- Article |
- Discussion |
- View source |
- History
Cooper, Lady Diana: Society beauty was stage and screen star
Vivienne Smith tells the story of Lady Diana Cooper, who launched an acting career so that she could finance her husband’s political ambitions.
      
|
Immortalised in the fiction of such famous writers as D H Lawrence and Evelyn Waugh, the legendary socialite might even have been Queen of England had her mother had her way.
Yet, despite being born with a silver spoon in her mouth, Diana was not above working for a living. She even agreed to act in a couple of early silent movies.
Diana Olivia Winifred Maud Manners was born in London on August 29, 1892. She was the fifth and youngest child of Henry Manners, later the 8th Duke of Rutland, and his wife, Violet.
However, rumour had it that her real father was the politician and journalist Harry Cust. A notorious ladies’ man, he was one of her mother’s circle of friends.
Each summer, Diana and her family came to stay at The Woodhouse, an old manor house on the Haddon estate, near Rowsley.
Haddon Hall itself had been deserted by the Rutlands some two centuries earlier in favour of Belvoir Castle, in Leicestershire.
By the dawn of the 20th century, it was little more than an empty shell. Most of the furniture, stored in a barn for safekeeping, had been stolen.
Young Diana looked forward to her summers in Derbyshire. As well as fishing for trout in the Lathkill river, there were picnics on the moors to enjoy.
As she later wrote in her autobiography: “The Woodhouse months became our favourite in the year.”
The express train would stop especially at Rowsley Station just to let them off with all their luggage. And, as they drove through the village, the local schoolchildren cheered and waved in greeting.
By 1907 the family had invested in their first motor car, enabling them to go exploring all over the Peak.
As Diana recalled years later, they often had a mission: “The Renault now took us to Midland towns to look for Haddon’s furniture in the old antique shops of Sheffield, Manchester and Derby.”
There were also regular trips over to Haddon Hall, usually to do sketching.
For the teenaged Diana, however, a far more thrilling activity occurred at the deserted stately home on moonlit evenings.
The young people took turns cramming into her brother John’s open-topped racing car for an after-dinner drive.
In 1910, just before her 18th birthday, Diana formally came out.
Soon afterwards, she was presented at court and began attending her first London balls.
Hailed a great beauty, she could not enter a room without being noticed.
Her mother, now the Duchess of Rutland, cherished hopes that her youngest daughter would marry the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) and become the future Queen.
But, although many young men fell in love with Diana’s famous blue eyes, the royal heir did not.
The young woman herself joined instead a smart London set who called themselves the “corrupt coterie”. Living life to the full, they enjoyed riotous parties that went on till dawn.
Some of the wildest shindigs were held at the London home of American millionaire George Gordon Moore, who was besotted with Diana.
As long as she was present, the party went on. But the moment she left, the band was ordered to stop playing and the lights were turned down.
Tragedy struck at one such gathering in a boat on the Thames in July 1914.
Sir Denis Anson, one of Diana’s circle, went swimming for a dare. Swept away by the current, he drowned, along with the bandsman who went in to rescue him.
Just a month later saw the outbreak of the First World War, which would take even more of her friends’ lives.
The day war was declared, the 21-year-old was at The Woodhouse with her family. Her first thought was to become a nurse.
When her mother refused point-blank to let her go to the Front, Diana trained as a voluntary nurse at Guy’s Hospital instead.
While there, she fell hopelessly in love.
Duff Cooper was a penniless clerk in the Foreign Office, and later won a DSO with the Grenadier Guards. But the Duke and Duchess of Rutland were strongly against the match.
Diana’s mother had not yet lost all hope of a royal wedding.
Eventually, however, her parents relented and the couple were married in June 1919.
So that Duff could leave the Foreign Office and fulfil his ambition to enter politics, the pair came up with a plan to boost their income any way they could.
The adventurous Diana toyed with a number of money-making schemes.
As a fan of amateur dramatics, she jumped at the chance when offered the leading role in two movies in 1922 for a substantial amount of money.
The Duchess was horrified to hear of her daughter’s intentions, that is until she heard just how much the job paid.
Directed by American J Stuart Blackton, The Glorious Adventure was filmed in an early colour process called Prizmacolor.
The film is generally considered to be Britain’s first feature in colour.
A swashbuckling bodice-ripper set against the backdrop of the Great Fire of London, it also starred the actor Victor McLaglen.
Cast as the villain, Bulfinch, the former boxer was making one of his first screen appearances.
Diana, in the role of Lady Beatrice Fair, had to fight him off in defence of her honour in the film.
As she later noted in her memoirs: “I lay on, not in, my Stuart four-poster bed, my fist clenched for the fray, but his tough jaw hurt my knuckles too much for the scene to carry conviction.”
In the second of the movies, she was a genuine screen queen, playing Elizabeth I in The Virgin Queen. She donned a red wig for the part and even shaved off her eyebrows.
While on location in the New Forest, she enjoyed a laugh with the rest of the cast down at the local pub.
And, although exasperated by the film’s utter disregard for historical accuracy, she had to admit: “I delighted in it as an inartistic lark.”
If not exactly box office hits, both pictures had a reasonable reception.
Diana even contemplated making a third feature with the American director, portraying Dorothy Vernon in Haddon Hall. Sadly, the project came to nothing.
A few years later, while touring America early in 1927, Diana was actually offered the title role in Anna Karenina after Greta Garbo stormed off the set.
But, before she had time to give the offer serious consideration, Garbo was back and the opportunity was lost.
However, by then the Duchess’ daughter was reaping the rewards of yet another acting venture, this time on the stage.
Early in 1923, following her screen appearances, theatre director Max Reinhardt had offered her the part of the Madonna in the mime play The Miracle.
That same November, she left for the United States on her very first tour. The show proved a phenomenal success.
Over the next three years, Diana played in New York and all the great cities of America, and was mobbed almost everywhere she went.
In 1926, one of her childhood friends joined the company. Iris Tree was the daughter of the celebrated actor-manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree.
At the end of the show’s run in Kansas City, the two women arranged a trip into the Arizona desert with a cowboy as guide.
Determined to look the part for their trek on horseback, they kitted themselves out in all the western gear.
In 1927, Diana toured Europe with The Miracle and, five years later, brought the show to London and the provinces.
For the rest of her life she would be remembered for these superbly picturesque performances. Yet, she never made a secret of the fact that it was all done to help the family finances.
As early as 1924, Diana’s forays into acting had brought in enough money to enable her husband to enter parliament as MP for Oldham.
In the early 1930s, she gave up the stage for good to be by his side.
Duff’s burgeoning career as a statesman and diplomat brought new opportunities, as she revealed an outstanding talent as a society hostess.
However, when he was eventually created Viscount Norwich in 1952, she was determined to retain her married name.
Following an announcement in The Times, she remained Lady Diana Cooper to the end of her days.
The links with Derbyshire were never lost and Diana paid regular visits to Haddon Hall in later life.
On becoming the 9th Duke in 1925, her brother, John, had lovingly restored the house to its former glory as a family home.
Lady Diana Cooper was 93 when she died on June 16, 1986. Tributes in the Press made much of her legendary beauty.
Yet, the Duke of Rutland’s daughter also deserves to be remembered as a hard-working actress who made her mark on stage and screen.
TIPS
- To view comments about this article click 'discussion.'
- To join the discussion click 'discussion' and then 'add comment.'
County: Derbyshire
what Links Here
This article is from the Derby Evening Telegraph and is reproduced online here.
Share this page: del.icio.us 
| digg 
| Fark 
| Furl 
| BlogMarks 