it to the blog as a sort of “happy longest night of the year and by the way we didn’t get blown up by some Mayan catastrophe” card. As I started prepping the image for posting, though, I started wondering about the woman behind the image.

She was born Gabrielle Elizabeth Clifford Cook, the fourth child of William Austin Cook and Anne Maria Elizabeth née Holden in Cheadle, Stockport, England. She first appeared on stage at the Royal Princess’s Theatre in London's West End where the then ten year old played Eveleen in a John Hollingshead musical play entitled Miami. The following year she played a role in A Celebrated Case. In 1899, she appeared in Sinbad the Sailor at the Hammersmith Lyric Opera House where manager Ben Greet engaged her to tour with his company after noticing her dancing skills.

As the early part of the 20^th century rolled by, Ray’s fame grew. She’d started playing at leading West End venues. Her beauty made her photograph a sought after commodities and trade publications and photographers of the day vied for the chance to capture her image.

In 1902 George Edwardes hired Ray to understudy Gertie Millar (who would later become Duchess of Dudley) in The Toreador at the Gaiety Theatre. She then took over for the acrobat and burlesque actress Letty Lind in the Apollo Theater’s production of The Girl from Kays. Ray’s fame grew with her portrayal of Thisbe in The Orchid. Ray appeared in Edwardes' productions throughout 1905 and 1911, including three successes at the Prince of Wales's Theatre: Lady Madcap, The Little Cherub, See See, The Merry Widow (running for 778 performances at Daly's Theatre), The Dollar Princess, and Peggy.

So far what we’ve read is all well and good, but it’s little more than a recount of Ms. Ray’s career. It’s hard to know what it was like for her as a person, all I can be certain of from what I’ve read is that she was a beautiful and talented woman who made a career on the stage. Talent alone doesn’t lead to success, though.

Ray’s success is mentioned in an issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine (Vol. 50 December 1910 – May 1911), and this piece might shed a little light on the sort of pressure Ray faced. The article, entitled Stage Beauty and Brains, is targeted at an American audience and discusses the differences between American and European “girls” entering show business. The article can be summed up into a few points:

1.       European actresses have it easy, all they need to do is rely on their prettiness until they garner the ardor of some minor member of the aristocracy and their lives are set.

2.       Legitimate American actresses would never be satisfied to simply marry a nobleman, besides American men are far too “sensible” to fall for a pretty face!

3.       In Europe if a girl is pretty a producer will simply write and adapt pieces for her and she need only appear in silly musical comedies until the aforementioned duke happens by.

4.       American girls want to be “legitimate” actresses, which means never stooping to lowbrow musical comedy!

5.       In fact, European actresses are so beautiful that, if they were smart, they’d be sickened by their own beauty!

To quote the article:

“Take Gabrielle Ray, for instance. She is a beauty for sure, and she is much cleverer than she is allowed to be. She has been before the London public for several years, but except as an exceedingly pretty girl she is unrecognized.”

Obviously, the bulk of this article is vapid patriotic crap. America in the early 20^th century was in the process of standing apart from old Europe. The American Civil War had ended in 1865, within the memory of a large portion of the population, and burning issues such as women’s suffrage were further dividing the public. Authors in magazines such as Cosmopolitan were defining what being American meant, so their bias probably is understandable to some extent. But what does this tell us about Gabrielle Ray?

Let’s start by dispelling the opinion in the Beauty and Brains article. Some of the top American box office draws during the teens were the Ziegfeld Follies, and Jerome Kern musicals such hits as Oh, Boy! and Leave It To Jane.  Irving Berlin, Richard Rogers, Cole Porter, and George and Ira Gershwin all had hits during this decade. We’ll say that this, more or less, does away with the image of the legitimate actress and the sensible American man. This leaves the conceit that European producers will write to their star’s beauty and the concept that all a European girl need do is marry into the right family.

I think we can all agree that every star, whether in the modern age or at the beginning of the 20^th century, has writers and producers who are eager to write for them. How else do we explain Rock of Ages starring the noted voices of Tom Cruise, Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand, and Catherine Zeta-Jones.  Frankly theater is a predatory business and you’re only as attractive as the returns on your last show – in other words, if the seats are empty, you won’t be acting long. So let’s pitch the idea that being pretty makes European directors crazy enough to move Earth, sky, and libretto for a sweet face.

What’s left is marriage to nobility. It’s true that notable European actresses married into high society. Through marriage Gertie Millar became the Duchess of Dudley.  Edwardian era views of marriage could be summarized as:

·         Marry a person whom you have known long enough to be sure of his or her worth - if not personally, at least by reputation.

·         Marry a person who is your equal in social position. If there be a difference either way, let the husband be superior to the wife. It is difficult for a wife to love and honor a person whom she is compelled to look down upon.

Additionally, divorce was looked on as a source of scandal for the woman:

“The divorce court itself was a source of entertainment. On almost any day, particularly if a scandalous case was being tried, a line some fifty or sixty people deep, made mostly of women, queued up at Royal Courts of Justice the for a seat in the public gallery. This was a considerable annoyance to junior barristers, who, especially when an aristocratic trial brought a crush, were perpetually unable to find a sufficient number of seats.”

In 1912 Ray announced her retirement to marry the wealthy Eric Loder however she did not appear at the well-attended scheduled ceremony at St Edwards Roman Catholic Church in Windsor because Loder failed to sign the prenuptial contract. The marriage took place soon afterwards and within two years Loder had strayed and the couple divorced in 1914.

The divorce took a toll on Ray. She returned to the stage in 1915 in the role of Estelle in the musical Betty at the Gaiety Theatre and, in the following year, in the revue Flying Colours at the London Hippodrome. For nearly a decade afterwards, she appeared occasionally in provincial variety tours, finally leaving the stage about 1924.

Ray struggled with depression and alcohol abuse, suffering a mental breakdown in 1936 and she was institutionalized for nearly forty years afterwards, dying at Holloway Sanatorium in Egham, Surrey, England in 1973, at the age of 90.