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05 August 2024

Irene Castle a.k.a. Mrs Vernon Castle

Irene Castle (1893-1969) and her husband Vernon Castle (1887-1918) were a well-known American dance couple in the early 20th century. The couple celebrated big international successes. Irene starred solo in a dozen silent films between 1917 and 1922. She was often credited as Mrs Vernon Castle.

Irene Castle
British postcard in the Pathé Frères Cinema Ltd. series. Photo: Pathé.

Irene Castle
British postcard in the Pathé Frères Cinema Ltd. series. Photo: Pathé.

The Turkey Trot and the Grizzly Bear


Irene Castle was born Irene Foote in 1893 in New Rochelle, New York, USA. Irene was the second daughter of physician Dr Hubert Townsend Foote and Annie Elroy (Thomas) Foote, whose father was the press spokesman for the Barnum and Bailey Circus.

An energetic youth, Irene rode horses and belonged to the swim team. As a child, she studied dancing with Rosetta O'Neill, who taught a generation of children ballroom dancing. When she was a teenager Irene appeared in amateur productions, often singing 'The Yama-Yama Man', a song made popular by Bessie McCoy in the Broadway show 'The Three Twins' (1908).

As a young woman, she began to model her appearance and body language on McCoy. In 1910, she met Vernon Castle at the New Rochelle Rowing Club in New York, a popular meeting place for people in the entertainment business. Vernon arranged an audition for Irene with Lew Fields, who hired her as a replacement dancer for 'The Summer Widowers', her first professional appearance.

Despite her father's doubts about welcoming an actor into the family, the two were married in Irene's hometown, New Rochelle in 1911. After their wedding, Irene joined Vernon in 'The Hen-Pecks' (1911), a production in which he was a featured player. The Castles returned to Europe in 1912 because Vernon was to appear in a French revue, performing the barbershop sketch from 'The Hen-Pecks'.

The revue also included a dance for the Castles set to the music of the young Irving Berlin's 'Alexander's Ragtime Band.' The show closed quickly, but the couple was then hired as a dance act by the Café de Paris. They performed the latest American ragtime dances, such as the Turkey Trot and the Grizzly Bear. The Castles projected their delight in dancing with each other and made the new dances look easy. Soon, they were the rage of Paris.

Irene Castle
British postcard in the Lilywhite Photographic series, no. C.M. 122. Photo: Shadow Stage. Caption: Mrs. Vernon Castle, well known picture player.

New York went dance crazy


The success of the Castles was widely reported in the United States, preparing their way for a triumphant return to New York in 1912. They were booked by Louis Martin for his fashionable Café de l'Opera. In the period after 1910, the dance and musical style of African Americans started to become a popular part of American life. The Castles were considered the first white entertainers to hire African American musicians.

New York went 'dance crazy' over the Castles. They also became staples of Broadway with their show 'The Sunshine Girl' (1913). Irene and Vernon Castle contributed significantly to spreading new ballroom dances such as foxtrot, tango, and waltz. The couple operated a dance school across from the Ritz in New York, the 'Castle House', the nightclub 'Castles by the Sea' in Long Beach, and the supper club 'Sans Souci'.

They toured the country dancing and could charge as much as a thousand dollars an hour for lessons. In 1914, the Castles appeared in a newsreel called Social and Theatrical Dancing and wrote a bestselling instructional book, 'Modern Dancing'. They appeared in the Irving Berlin musical 'Watch Your Step' (1914) in which they refined and popularised the Foxtrot, and in the film The Whirl Of Life (Oliver D. Bailey, 1915) as themselves.

They also made a series of short films of their dances. Irene Castle was also a major trendsetter in fashion. She initiated the vogue for shorter, fuller skirts and loose, elasticised corsets. "The best-dressed woman in America" is also credited with introducing American women in 1913 or 1914 to the bob – the short, boyish hairstyle favoured by flappers in the 1920s. She endorsed fashion designs and sewing patterns through the Ladies Home Journal and Butterick Patterns.

When World War I broke out, Vernon (born Vernon Blyth in the UK) joined the Royal Flying Corps and was sent to France as a fighter pilot. After shooting down two German planes he was sent back to the US. When the US entered the war, he was transferred to an American airbase in Texas to train US pilots. In 1918, he was killed in a plane crash near Fort Worth during a training flight shortly before the war's end. Irene continued to perform solo in Broadway, Vaudeville and films over the next decade.

Mrs. Vernon Castle (Irene Castle)
British postcard. Photo: Pathé.

Possessive and physically violent


Irene Castle made her film acting debut opposite Milton Sills in the silent propaganda serial Patria (Leonard & Theodore Wharton, Jacques Jaccard, 1917). She was credited as Mrs. Vernon Castle. The fifteen-part serial was about Japanese spies trying to invade the US but whose plans are foiled by a rich heiress and a Secret Service agent.

After that, she starred in various films by Astra Films, distributed by Pathé Exchange, such as Convict 993 (William Parke, 1918), The Hillcrest Mystery (George Fitzmaurice, 1919), and The First Law (Lawrence McGill, 1919). After the First World War, she worked for Paramount/Famous Players-Lasky.

In 1919, Irene married Robert Treman, an Ithaca NY businessman. In 1922 she stopped her film acting career. Irene had married him for his money but he invested and lost her money in the stock market. When he also proved to be possessive and physically violent. They divorced in 1923. That same year, she married Frederic McLaughlin, a man sixteen years older than her. In 1925, they had a daughter, Barbara McLaughlin Kreutz. In 1928, Castle founded 'Orphans of the Storm', an animal shelter in Deerfield, Illinois. Irene's son, William McLaughlin, was born in 1929. During her marriage to "Major" McLaughlin, the founding owner of the Chicago Blackhawks, she is credited with designing the original sweater for the Blackhawks Hockey Club. Her husband died in 1944.

Her fourth and final husband was George Enzinger an advertising executive from Chicago. They married in 1946 and remained together till his death in 1959. Irene's memoir 'Castles in the Air' served as the basis for the musical The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (H.C. Potter, 1939), starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Castle served as a technical advisor on the film but clashed with Rogers, who refused to wear Castle's trademark short bob or darken her hair. She objected to Rogers' inauthentic wardrobe demands, although several of Castle's original Lucile gowns were copied for the film. Castle also protested the hiring of white actor Walter Brennan to play their faithful friend and manservant Walter, who was black.

She spent the later years of her life championing animal rights. Irene Castle died in 1969 in Eureka Springs, Arkansas at 75. She was interred with Vernon at Woodlawn Cemetery in New York City.

Mrs. Vernon Castle (Irene Castle)
British postcard by Pathé Frères Cinema Ltd. Photo: Pathé.

Irene Castle
British postcard in the Pathé Frères Cinema Ltd. series. Photo: Pathé.

Sources: E.S. Stott (IMDb), Encyclopedia of World Biography, Wikipedia (English and German) and IMDb.

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