Vernon and Irene Castle were a husband-and-wife team of ballroom dancers of the early 20th century. They are credited with invigorating the popularity of modern dancing. Vernon Castle (2 May 1887 - 15 February 1918) was born William Vernon Blyth in Norwich, Norfolk, England. Irene Castle (17 April 1893 - 25 January 1969) was born Irene Foote, the daughter of a prominent physician in New Rochelle, New York.
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Vernon, the son of a publican, was raised in Norwich, England initially training to become a civil engineer. He moved to New York in 1906 with his sister Coralie Blyth and her husband Lawrence Grossmith[1] both established actors. There he was given a small part by Lew Fields, which led to further work and he became established as a comic actor and conjuror.
Irene studied dancing and performed in several amateur theatricals before meeting Vernon Castle at the New Rochelle Rowing Club in 1910. With his help, she was hired for her first professional job, a small dancing part in "The Summer Widowers". The next year, over her father’s objections, the two were married. The English-born Vernon had already established himself as a dancer in comedic roles. His specialty was playing a gentleman drunk, who elegantly fell about the stage while trying to hide his condition.
After their marriage, Irene joined Vernon in The Hen-Pecks (1911), a production in which he was a featured player. The two then traveled together to Paris to perform in a dance revue. The show closed quickly, but the couple was then hired as a dance act by the Café de Paris. Performing the latest American dances, the Castles were soon the rage of Parisian society. Their success was widely reported in the United States, preparing their way for a triumphant return to New York in 1912.The Castles' initial fame began in Paris, where they introduced American ragtime dances, such as the Turkey Trot and the Grizzly Bear.[2]
When the Castles returned to the U.S., their success was repeated on a far wider scale. Making their New York debut in 1912 at a branch of the Cafe de Paris, operated by Louis Martin, who had given them their start in Paris, the duo were soon in demand on stage, in vaudeville and in motion pictures.
In 1914, the couple opened a dancing school in New York called "Castle House", a nightclub called "Castles By the Sea" on the Boardwalk in Long Beach, New York, and a restaurant, "Sans Souci." At Castle House, they taught New York society the latest dance steps by day, and greeted guests and performed at their club and cafe by night. They also were in demand for private lessons and appearances at fashionable parties. Despite their fame, they often found themselves treated as hired menials; if a rich client was too demanding, Vernon would quote a fee of a thousand dollars an hour for lessons and often get it.
In addition to cabaret, the Castles also became staples of Broadway. Among their shows were The Sunshine Girl (1913) and Watch Your Step (1914), which boasted a score written by Irving Berlin with them in mind. Emerging as America’s premier dance team, the Castles were trendsetters in a number of arenas. Their infectious enthusiasm for dance encouraged admirers to try new forms of social dance. Considered paragons of respectability and class, the Castles specifically helped remove the stigma of vulgarity from close dancing. The Castles’ performances, often set to ragtime and jazz rhythms, also popularized African-American music among well-heeled whites. Irene’s fashion sense, too, started national trends. Her elegant, yet simple, flowing gowns were often featured in fashion magazines. She is also credited with introducing American women to the bob—the short hairstyle favored by flappers in the 1920s.
The Castles appeared in a newsreel called Social and Theatrical Dancing in 1914 and wrote a bestselling instructional book, Modern Dancing, later the same year. The pair also starred in a feature film called The Whirl of Life (1915), which was well-received by critics and public alike. As the couple's celebrity increased in the mid-1910s, Irene Castle became a major fashion trendsetter, initiating the vogue for bobbed hair and shorter skirts. Her chic wardrobe was supplied almost exclusively by the couturiere "Lucile", (Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon) but Irene also designed some of her clothes herself.
The whisper-thin, elegant Castles were trendsetters in many ways: they traveled with a black orchestra, had an openly lesbian manager, and were animal-rights advocates decades before it became a public issue. Irene was also a fashion innovator, bobbing her hair ten years before the flapper look of the 1920s became popular.[3]
The Castles endorsed Victor Records and Victrolas, issuing records by the Castle House Orchestra, led by James Reese Europe –– a pioneering figure in Black music. They also lent their names to advertising for other merchandising products, from cigars and cosmetics to shoes and hats.
The Castles' greatest success was on Broadway, in Irving Berlin's debut musical Watch Your Step (1914). In this extravaganza, the couple refined and popularized the Foxtrot, which vaudeville comedian Harry Fox is believed to have invented. After its New York run, Watch Your Step toured through 1916.
Vernon returned to the UK to become a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I. Flying over the Western Front he shot down two aircraft and was awarded the Croix de Guerre in 1917. He was posted to Canada to train new pilots, and then promoted to Captain and posted to the US to train American pilots.
While flying at Benbrook Field, near Fort Worth, Texas, he took emergency action shortly after take off to avoid another aircraft. His plane stalled, and he was unable to recover control in time before the plane hit the ground. Vernon was the only casualty. He died soon after the crash, on February 15, 1918 (aged 30).[4] Irene paid tribute to Vernon in her memoir My Husband, 1919. There is a street in Benbrook named in his honor. Also placed on the street is a monument dedicated to him. Vernon was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. The grieving memorial figure on his grave was designed by Irene Castle's friend, the American sculptor Sally James Farnham (1869–1943).
On May 3, 1919, Irene remarried. Her second husband was a scion of Ithaca, New York's Tremain family, Robert E. Tremain.[5] They resided in Ithaca's newly-cut Cayuga Heights subdivision, north of Cornell University. Irene starred solo in about a dozen silent films between 1917 and 1924 and appeared in several stage productions before retiring from show business. She married three more times –– to Robert Treman, Frederic McLaughlin, and George Enzinger.
During her marriage to "Major" Frederic McLaughlin (who was the owner of the Chicago Blackhawks) she is credited with designing the original sweater for the Blackhawks Hockey Club.[6] She had two children with McLaughlin, Barbara McLaughlin Kreutz (b. 1925) and William McLaughlin (b. 1929).
Around 1930, "the best-dressed woman in America" presented a radio dramatisation of her European travels with her husband, bulldog Zowie and Walter ("father's coloured servant") around the capitals of Europe in "The Life of Irene Castle". Only one episode is known to still exist.
In 1939, her life with Vernon was turned into a movie, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, produced by RKO and starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Irene served as a technical advisor on the film, but clashed with Rogers, who refused to short bob or darken her hair. A skirmish erupted when Rogers had the wardrobe department replace gray shoe ribbons with silver shoe ribbons for "The Missouri Waltz" number. Rogers felt the gray ribbons looked washed out, and that the silver ribbons would make her feet stand out. Irene also objected to white actor Walter Brennan playing their servant: "Walter was BLACK".
For the rest of her life, Irene was a staunch animal-rights activist, ultimately founding the Illinois animal shelter "Orphans of the Storm", which is still active.[7]
In 1958, Irene appeared as a guest challenger on the TV panel show "To Tell The Truth".
Irene died January 25, 1969 (aged 75).
Vernon and Irene Castle are interred together in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York. There is a large monument to Vernon Castle near the site of his crash in Benbrook, Texas.
Irene Castle modeling fashions of 1916-1917