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Lillian Lorraine

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Lillian Lorraine Famous memorial

Birth
San Francisco, San Francisco County, California, USA
Death
17 Apr 1955 (aged 63)
New York, New York County, New York, USA
Burial*
Woodside, Queens County, New York, USA Add to Map

* This is the original burial site

Memorial ID
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Entertainer. Considered one of the great beauties of the Broadway stage in the years before World War I, she popularized Irving Berlin's classic song "By the Light of the Silvery Moon" (1909) and introduced the famous ditty "Row, Row, Row" (1911). However, she won greater notoriety for her scandalous personal life. Born Lillian Muriel Jacques in Utah, she made her performing debut as a dancer in 1906. Her career received a considerable boost in 1909 when theatrical producer Florenz Ziegfeld singled her out from the chorus line of his show "Miss Innoncence". He made her his mistress and began grooming her for stardom. Their affair led to the breakup of Ziegfeld's marriage to Broadway legend Anna Held. From 1909 to 1912, she was a fixture of the annual "Ziegfeld Follies" revues and was featured in the 1912 musical "Over the River". Offstage she was known for her mercurial personality, heavy drinking, and a gift for getting into trouble. In 1912, lonely, she had a brief affair with a chauffeur who stole her jewelry, was briefly married to a bigamist who assaulted Ziegfeld in public, and was the target of a blackmail scheme that resulted in a fatal shooting. She was also said to have had shadowy connections to mob figure Arnold Rothstein. By 1914, Lorraine's relationship with Ziegfeld had cooled, though he continued to support her and cast her in two more shows, his 1918 "Follies" and the "Nine O'Clock Revue" (1920). In the meantime she attempted a career in vaudeville and also appeared in ten Hollywood films, among them "Should a Wife Forgive?" (1915), the serials "Neal of the Navy" (1915) and "The Flaming Disk" (1920), and "Lonesome Corners" (1922). In 1921, Lorraine injured her spine in a fall outside a nightclub, and her fame rapidly declined. She died poor and forgotten, and was originally buried in an unmarked pauper's grave at Calvary Cemetery. Show business friends later arranged to have her re-interred with dignity in her last husband's plot at St. Raymond's Cemetery in The Bronx. In the Oscar-winning film "The Great Ziegfeld" (1936), a gold-digging character based on Lorraine was played by actress Virginia Bruce.
Entertainer. Considered one of the great beauties of the Broadway stage in the years before World War I, she popularized Irving Berlin's classic song "By the Light of the Silvery Moon" (1909) and introduced the famous ditty "Row, Row, Row" (1911). However, she won greater notoriety for her scandalous personal life. Born Lillian Muriel Jacques in Utah, she made her performing debut as a dancer in 1906. Her career received a considerable boost in 1909 when theatrical producer Florenz Ziegfeld singled her out from the chorus line of his show "Miss Innoncence". He made her his mistress and began grooming her for stardom. Their affair led to the breakup of Ziegfeld's marriage to Broadway legend Anna Held. From 1909 to 1912, she was a fixture of the annual "Ziegfeld Follies" revues and was featured in the 1912 musical "Over the River". Offstage she was known for her mercurial personality, heavy drinking, and a gift for getting into trouble. In 1912, lonely, she had a brief affair with a chauffeur who stole her jewelry, was briefly married to a bigamist who assaulted Ziegfeld in public, and was the target of a blackmail scheme that resulted in a fatal shooting. She was also said to have had shadowy connections to mob figure Arnold Rothstein. By 1914, Lorraine's relationship with Ziegfeld had cooled, though he continued to support her and cast her in two more shows, his 1918 "Follies" and the "Nine O'Clock Revue" (1920). In the meantime she attempted a career in vaudeville and also appeared in ten Hollywood films, among them "Should a Wife Forgive?" (1915), the serials "Neal of the Navy" (1915) and "The Flaming Disk" (1920), and "Lonesome Corners" (1922). In 1921, Lorraine injured her spine in a fall outside a nightclub, and her fame rapidly declined. She died poor and forgotten, and was originally buried in an unmarked pauper's grave at Calvary Cemetery. Show business friends later arranged to have her re-interred with dignity in her last husband's plot at St. Raymond's Cemetery in The Bronx. In the Oscar-winning film "The Great Ziegfeld" (1936), a gold-digging character based on Lorraine was played by actress Virginia Bruce.

Bio by: Bobb Edwards


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  • Maintained by: Find a Grave
  • Originally Created by: Bobb Edwards
  • Added: Nov 28, 2009
  • Find a Grave Memorial ID:
  • Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/44889403/lillian-lorraine: accessed ), memorial page for Lillian Lorraine (1 Jan 1892–17 Apr 1955), Find a Grave Memorial ID 44889403, citing Calvary Cemetery, Woodside, Queens County, New York, USA; Maintained by Find a Grave.