Lola Montez - Lola Montez in Fiction

Lola Montez in Fiction

• Lola Montez has been mentioned by several writers as a possible source of inspiration for the character Irene Adler in Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story, "A Scandal in Bohemia". The character bears certain similarities to Montez in being a popular performer who influences national politics through her relationship with a powerful individual.
• Montez was portrayed by Martine Carol in the film Lola Montès (1955), based on the novel La Vie Extraordinaire de Lola Montès by Cecil Saint-Laurent, directed by Max Ophüls and co-starring Peter Ustinov and Oskar Werner.
• Montez was last interpretation of Conchita Montenegro in the film Lola Montes (1944), with a moralizing script, directed by Antonio Román.
• Despite critical acclaim, the 1958 Australian musical "Lola Montez" was short-lived. It starred Mary Preston (who then returned to England to take over the role of Anita in the original London production of West Side Story).
• Montez also appears in Royal Flash by George MacDonald Fraser, where she has a brief affair with Harry Flashman. She is also a character in the film of the same name, in which she is played by Florinda Bolkan.
• Montez is featured prominently in Spider Dance by Carole Nelson Douglas, the last work in her Irene Adler mystery series. Montez is rumored to be the title character's mother.
• She has been portrayed by Carmen D'Antonio in Golden Girl (1951), Sheila Darcy in Wells Fargo (1937), Yvonne De Carlo in Black Bart (1948), and Rita Moreno in an episode of the 1950s TV show Tales of Wells Fargo.
• In one of J. B. Priestley's last fictional works, The Pavilion of Masks, she is unmistakably the original for Cleo Torres, Spanish dancer and mistress of a German prince.
• Montez was allegedly the inspiration for Jennifer Wilde's historical romance novel Dare To Love (1978), whose protagonist Elena Lopez is also a British woman passing herself off as Spanish who becomes an exotic dancer. In the book Elena has an affair with Franz Liszt, becomes friends with George Sand and has a friendship with the king of a small Germanic country obviously based on Ludwig I of Bavaria, then moves to California, all documented as having happened in Montez's life.
• Montez is also the inspiration for Lola Montero in Edison Marshall's novel Infinite Woman.
• In the 1983 television miniseries Wagner, Richard Wagner (Richard Burton), referring to the rumors surrounding his own relationship with Ludwig II, tells John Gielgud's character, "I am no Lola Montez!"
• Trestle Theatre Company created a production entitled Lola about the life of Lola Montez.
• Montez is described in "Daughter of Fortune" (original Spanish title "Hija de la fortuna") by the Chilean-American author Isabel Allende.
• A feature film "Spider Dance" (2011) focuses on the latter years of Lola's life and her time in Australia.
• Musician Joanna Newsom's song and title track "Have One on Me" is about Lola Montez.

"Here's Lola -- ta da! -- to do her famous Spider Dance for you"

Referring to Ludwig of Bavaria:

"Poor Lola! A tarantula's mounting/Countess Lansfeld's/handsome brassiere,/while they all cheer./And the old king fell from grace,/while Lola fled,/To save face and her career."

• It has been asserted that the character "Lola" in the musical Damn Yankees was inspired by Lola Montez, but there is no evidence for this.
• The British/Irish writer Marion Urch based her epic historical novel "An Invitation to Dance" on the life of Lola Montez. (Brandon 2009) The novel has been published in the US, Russia (Arabesque) and Germany (Aufbau-Verlag.)