Henry de La Falaise

Henry de La Falaise, Marquis de La Coudraye (born James Henry Le Bailly de La Falaise, February 11, 1898 – April 10, 1972), was a French nobleman, translator, film director, film producer, sometime actor, and war hero who was best known for his high-profile marriages to two leading Hollywood actresses.

Henry de La Falaise
de La Falaise at his New York office in 1927
Born
James Henry Le Bailly de La Falaise

(1898-02-11)February 11, 1898
Saint Cyr, France
DiedApril 10, 1972(1972-04-10) (aged 74)
TitleMarquis de La Coudraye
Spouse(s)
​
​
(m. 1925; div. 1931)​

​
​
(m. 1931; div. 1940)​

Emma Rodríguez Restrepo de Roeder
(m. 19??; his death 1972)
Parent(s)Georges de la Falaise
Henriette Frédérique Hennessy
AwardsCroix de Guerre (World War I)
Croix de Guerre (World War II)

Early life

James Henry de La Falaise was born on February 11, 1898 in Saint-Cyr-l'École, France, the eldest son and second child of Louis Gabriel Venant Le Bailly de La Falaise, Écuyer (1866–1910), a three time Olympic gold-medallist in fencing and former Army officer.[1] His mother was the former Henriette Frédérique Hennessy (1873–1965), scion of the Cognac family.[2][3] After his father died in 1910, his widowed mother married her second husband, Count Antoine Hocquart de Turtot (1872–1954), a cavalry officer and major French horse-racing figure, in 1912. His mother and father had four children together:

  • Louise Le Bailly de La Falaise (1894–1910)[4]
  • Henri James Le Bailly de La Falaise, Écuyer (1898–1972), film director and producer, war hero and translator.
  • Alain Le Bailly de La Falaise, Écuyer (1905–1977).[4] He was the first husband of fashion model Maxime de la Falaise (1922—2009) and the father of fashion muse/designer Loulou de la Falaise.
  • Richard Le Bailly de La Falaise, Écuyer (1910—died at Buchenwald in 1945)[4][5]

His mother had another child with her second husband, de La Falaise's half-sibling

  • Henriette-Hyacinthe-Olympe-Geneviève Hocquart de Turtot (born c. 1913).

Title

The title held by the head of the family, Marquis de La Coudraye, dating from 1707, was granted, by an 1876 act of succession, to the younger son of Pacôme-François Le Bailly, Seigneur de La Falaise, and his wife, Pauline-Louise-Victoire de Loynes, daughter of the Marquis de La Coudraye. La Falaise inherited the title of Marquis de La Coudraye from his paternal grandfather, Gabriel-César-Henri Le Bailly de La Falaise, who, like his father, died in 1910 (the father died on April 4, the grandfather on August 6).

Since La Falaise had no children, the title of Marquis de La Coudraye was inherited by his younger brother, Alain de La Falaise (died 1977). It then passed to his nephew, Alexis de La Falaise (died 2004). It is now held by his grand-nephew (grandson of Alain), Daniel de La Falaise, a professional chef and food writer.

Name

His actual surname was Le Bailly, though he and other members of his family used Le Bailly de La Falaise, referring to an ancestral estate; it is typically abbreviated to de La Falaise. As the marquis told The New York Times (October 7, 1925), "My patronymic name is Le Bailly, but ... I use the name de la Falaise because it is one of the great-grandfather branches of the Le Bailly family. De La Falaise is the only existing branch of that family today. So this should be my entire name: James Henry Le Bailly de La Falaise, Marquis de La Coudraye".

Military service

The Marquis de La Coudraye was awarded the Croix de Guerre for heroism during World War I, during which time he was attached to the 70th Division of the American Expeditionary Forces.[6] He received Croix de Guerre for bravery during World War II, while he was attached to the British 12th Royal Lancers. In 1943, La Falaise published "Through Hell to Dunkirk" (Military Service Publishing Company), a memoir of his war experiences.[7]

Notably handsome and universally known as "Hank," the marquis was admiringly described by the actress Lillian Gish as "a real war hero. In his bathing-suit he presents a graphic picture of what modern warfare does to a man – he is so cut-and-shot and covered with scars."

