The Strange Adventure of Lady Owen: from Quirk to Murder.

The mysterious Movie Star

On April 14, 1924, Cinémagazine dedicates its cover and several pages to an artist that director Robert Saidreau "has just discovered" and that "has only been in British films so far": Edmée Dormeuil.

We learn that "she owns a theater in London", and that she "has made many pictures in England", and most importantly, that she is finishing her first French film at the Boulogne studios: The Strange Adventure.

She gives a little background, as mysterious new stars can do: from of military family, she was born in France, then studied in England to be a lawyer and likes shooting, horse and car riding, and has her own menagerie of monkeys, cats, dogs, turtles, etc. right at home. The 1924 reader understands that, in order to own a theater and to practice such expensive sports, Edmée Dormeuil's activities are necessarily lucrative and that they are in the presence of a bona fide star. As a matter of fact, she is nicknamed "the best dressed woman in London". Her hits? The Better 'Ole of Bruce Bairnsfather, "French plays" and "and a series of English films, which unfortunately never made it to France."

Such a shame!

In spite of the assurance of the journalist J.-A. De Munto that she is "quite pretty", he still establishes that she has a "funny face", unsuited to playing the femmes fatales that she wishes she could: she has "neither the look, nor the hair, or even the eyes..."
Thus Robert Saidreau has concocted a part in a comedy, which is what he is known for. She already expects to make another film with him, only this time she intends to cowrite the script, as she had done for her last film in England. In fact, after a careful read of the article, she appears to be a real one-woman-show: she co-writes her films, makes her own costumes, owns a theater... and the journalist ends up wishing that France "will treat her like a spoiled child" to which she very much seems accustomed. The pictures show her in various stages of undress, in her "London creations".

Alas, one would have a hard time finding much more information about this super star on both sides of the Channel. And if that and other magazines keep mentioning the film after it is done shooting, a curious silence falls upon it in movie newspapers which never announce its release.

The ball

A peculiar shoot

Yet, on April 18, Cinémagazine brings us directly in the studio.
The cast (given in another article by Mon Ciné) follows:
Edmée Dormeuil: Suzanne
André Brunot: Le beau frisé ("Curly")
Pierre Etchepart: Paul de la Mainmise
Jean Magnard: André
Suzy Pierson, Georgette Lhéry, Andrée Warneck, Yvonne Favet, Solange Marchal, etc.It is Robert Gys who designs the production and the cinematographer is Amédée Morin. Exteriors are shot in Nice, interiors in Boulogne.

The ball

The set is of a ball from a bad neighborhood where apaches rule. Robert Saidreau teaches java to his mascot, and an old lady nicknamed Mirabelle (after a liquor) who gets a part in all of his films and strangely takes half the article. The last paragraph hastily mentions the star and we must wait until July 31, 1924, to find another article in Mon ciné magazine about the film which was slightly renamed for the occasion as A strange adventure. The journalist, not really focused indeed, talks about "Edmée Darfeuil". The director is apparently so busy that he rushes his explanation of the plot and the cast around him exchanges winks behind his back. They played a trick on him: they changed the time on his watch so they could leave early "to be in time for the theater". Since the work day is supposed to end up at 6, there is little chance that they would actually miss the curtain (for those who actually were on the stage), it sounds more like a chance to get out of a boring set.

André Brunot, a thief welcomed by Edmée

A not-so-original screenplay

Strangely, the movie is a comedy: Suzanne, on the eve of her honeymoon,scandalizes her guest by kissing a man in a restaurant whom she recognizes as a wounded man that she had nursed in the past. Since the trip is not very well organized, the chosen hotel is fully booked and only when Suzanne makes a scandal are they given a room. Her husband thinks her wife is unladylike and wants to play a trick on her where he would appear as the hero and a friend would play a thief. Suzanne and her maid overhear the plot and the latter, accustomed to seedy places, will help ruin the plan. But a real apache replaces the fake one...

