Carolina Otero
, La Belle Otero
born Agustina Otero Iglesias
(November 4, 1868 - April 12, 1965) was a famous Galician born dancer, actress and courtesan.
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Early life and career
Otero was born in
Valga,
Pontevedra,
Galicia (Spain). Her family was poverty-stricken, unstable, and as a child she moved to
Santiago de Compostela working as a maid. At ten she was raped which left her sterile, and at fourteen she left home with her boyfriend and dancing partner, Paco, and began working as a singer/dancer in
Lisbon.
In 1888 she found a sponsor in
Barcelona who moved with her to
Marseille in order to promote her dancing career in
France. She soon left him and created the character of
La Belle Otero
, fancying herself an Andalusian gypsy. She wound up as the star of
Les Folies Bèrgere productions in
Paris.
Courtesan lifestyle
Within a short number of years, Otero grew to be
the
most sought after woman in all of
Europe. She was serving, by this time, as a courtesan to wealthy and powerful men of the day, and she chose her lovers carefully. She associated herself with the likes of Prince
Albert I of Monaco, King
Edward VII of the United Kingdom,
Kings of Serbia, and
Kings of Spain as well as
Russian Grand Dukes
Peter and
Nicholas, the
Duke of Westminster and writer
Gabriele D'Annunzio. Her love affairs made her infamous, and the envy of many other notable female personalities of the day.
Six men reportedly committed suicide after their love affairs with Otero ended, although this has never been substantiated beyond a doubt. It is a fact, however, that two men did fight a
duel over her. She was pretty, confident, intelligent, with an attractive figure, and was famed for her voluptuous breasts, and one of her most famous costumes featured her breasts partially covered with glued-on precious gems, and the twin
cupolas of the Hotel Carlton built in 1912 in Cannes were modeled after her breasts.
It was once said of her that her extraordinarily dark black eyes were so captivating that they were
"of such intensity that it was impossible not to be detained before them"
.
The world's first film star (possibly)
In August 1898, in St-Petersburg, the French film operator
Félix Mesguich (an employee of the
Lumière company) shot a one-minute reel of Otero performing the famous "Valse Brillante", making her possibly the first movie star in history. The screening of the film at the
Aquarium
music-hall provoked such a scandal (because an officer of the Tsar's army appeared in this frivolous scene) that Mesguich was expelled from Russia.
[1]
Later life
Otero retired after
World War I, purchasing a mansion and property at a cost of the equivalent of 15 million modern day US dollars. She had accumulated a massive fortune over the years, about twenty-five million dollars, but she gambled much of it away over the remainder of her lifetime, enjoying a lavish lifestyle, and visiting the casinos of
Monte Carlo often. She lived out her life in a more and more pronounced state of poverty until she died in 1965 in
Nice,
France.
Bibliography
- Arruíname pero no me abandones. La Bella Otero y la Belle Époque
. De Marie-Helène Carbonel i Javier Figuero. Ed. Espasa Calpe, 2003. In Spanish
- A Bela Otero, pioneira do cine
, Miguel Anxo Fernández In Galician
Fiction
- La passion de Carolina Otero
Ramón Chao, 2001. French novel about the fictional life of the dancer.
Movies
- La Belle Otero
Richard Pottier, 1954. French movie starring the great Mexican actress María Félix in the main role.