Career

La Falaise directed at least five motion pictures, among them two dramas about primitive life and customs: Kliou, the Killer (1934, released 1936, also known as Kliou, the Killer Tiger) and Legong: Dance of the Virgins (1933, released 1935, also known as Djanger: Love Rite of Bali).[8][9] The latter production was described many years later as a "seductive blend of serious documentary, lyrical effusion and unbridled prurience".[10] He may also have written a film script for Gloria Swanson, his first wife, called Paris Luck, a 1927 work that bore the name of Robert Bailly. He also served as the U.S. representative for Pathé, the French film studio.[11]

La Falaise also produced and directed three films for RKO, which were filmed in French and English versions: Échec Au Roi (The Royal Bed) (an adaptation of Robert E. Sherwood's play The Queen's Husband); Le fils d'autre (The Woman Between), and Nuit d'Espagne (Transgression).[12]

Marriages

La Falaise was married three times, but did not have any children. His wives were:

  • Gloria Swanson (1899–1983), American movie actress. They married in Paris, France, on January 28, 1925, after meeting on the set of the Swanson film Madame Sans-Gêne, on which La Falaise was working as a translator.[13][14] They were officially divorced in November 1931, at which time Swanson was several months pregnant by Michael Farmer, an Irish sportsman, who would become her fourth husband.[15] (Thinking her divorce from La Falaise was already finalized, the actress had married Farmer in August, which was technically bigamy, and was forced to remarry him, legally, in November.) Swanson conceived a child with La Falaise but had an abortion because, as The New York Times noted, in 2004, "if she had given birth seven months after her marriage, her career would have been ruined".[16] During their marriage La Falaise was employed as the California representative of Peugeot American Corp., the U.S. branch of the European automobile manufacturer.[17]
  • Constance Bennett (1904–1965), American movie actress, whom he married in November 1931, days after his divorce from Swanson was finalized.[18] With her, he founded Bennett Productions, a film company for which he directed Legong: Dance of the Virgin (the first color movie filmed in Bali and the last of Hollywood's silent films) and Kliou the Killer (filmed in present-day Vietnam and the last movie made in two-tone Technicolor).[19][20] Bennett and La Falaise divorced in 1940.[21]
  • Emma "Emmita" Rodríguez Restrepo de Roeder, a Colombian socialite, whose father had been a diplomat.

References
  1. "Georges, Count de la Falaise". Sports Reference. Archived from the original on June 22, 2009.
  2. Parents' names written as cited in their marriage banns, dated February 12, 1893, accessed on ancestry.com on November 5, 2011
  3. Parents' marriage on February 28, 1893 cited in Revue de Saintonge & d'Aunis, Volume 13 (Société des archives historiques de la Saintonge et de l'Aunis, Saintes, 1893), p. 161
  4. Charles Kidd, Debrett Goes to Hollywood (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986), p. 25
  5. André Sellier, Steven Wright, and Susan Taponier, A History of the Dora Camp (I.R. Dee, 2003), p. 219
  6. American Legion Monthly (1926), Volume I, page 58
  7. Brian Kellow, The Bennetts: An Acting Family (University of Kentucky Press, 2004), p. 230
  8. "World Theatre Present 'Legong'", The New York Times, October 2, 1935
  9. The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (Trübner & Co., 1936), Volume 66, pages xvi and 442
  10. Dave Kehr, Critic's Notebook: The Disc's Coming of Age, from Noir to Hitchcock to Jerry Lewis and Seinfeld", The New York Times, December 31, 2004
  11. "Marquis de La Falaise and Carpentier on Ile de France", The New York Times, July 30, 1930
  12. "The Royal Bed" mentioned in Harriet Hyman Alonso, Robert E. Sherwood: The Playwright in Peace and War" (University of Massachusetts Press, 2007), page 109
  13. "Gloria Swanson Marries a Marquis", The New York Times, January 29, 1925
  14. Patrice Petro, Icons of Modernity (Rutgers University Press, 2010), page 116
  15. Date of La Falaise divorce given in article about her divorce from Farmer, "Divorce Suit Filed By Gloria Swanson", The New York Times, May 15, 1934
  16. Caryn James, "Critic's Notebook: Hollywood Confidential", The New York Times, February 20, 2004
  17. Automotive Industries (1927), Volume 56, page 596
  18. "Constance Bennett Marries Marquis", The New York Times, November 23, 1931
  19. Last silent film cited in William M. Drew, The Last Silent Picture Show (Scarecrow Press, 2010), page 32, as well as Scott Kirsner, Inventing the Movies" (2008), page 26
  20. Last two-tone Technicolor cited in The Moving Image (Association of Moving Image Archivists, 2005)
  21. "Actress Divorces Marquis de La Falaise de La Coudraye", The New York Times, November 15, 1940
Titles of nobility (France)
Preceded by
Gabriel Le Bailly de La Falaise		 Marquis de La Coudraye
1910–1972		 Succeeded by
Alain Le Bailly de La Falaise
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