Edmée Dormeuil points a gun at André Brunot

If the director/script writer is so uneasy, it is because his story is not exactly completely new. As a matter of fact, it is a thinly disguised remake of one of his own films, Beware of you maid, released in 1920 and that still played in the colonies as late as 1922 at least. This problem catches the eyes of the distributors, Les films Legrand, who, once the film is in the can, refuse to release it. Another strong motive for them to act that way is that the star is appallingly bad in it. The strange adventure will never be seen on the screen.

A Strange Adventuress

Theodore Owen

Now why would you shoot a film without the prior consent of the distributor? Why take a chance on an unknown 28 year old ingenue? That is where lies the key to this mystery. It so happens that Edmée Dormeuil is not just anybody.
Born Edmée Georgette Juliette Claudine Nodot in Le Havre, France on April 6, 1896 from a town official and a nursery school director mother. She gets a study certificate at 16 and goes to England to learn the language. For a living, she gives lessons of literature. She meets Theodore Charles Owen, a rich trader of tea and rubber, aged 60, with two children. He marries her in Kensington on February 8, 1915 and so the marriage cannot be annulled, Edmée adds four year to her age.

The modest little girl from Le Havre is now incredibly rich, and she is allegedly presented to the King. Though she firmly intends not to waste her youth. In March 1917, at the Sloane Square, she playes Miquette et sa mère with Fernande Depernay, Georgette Meyrald, Emile Rouvière, André Randall, Fernand Léane, Lucien Mussière, Saint Vallon and Jean Maréchal.

At the Oxford theater, from August 4, 1917, she plays the part of Victoire in The Better 'Ole, a musical comedy based on a comics character. The plays lasts until November 23, 1918 but Edmée is replaced halfway by Peggy Foster. She then plays French classics at the Théâtre des alliés of J. T. Grein, as announced in The Tatler issue of February 6, 1918. Ads announced that she acts at the Duke of York theater but, again, no titles are given. She is in 1919 film: The odds against her, probably financed by her own money since she has the main part. On November 12, that same year, she appears at the Victory Ball costumed as grape.

 She also is repeatedly unfaithful to her husband. He files for divorce in 1920 and the co-respondent is Samuel Inglety Oddie. The procedure was most likely annulled but Theodore makes his wife sign a promise that she will give a third of his Ceylon property, Marakona Estate, to each of his children, Ruth et Reginald Owen,when he dies. In exchange, it seems that he gives his wife her freedom and avoids a scandal.

Back to France

Mrs. Owen keeps fooling around with a coroner, and then an Argentinian named Gregorini and she goes to France to live with him at 11 rue Lesueur in Paris. She decides to become a movie star in her native country the only way she knows how: she gives FF70,000 to an impresario, M. Dante, to get her a starring part in a film. The script, sometimes referred to as The double misunderstanding, is a model of vaudeville comedy hastily assembled to satisfy Edmée's whim by Robert Saidreau from an already made film, which he naively hoped no one would notice. The script is shot under the title The strange adventure. Once confronted with the refusal of the distributors to release the film, Edmée demands her money back which she obtains in November 1928 from a court that awards her an extra FF 5,000. One month after that, she appears once again in the papers because she loses a valuable necklace, 1.5 million francs worth. An honest seamstress, Mme Rejeade, finds it at La Madeleine church and brings it back to her, therefore earning the £560 reward from the insurance company. Edmée wastes millions and her money is melting.

Edmée and her found necklace

Lady Owen

In the meantime, major events happened: on December 5, 1925, Robert Saidreau, who has made other films since, dies. It probably did not make it easier to clarify the case. Edmée becomes Lady Owen when her husband is knighted January 19, 1926 after the colonial exposition of 1925 where his work was much praised.

On March 22, 1926, Lord Owen dies. Not only Edmée is officially free of her actions, but her husband leaves her a $35,000 allowance and all of his fortune, i.e. "several millions". She conveniently forgets to share the fortune as arranged.

