Yola Letellier

Yola Letellier (born Yvonne Henriquet (also spelled Henriquez or Henriques), c. 1900 – 1907)[1][2] was a French socialite and the wife of a newspaper owner.

Portrait of Yola Letellier c. 1929 by Man Ray

Yola is widely credited as the model for the main character in Colette's 1944 novella, Gigi.[3][4][5] As such, she became the basis of a 1949 French film in which Gigi was played by Danièle Delorme; a 1951 stage adaptation by Anita Loos, in which Colette cast the as-yet-unknown Audrey Hepburn to play Gigi; and an Academy Award-winning 1958 musical film starring Leslie Caron with a score by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe.[6]

In the novella Gigi is a teenager educated to be a French courtesan, to provide companionship and intellectual stimulation as well as sex, who marries an older wealthy man.[7] In real life, Yola married Henri Letellier, 40 years her senior,[8] who was a wealthy investor, owner of Le Journal, a stylish Parisian newspaper, and mayor of Deauville from 1925 to 1928. Letellier's family also owned hotels and casinos in Normandy.[9]

Yola had affairs with other men, including one with Lord Louis Mountbatten from 1932 until his death in 1979.[10]

Marriage
Henri Letellier before 1913

Henri Letellier (1868–1960) was honored in 1904 as a Knight of the French Legion of Honor for his services as an entrepreneur in French Indochina. In 1913 he was further honored as an Officer of the Legion of Honor.[11]

External images
Yola Letellier, née Henriquez, at the Grand Steeple-Chase d'Auteuil, June 19, 1927[5]
Henri Letellier in Revue de Monats, 1932.[12]
Personal snapshots, Hôtel Drouot[13]

Yola was Letellier's third wife.[14] Colette observed the newlyweds Yola and Henri in 1926 at a hotel on the French Riviera, where they all were guests. The two owners of the hotel were the elder courtesans who had raised Yola.[2] After the wedding Yola was reported to have been a ballerina at the Paris Opera from an early age.[5]

Described as an "extremely attractive, boyish-looking girl with cropped hair and a little snub nose",[3] Yola was among those photographed by the pioneering French street fashion photographers Frères Séeberger, wearing clothes from fashion houses such as Chanel.[5]

The Letelliers reportedly maintained a normal family life in the French upper-class tradition, albeit one where extra-marital affairs were accepted.[15] When Henri died in 1960, Yola became wealthy in her own right.[16]:75

Other relationships

Yola simultaneously maintained three relationships: with her husband, with her "official lover" Etienne de Horthy (killed in World War II), son of Hungarian dictator Miklos Horthy, and with Lord Louis Mountbatten. Mary Jayne Gold, a close friend Yola met skiing in Davos, introduced her to de Horthy.[15]

Yola and Mountbatten met at a dance in Deauville in 1932, where they danced a Viennese waltz and the other dancers stopped to applaud them.[17] Mountbatten claimed this was his first extra-marital affair. Yola was to be his principal mistress until his death in 1979.[14][18] Mountbatten, according to one story, installed a pull-out double bed in his 1931 Rolls-Royce Phantom II to entertain Yola.[15]

Louis Mountbatten and his wife, Edwina, maintained an unusual family relationship. Soon after Mountbatten's affair with Yola began, Edwina confronted Yola in Paris with a surprising result. "Your girl is sweet," Edwina wrote to her husband "and I like her and we got on beautifully and are now gummed and I am lunching with her at her house on Tuesday!!!"[14] Yola became a close friend of both Mountbattens, as well as their two children.[9][16] "Yola did not live with us but would visit frequently, bringing us charming gifts," according to the younger daughter, Pamela.[19][20] The gifts included a French peasant dress and a short-hair dachshund.[21] Edwina and the children even visited Yola and Henri Letellier at their home in France.[8]

References

Footnotes
  1. Lownie, Andrew (2019). The Mountbattens: Their Lives & Loves. Kings Road Publishing. ISBN 9781788702577. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  2. Griffen, Mark (2010). A Hundred or More Hidden Things: The Life and Films of Vincente Minnelli. Hachette Books. ISBN 9780306818936. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  3. Hicks (2014), p. 24
  4. Tucker, Grant (18 August 2019). "Lord Mountbatten's 'lust for young men' revealed". The Sunday Times.
  5. Aubenas, Sylvie; Chardin, Virginie; Demange, Xavier (2007). Elegance: The Seeberger Brothers and the Birth of Fashion Photography. Chronicle Books. p. 91. ISBN 9780811859424. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  6. "Gigi Times Three". Love Letters to Old Hollywood. 4 June 2018. Retrieved 25 August 2019.
  7. Borrelli-Persson, Laird (8 April 2015). "10 Famous Courtesans, from Madame de Pompadour to Gigi". Vogue. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
  8. Hicks (2014), p. 169
  9. Morgan, Janet P. (1991). Edwina Mountbatten: A Life of Her Own. HarperCollins Publishers Limited. p. 227. ISBN 9780002175975. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  10. "Lord Mountbatten was "devastated" by his wife's affairs". Irish Central. 28 August 2019. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  11. "Cote 19800035/330/44433 Nom LETELLIER Prénoms Louis Eugène Henri". LEONORE (Archives nationales ; site de Fontainebleau, first page). Retrieved 25 August 2019.
  12. Henri Letellier (in German). Revue des Monats. 7 December 1932. p. 110. Retrieved 20 August 2019.
  13. "Gigi's personnal snapshots". Hôtel Drouot. 2015. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  14. Lownie, Andrew (22 August 2019). "The love lives of Lord and Lady Mountbatten — bedhopping, gay affairs and dangerous liaisons". Sunday Times. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  15. Sullivan, Rosemary (2012). Villa Air-Bel: World War II, Escape, and a House in Marseille. Harper Collins. p. 51. ISBN 9781443402569. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  16. Smith, Adrian (2010). Mountbatten: Apprentice War Lord 1900-1943. I.B.Tauris. p. 91. ISBN 9780857730879. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  17. Hicks (2014), p. 23-24
  18. Ahmed, Akbar S. (1997). Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin. Psychology Press. p. 154. ISBN 9780415149662. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  19. Cowell, Alan (14 June 2017). "Patricia Knatchbull, a Grande Dame of Britain's Elite, Dies at 93". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  20. Reginato, James (5 September 2013). "The Raj Duet". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  21. Hicks (2014), p. 26-29

Sources
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