| Lillian Lorraine | |
|---|---|
Theatre Magazine 1909 |
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| Born | January 1, 1892 San Francisco, California, United States |
| Died | April 17, 1955 (aged 63) New York City, New York, United States |
| Occupation | Stage and film actress |
Lillian Lorraine (January 1, 1892 – April 17, 1955) was a stage and screen actress of the 1910s and 1920s, best known for her beauty and for being perhaps the most famous Ziegfeld Girl in the Broadway revues Ziegfeld Follies during the 1910s.[1]
Lorraine was born January 1, 1892 in San Francisco, California.
Lorraine began her career on stage in 1906; in 1909 she was pulled out of the chorus line of the 1909 production of "Miss Innocence" by Florenz Ziegfeld and quickly became of the most celebrated and famous of Ziegfeld stars, introducing the song "By the Light of the Silvery Moon".
The relationship between Ziegfeld and Lorraine was personal as well as professional and led to the demise of his marriage to actress Anna Held. (A fictitious character clearly based on Lorraine was portrayed by Virginia Bruce in the 1936 motion picture The Great Ziegfeld). Lorraine and Ziegfeld's romance was turbulent thanks to her temper but their passion was such Ziegfeld's later wife Billie Burke confessed Lorraine was the only one of Ziegfeld's past girlfriends she was jealous of.[2]
Lorraine starred in many annual productions of The Ziegfeld Follies as well as the 1912 Broadway musical Over The River. She ventured into motion pictures with limited success, appearing in about ten films between 1912 and 1922.
Lorraine's personal life earned her perhaps more notoriety than either her talent or her beauty and she was a staple in newspapers of the day with accounts of her latest turbulent romance or feuds with rival stars such as Fanny Brice. Her personality and private life reportedly was a large influence on Anita Loos in the creation of the character of Lorelei for the novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.[3]
Although Lorraine's affair with Ziegfeld was over by the end of the 1910s, her box office drawing power kept her in a number of his productions of the period. Lorraine's fame waned in the 1920s and she worked for a period in vaudeville. Lorraine disappeared from public view in 1941, sometimes going by her mother's maiden name, Mary Ann Brennan. In the late 1940s she married Jack O'Brien, an accountant, taking his name.[4] She died on April 17, 1955 at age 63 in New York, New York.
The first biography of Lorraine, Lillian Lorraine: The Life and Times of a Ziegfeld Diva by Nils Hanson will be published in October 2011 by McFarland Press. Lorraine was portrayed by Valerie Perrine in the 1978 movie Ziegfeld: The Man and His Women (Columbia Pictures).