M. Dante appeals, arguing that he did get her a part. In 1932, the verdict is confirmed, but Edmée's status has very much changed, and she cannot attend the trial in person.

Sex, Lies and Crime

The star of a bad script

In fact, Gregorini leaves to Argentina in January 1930. Edmée probably feels lonely and in the hope of turning back the clock, she consults a beautician on July 22, 1929: doctor Gastaud is specialized in weight loss and it is exactly what she needs. She seduces him and covers him in presents: a FF14,000 radio, a necktie pin with a FF44,000 pearl, a clock... Edmée buys his love, as she does the rest. She also pays for romantic escapades in Cannes, Deauville, and London... and eventually loans FF100,000 to her lover. Officially, the sum must help him enter politics. It is actually an excuse to justify his absence and the man uses it to improve his office.

The romance turns into a nightmare for the doctor when Lady Owen pretends to be pregnant. Of course, the doctor is a married man and in order to ease her into a break up, he gives her back the money. When he finally breaks up with her on July 23, 1930, Edmée buys a gun, takes several drinks to work up a courage and goes to Marly at the doctor's home and she shoots his wife, Léonie Gataud, 4 times. She then waits for the police to come get her. Mme Gataud survives but Edmée still goes on trial which instruction lasts from July 1930 until February 1931.

Edmée poses for the camera

Star of the Court

On February 24, 1931, Georges Claretie writes, for the Figaro, an account of the entrance of Edmée at the trial and its disastrous effect for her image: the "Lady" looks like "a common girl" who smiled at the audience and bowed like an actress, while showing off her belly as if to pretend that she was pregnant. Her peroxide hair shocks him, as her outrageous makeup which does not improve as the hours pass. He sums up his impression: "a tramp." He then describes her apparent joy when the 14 photographers shoot her under every angle and she does indeed look like she is showing off on the pictures. Smiling for the camera, she poses with her chin resting on her hand. This is unmistakeably the big part she wanted. Le petit parisien even reveals that she sent invitations to the trial! "Do not mention my weight gain" are the words that she is supposed to have written to the press.

A Luxury Prisoner

The jury finds her guilty and she is sentenced to 5 years in prison. She exits with a smile. Her cell in St Lazare is nonetheless more comfortable that the one in Versailles: she pays another convict to be her maid and receives support mail. On September 1931, the President of the Republic enables her to administrate her own estate. It is from her cell, on February 1932, that she learns her victory on appeal against the impresario of her born-dead film.

After less than three years, she gets out of the Haguenau prison, where she had been transferred, on March 14 1933, and after a short stay in Paris, she goes back to London to look for "peace and forgetfulness" as the newspaper put it. It seems that it was too boring a plan as she reappears on September in Paris from Bulgaria and announces that she intends to become a plane pilot.

Author and Ruined

She also writes. In a typical move, and probably to generate some much needed cash, she publishes her autobiography, scandalously titled Flaming Sex, where details of sex suits in tiger skin are mixed with suggestive or tasteless pictures, like the one with her hand covered in jewels, holding a revolver. Then comes another book: The Sleepless Underworld. In her 1924 Cinémagazine interview, she claimed she had already written one called My soul unadorned, which apparently was not published.

"My hand, the hand that used to pet children and animals..."

The children of the late Lord Owen remind themselves to her: Ruth Bryan Owen, who became United States Minister to Denmark, and Theodore Henry Charles Owen both sue Lady Owen on July 1934 for failing her duties of executrix and they estimate their share to be $10,000 now.

In 1936, a forgotten lady.

Edmée also develops a new hobby: gambling. She squanders away all of her fortune at the roulette, on the races, etc. Soon, she goes bankrupt.

On November 1936, the reporters catch her in front of the London Bankruptcy Court because she is one million pounds in debt. We learn that she once possessed up to £80,000 worth of jewelry. She produces a bathing suit which she claimed cost her £200 as evidence that her creditors overcharged her.

Lady Edmée Owen dies on January 13, 1983 in Kensington.

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That's all for today, folks!