Maiden Voyages

by Siân Evans

  But America beckoned, and in 1919 she signed a contract with Hearst’s International Magazine Company to write stories and features for magazines such as Cosmopolitan. In 1920 she was offered a lucrative contract as a screenwriter for Famous Players-Lasky (which later became Paramount) and relocated to Hollywood. She became one of the best-known and most successful female screenwriters of the 1920s, and also produced and directed a number of movies. She was instrumental in establishing the careers of Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson. Elinor Glyn’s 1927 novel It, identifying the mysterious allure of sex appeal, was made into a successful film, and Clara Bow, the star, was known as the ‘It’ girl.

  Elinor Glyn became a central figure in the English clique in Hollywood – a close friend of Charlie Chaplin, and of William Randolph Hearst and his mistress Marion Davies. She was influential as a film industry maven, advising Hollywood’s professionals – both the on-screen ‘talent’ and the producers and directors who made the movies – on etiquette and deportment. She decided to return to England in 1929, aged sixty-five, to write fiction and her autobiography. The decade she had spent in America had successfully transformed her life, providing her with the chance to escape the censure and ridicule of one society, and to reinvent herself in Hollywood.

  Diana Cooper was another British woman who hoped to make her fortune in the United States. In 1923, at the age of thirty, she went to act on the New York stage, for the very simple reason that she and her husband needed the money. As Lady Diana Manners, the daughter of the Duke of Rutland, she had been expected to marry an aristocrat. Instead she had fallen in love with Alfred Duff Cooper, an ambitious young chap from the Foreign Office, who had served honourably in the Great War and had been awarded the DSO. Their combined income on marriage in 1919 was £1,100 a year. They were hardly poor, but they needed substantial funds if he was to satisfy his ultimate ambition, which was to give up his civil service post in order to go into politics. In 1922 Duff Cooper devised the ‘plan’, which was for the two of them to go to America, where Diana, already an established performer, might make a fortune as an actress. It was a gamble, but if it was successful, he would seek a seat as a Member of Parliament.

  Diana was a famous society beauty, and had appeared in two silent films. She attracted the attention of Max Reinhardt, an Austrian theatre producer, who needed actresses for a new version of The Miracle, which he proposed to put on in New York and then tour round the States. The play is a morality tale about a convent of nuns living in a medieval abbey that houses a life-size statue of the Virgin and Child, and the figure is believed to have miraculous powers. The starring roles are those of a young nun yearning for her freedom, and the ‘living statue’ herself, a physically demanding part as the actress had to stand immobile for nearly an hour, holding a heavy wooden baby, before apparently coming to life. Diana Cooper mostly played the statue, but would occasionally switch to the role of the nun.

  Duff Cooper accompanied Diana to New York on the Aquitania, and he recorded: ‘I enjoyed that journey as I have enjoyed all subsequent crossings of the Atlantic. We knew nobody on board, but we were sufficient to ourselves and for both of us the journey was a novelty.’5 After six days he sailed home, for the first of their many long separations. He spent Christmas 1923 in the south of France with his mother, while Diana threw herself into rehearsals.

  The production opened in New York in January 1924 and was a spectacular success. Due to the increase in their income, the ‘plan’ was coming together. Duff Cooper made six transatlantic trips in ten months, before a general election was unexpectedly called in October 1924 and he was selected as the candidate for Oldham, near Manchester. He telegraphed Diana in New York urging her to sail the day after next on the Homeric. She was back within a week, and the couple successfully campaigned together. Duff Cooper was elected as an MP, Diana swiftly returned to the States, and the pair continued to commute across the Atlantic.

  The Miracle was a hit for two winter seasons in New York, then it toured the States, with Diana still in the dual lead roles. This was followed by tours through central Europe, England and Scotland. The financial success of the play was vital to the couple’s long-term hopes, but their only son, John Julius Norwich, also felt that the experience broadened his mother’s horizons. For nearly seven years Diana lived in the world of Austrian-American-Jewish theatre, very different from British society, and she developed an affinity with that milieu. When the Second World War began, she sent her son to the States so that he might be safe in the event of a German invasion, and asked Dr Rudolf Kommer, Max Reinhardt’s right-hand man, to act as the little boy’s guardian.

  Though emotionally devoted to his wife, Duff Cooper was notorious for his infidelities. John Julius Norwich reflected that, while the lengthy separations could have threatened their marriage, in fact they were both able to pursue their own interests for many months of each year. Diana had a fulfilling acting career, and her income enabled her husband to become a very distinguished politician. He was appointed British Ambassador in Paris immediately after the Second World War, a prestigious diplomatic role that they both greatly enjoyed.

