Lillian Lorraine

Lillian Lorraine (1892/1894 – April 17, 1955) was an American stage and screen actress of the 1910s and 1920s, and a prominent Ziegfeld Girl in the Broadway revues Ziegfeld Follies during the 1910s.

Lorraine was born in Utah, most likely as Lillian (sometimes transcribed as Ealallean) Jacques (her publicity claimed she was born on New Year's Day in San Francisco, California) to Mollie and Charles Jacques (or De Jacques). Her father was a miner whose roots were in St. Louis. Her mother's maiden name may have been Mary Ann Brennan. The U.S. census of 1900 shows that she and her parents resided in Leadville, Colorado, at her maternal step-grandfather's hotel, and gives her birthdate as January 1894, her name as Lillian Jacques, and her place of birth as Utah.

She began her career on stage in 1906, aged 12 or 14. The following year, she appeared as a minor performer in a Shubert production, The Tourists. It was in that show that she was discovered by Florenz Ziegfeld. At some point she had become known as Lillian (or Lillie) Lorraine. He spent the next several years promoting her career, rocketing her into an ascendance which made her one of the most popular attractions in his Follies. In 1909, Ziegfeld pulled the teenaged Lorraine from the chorus line in that year's production of Miss Innocence to spotlight her as a solo performer who became celebrated for introducing the song "By the Light of the Silvery Moon".

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, including the serial Neal of the Navy with William Courtleigh, Jr.[citation needed ] Although the affair she'd had 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 began waning in the 1920s and she worked for a period in vaudeville.[citation needed ]

Lorraine's personal life earned her 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 and Sophie Tucker.[citation needed ]

In his book Scandals and Follies, author Lee Davis writes that, "By 1911, [Ziegfeld] was insanely in love with Lillian Lorraine and would remain so, to one degree or another, for the rest of his life, despite her erratic, irresponsible, often senseless behavior, her multiple marriages [sic] to other men, his own two marriages and his need for all his adult life to sleep with the best of the beauties he hired." The relationship, both professional and romantic, between Ziegfeld and Lorraine, reportedly led to the demise of his relationship with Anna Held.[citation needed ] Lorraine and Ziegfeld's relationship was turbulent and emotionally complex, but their passion was such that Ziegfeld's second wife, actress Billie Burke, confessed that Lorraine was the only one of Ziegfeld's past sexual entanglements that aroused her jealousy.

Lorraine married Frederick M. Gresheimer, on March 27, 1912, after they met on a beach. Ten days later, Lorraine announced that the marriage had been a mistake and that the couple was "incompatible" due to her career. The marriage was later found to be invalid because Gresheimer had not divorced his first wife. Lorraine and Gresheimer remarried in May 1913. Three months later, Lorraine filed to have the marriage annulled after claiming that Gresheimer misrepresented himself.

Around 1946, she reportedly wed Jack O'Brien, an accountant. According to Lorraine's biographer, Nils Hanson, no record of any such marriage exists, and the marriage was likely common-law.

Lorraine disappeared from public view in 1941, sometimes going by her mother's purported maiden name, Mary Ann Brennan. She died on April 17, 1955, in New York City. She was widely believed to have been 63 years old at the time of her death but may have been 61. Her funeral, which was held at Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church, was attended by Jack O'Brien and two friends. She initially was buried in a pauper's grave in Calvary Cemetery in Queens, New York. Her body later was exhumed and moved to a friend's family plot in Saint Raymond's Cemetery, Bronx.[10]