Who was Gaby Deslys ?

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 940, 5 April 1930, Page 18

Who was Gaby Deslys ?

Actress in a New Riddle of the Sands

Efforts are sUll being made to unravel the mystery of the true identity of Gaby Desiys. Gaby's ■mother believes that it was her daughter who rose to such heights of

j fame and died in. Paris in 1020, but j the sister of a Hungarian actress sags that it icas th <4. latter, who I changed identity with Gaby 25 years j ago. wj LB the web of mystery i [\ which -for ten years has been woven around the i |Y4*4flfjE/ name of Gaby Desiys, tlie most fascinating stage favourite of her generation, ever be cleared up? In Britain, where the golden-haired Gaby achieved the pinnacle of fame and fortune; in Paris, where she was Llie idol of the boulevards: in Mar-

seilles, her native city, she revealed j to those who knew her intimately that : her real name was Marie-Claire GalrrMle Caire. She was born in ! Marseilles at the house of her father, j M. Hippolyte Caire, tailor, 63 Rue de la Rotonde, on November 4, ISSI. i Gaby was always intenseley proud iof being a Marseillaise. She spent a | happy, carefree childhood in the sunny | gardens of that cosmopolitan Southern ! seaport. Destined to be a centr eof attraction : wherever she went throughout her ; short life, Gaby’s golden fairness made her much admired even as a j child among the olive-skinned natives lof the Mediterranean port. It came as a terrible shock to the good nus, >; who loved her dearly, as well as to I her parents and only sister when tire

-19-year-old Gaby, in the throes of her j first love-affair, eloped with the son of. a local doctor named Flavard to Paris, i The romance was short-lived, how- i ever. The young couple separated. Gahi’ielle Caire, too proud to run home to her parents, resolved to earn her living by means of her musical talent and her charming voice. She became a chorus girl iu a Montmartre cabaret. Those were the days before the French stage had been overrun with blonde British beauties —“Les Girls,” as Paris calls them—and here again Gaby’s wonderful corncoloured curls, coupled with her sunny smile and her manner of a naive convent schoolgirl, made her the admired of all beholders. Was it this Gaby, of the golden hair and the golden voice, who swoon® one day iu 1903 or 1904 in the beach at Ostend and thereafter mysteriously disappeared, her place being taken by a young Hungarian actress, Hedwig Navratil, or Navratilova? If so, who then was the charming lady of the wondrous feather headdresses who danced and sang with such elfin grace iu every capital of the civilised world? Who was it, then, who died at the beginning of February, 1920, in a Paris nursing-home after a long and painful illness, and who left all her possessions, her fabulous pearls and her beautiful villas, to the poor of her beloved city of Marseilles, with the exception of an annuity to her dancing partner, Harry Pilcer? Madame Caire, who lives with her other daughter, Madame de Cornil, m Gaby’s former home, the Villa MontJoli, Marseilles, in which she has a life interest, believes it to have been her dearly-loved daughter, MarieClaire Gabrielle Caire. But Madame Berkes, elder sister of Hedwig Navratilova, declares It to have been Hedwig, who was the double of Gaby, and who changed identity with the French actress on the occasion of a fainting fit on the sands at Ostend 25 years ago. One could, perhaps, find a motive for the persistence of Madame Berkes in making this assertion, in the wealth left by the dead actress, a share in which is claimed by the Navratil family, had the suggestion not arisen until after Gaby’s death. But the strange thing is that the Navratils and Mme. Berkes had apparently been convinced for years that the French star was none other than Hedwig Navratilova, of whom they had lost trace since she went on the stage. No one was a greater friend of Gaby than her stage partner, Harry i Pilcer. ile remembers aa occasion,

just before the war, when he and Gaby were appearing at the Apollo Theatre in Vienna. Suddenly there burst into Gaby’s dressing-room an excited lady, who gave the name of Navratil. She flung her arms around the neck of the astonished Gaby with protestations of affection, hailing her as “dear sister.” Stage stars are frequently the victims of demonstrations of this kind, and Gaby seems to have paid little attention to the incident. During the war, however, when Gaby was appearing in London, someone informed the British police that she was not really French, but an enemy alien, a Hungarian subject. Detectives called, on the dancer, but she was able to produce satisfactory evidence denying the allegation. This is the story, as told by Mme. Berkes. Her sister, Hedwig, was born, she says, in 1884 at Horni-Mos-tenice, a small town which was then in Hungary, but which has become Czeclio-Slovak territory since the partition of Hungary. When she was 17 years old. Hedwig, a bright vivacious blonde like Gaby herself, decided to seek her fortune

on the stage. She appeared as a ! dancer in Cracow, Lemberg, and Vienna. She kept in touch with her family in a somewhat casual manner by means of postcards and brief notes, scribbed in her dressing-room at the theatres at which she was appearing up and down Europe. One day they received a letter from her. posted in London, in which she declared he intention of assuming in future the name of Von Nogradi, as she had made some influential friends who hated Hungary and Hungarians. That was the last they heard of her Now for the most dramatic episode in this strange story of confused identities Hedwig Navratilova is alive, and is living in Biarritz. Recently Madame Berkes began proceedings in the French Courts to gain possession of Gaby’s fortune. The answer of Madame Caire was to institute a suit for defamation of character against Madame Berkes. Naturally these matters were widely discussed, and they came to the ears ot the tormer Hungarian dancer, who I llves vei *y quietly in a beautiful i villa near the Spanish frontier. She

I immediately telegraphed to he parents.requesting them to put an ei jto their projected lawsuit. -T describes as ridiculous the suggesucthat she and Gaby Deslys ever passe for one another. “I only knew Mile. Deslys jei> slightly.” said Madame Hedw - Navratilova. Despite her protestations that she intends to put a stop to the legal ceedings which are in their prelumary stage, two distinguished Frenc men have resolved to probe the mat - • to the bottom. They are Maitre b* ■ geon. Senator of the Department Bouches-du-Rhode, and his friend t lawyer, Maitre Chapuis. When the latter was told of Mm- • Navratilova's dramatic reappearanc , ! he declared: “It is certainly amazing. in possession of confidential , tion which proxes beyond a doubt t the Gaby Deslys of 1907 xvas not in'; same girl as the Gaby Deslys oi 1 “The Gaby of 1919 was no i i French thaa I am Czech." 1 Here the matter -rests f° r ! 1 moment.