Blanca Errázuriz

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Blanca Errázuriz and John De Saulles (1912)
Blanca Errázuriz and John De Saulles (1912)

Blanca Elena Errázuriz Vergara (1894 - March 20, 1940), also known as Bianca De Saulles, was a Chilean heiress, famous for having killed her husband John De Saulles.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Blanca Errázuriz was born in Viña del Mar, the daughter of Guillermo Errázuriz Urmeneta and of Blanca Vergara Alvarez. Her father died when she was quite young and in 1911, when she was only 17 years old, she met John De Saulles, who had travelled to Chile as representative of the South American Concessions Syndicate to negotiate a new railway line. After some initial difficulties with her family (mostly due to the difference in age and religion between them) they were soon engaged and on December 14, 1911 he married her at the English Church[1] in Paris, France.[2] The newly married couple settled in New York City.

[edit] Background

[edit] The divorce

In 1915 Blanca Errázuriz befriended Rudolph Valentino in New York City, where he was working as an exhibition dancer and had gained attention for his rendition of the Argentine tango, which was the craze at the time. Valentino enjoyed befriending many people of high society, and Blanca Errázuriz was already unhappily married to De Saulles by whom she had a son, John L. de Saulles. Whether the two, Valentino and Errázuriz, actually had a romantic relationship is unknown, but Valentino was so smitten with her that when Blanca was seeking a divorce from her husband, Valentino agreed to provide proof in court that Joan Sawyer, his dancing partner, was having an adulterous relationship with De Saulles; and took the stand to support Blanca's claim of John's well known infidelities.[3]

Mr. De Saulles was not pleased with this, and once the divorce was granted on December 1916,[4] he used his political connections to have Valentino arrested along with a Mrs. Thyme, who was a known "madam", on vice charges (the exact charges are unknown). The evidence was flimsy at best (Valentino having been near the wrong place at the wrong time) and after a few days in jail, Valentino's bail was lowered from $10,000 to $1,500.[5] The scandal was well publicized along with the trial, and Valentino felt degraded and misused. No one would hire him, his old friends would no longer talk to him and Blanca seemed to not even thank him for his testimony.

[edit] The murder

Blanca Errázuriz and son (1917)
Blanca Errázuriz and son (1917)

Shortly after the divorce was final, on August 3, 1917, Blanca had herself driven from her home in Roslyn, New York to the The Box, in Meadowbrook Colony, near Westbury, home of her ex-husband. She had legal claims over the custody of their son, since she and her husband had been given shared custody over him, but de Saulles refused to acknowledge the court's decision. She arrived at The Box shortly after 8 PM, and found De Saulles sitting on the porch of the house. They started to argue, and she pointed a gun at his head demanding of him to immediately hand over the child to her. When he tried to disarm her, she shot him five times.[6] He was rushed to the Nassau County Hospital, but died there at 10:20 PM of his injuries.[7] In the meantime, she awaited at the house for the arrival of the police, to whom she surrendered. She was charged with murder in the first degree and imprisoned in the Nassau County Jail at Mineola, New York, leading to a sensational trial.[8]

The widely reported case went on for months, relegating the First World War that was raging in Europe to the inside pages of the newspapers. Blanca was defended by Henry Uterhart, a noted criminalist of the time, and the principal witness for the defense was Suzanne Monteau, Blanca's French maid, who had accompanied her that night and completely supported her version of the events.[9] Blanca Errázuriz became the darling of the press, and the champion of the suffragettes who portrayed her as the victim of the chauvinism prevalent in the society of the time,[10] while Valentino's name was again dragged through the mud though he had nothing to do with Blanca by this point.

Blanca Errázuriz was unanimously acquitted of the murder charges on December 1, 1917 in what was called a "popular" verdict.[11] Valentino changed his name from Rodolfo Guglielmi to various variations of Rudolph Valentino, partly to avoid association with the scandal and partly because Americans had trouble pronouncing Guglielmi. After the trial, he moved to Hollywood,[12] where he started his successful movie career. Years later he tried to contact her again, but she would neither respond his calls nor agree to see him.

[edit] Later life

After the trial, she moved first to San Francisco, California, where she sought and obtained full custody of her son, and later to Japan.[13] Eventually she returned to Chile with her son and settled there. On December 22, 1921 she remarried,[14] this time to Fernando Santa Cruz Wilson in Santiago, though this marriage apparently ended in divorce as well. She lived until 1940, when she died in Viña del Mar.[15]

[edit] Trivia

  • The case was the basis for the 1918 silent movie The Woman and the Law, directed by Raoul Walsh; with Jack Connors, Miriam Cooper and Peggy Hopkins Joyce. The name De Saulles was changed to La Salle but the film's opening credits admit to being based on the story. Producer William Fox wanted Miriam Cooper to play in the film, as she so closely resembled the woman she was to portray. According to Cooper, people on the street would mistake her for Blanca De Saulles. Cooper fell ill when the film was to go into production, bowed out, and was replaced by another actress, who proved to be so terrible that Fox laid down the law with Cooper, telling her to make the film no matter how sick or how well she felt. It also helped that Raoul Walsh was her husband.

[edit] Additional information

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ The New York Times, December 14, 1911
  2. ^ Cass City Chronicle, Cass City, Michigan, July 5, 1912
  3. ^ The New York Times, August 12, 1917
  4. ^ The New York Times, December 20, 1916
  5. ^ Leider, Emily W., Dark Lover: The life and death of Rudolph Valentino, p. 68-76
  6. ^ The New York Times, August 10, 1917
  7. ^ The New York Times, August 4, 1917
  8. ^ Cass City Chronicle, Cass City, Michigan, August 24, 1917
  9. ^ The New York Times, August 11, 1917
  10. ^ The New York Times, August 9, 1917
  11. ^ The New York Times, December 3, 1917
  12. ^ Leider, Emily W., Dark Lover: The life and death of Rudolph Valentino, p. 68-76
  13. ^ The New York Times, March 14, 1918
  14. ^ The New York Times, December 23, 1921
  15. ^ The New York Times, March 22, 1940

[edit] External links

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