  Such Very Important Passengers were deliberately courted by competing shipping lines, in order to add cachet to their passenger lists. The glamorous Lord and Lady Mountbatten first sailed the Atlantic together on the Majestic in 1922 just after their marriage, and were allocated a sitting room, bedroom, wardroom, dressing room and bathroom, for the price of a single cabin. Their presence always generated excellent publicity for the White Star Line. The British public, who had avidly followed their on-off courtship and subsequent wedding, saw them as – in ‘Dickie’ Mountbatten’s words – ‘semi-royal’. It was only four years since the Armistice, and their nuptials were viewed favourably as a royal wedding that did not involve a German spouse, unlike the pattern before the war. The same public mood prevailed a year later when the second in line to the throne, Dickie’s cousin Prince ‘Bertie’, married a small and pretty Scottish aristocrat called Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, to general satisfaction.

  During the voyage, Lady Edwina suffered from seasickness, and barely left their suite, but late at night Dickie would stroll up to the bridge for what he described as ‘a companionable yarn’ with the officers on watch. He took a great interest in the operation and navigation of the ship as he was a fully trained Royal Navy officer. When the newlywed Mountbattens arrived in New York, they were besieged by reporters keen to interview them, and ‘snappers’ wanting their photos for the papers. ‘Simply ripping to be here,’ offered Edwina gamely, in the manner of an Enid Blyton heroine. Next day they gave a press conference, then went to the cinema with Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. They dined with President Harding at the White House and attended the World Series at Madison Square Garden, where they shook hands with the baseball star Babe Ruth. After their east coast sojourn, a private railroad car took them to Hollywood, where they’d been lent the Fairbanks’ house, Pickfair. Both were passionate movie fans, and they met Charlie Chaplin, who made a short film for them as a wedding present, casting the couple in a hold-up minidrama.

  Leisure and pleasure aside, there were a number of pioneering women passengers for whom crossing the Atlantic in the 1920s and 1930s was an absolute necessity for their internationalist aims and professional activities. The formidable American-born Lady Nancy Astor, who had met her husband Waldorf on a transatlantic ship, had been elected the first woman Member of Parliament to take up a seat in 1919. Her parliamentary career as MP for a constituency in Plymouth, and her parallel roles as the mother of five children and a leading society hostess kept her busy in London and at the family home, Cliveden, in the immediate aftermath of the Great War. However, when she was invited to attend the 1922 Women’s Pan-American Conference in Baltimore, Nancy took a seven-week leave of absence and set sail for New York with her husband on the Olympic on 13 April. Lady Astor did not go as an official representative of the British government, but she did go with the blessin
g of her political party, with a personal aim of promoting Anglo-American relations, to bring closer understanding between her adopted country and the nation where she was born.

  While on board, Nancy occupied her spare time by exercising on the rowing machines in the ship’s gym, and running circuits of the deck – unorthodox behaviour for a forty-three-year-old female politician in the 1920s. One of the New York newspapers had sent a female reporter on the transatlantic voyage to interview Nancy, and to transmit her articles about Nancy by radio while en route, a daring technical innovation. By the time they disembarked in New York on 18 April, Nancy Astor was a well-known figure in the city. The Astors were besieged by a vast number of journalists, and Nancy was inundated with requests for print and radio interviews. A celebrity on both sides of the Atlantic, there was American pride that a determined Virginian had blazed a trail into the heart of the mother of parliaments.

  A staunch Atlanticist, Nancy spoke frequently and passionately on the need for future co-operation between Britain and America, but she kept away from the politically sensitive issue of Prohibition, though her pro-Temperance views were well known. The Astors met President Harding and were welcomed on to the floor of the Senate. They travelled by train to Nancy’s birthplace, Danville, then headed north to Chicago and on to Ottawa, where Nancy addressed the Canadian House of Commons. There followed a busy schedule round the States, with many speaking engagements and a trip to Nancy’s family in Virginia. Nancy’s many frank statements had antagonised the Hearst press, particularly her trenchant views on the treatment of American forces’ war veterans, and she was criticised in the many papers from Maine to California belonging to William Randolph Hearst, the millionaire newspaper proprietor.. Nevertheless, the tour was a triumph.

  The Astors set sail on their return journey to Britain on the Aquitania on 23 May 1922. Waldorf’s diary contains this brief last entry, and his relief is palpable: ‘Final visits of friends. Final words with reporters. Final press photos. Ship sailed at 12 noon. After lunch I slept till dinner. After dinner I slept till breakfast the next day.’6

  But Waldorf’s hopes of a relaxing trip home were scuppered by his vigorous wife. By chance, her formidable recent critic William Randolph Hearst was travelling on the same ship. Hearst was not keen on the Anglo-American ‘special relationship’, and was critical of many aspects of British life, though he preferred to travel on the Aquitania rather than any American-owned vessel. It was inevitable that when Hearst and Lady Astor met on board sparks flew. Purser Spedding tactfully recalled:

  Lord and Lady Astor are great favourites with the whole ship’s company on board the Aquitania, and when they are travelling the ship is theirs … to the great delight of both English and American passengers, also the stewards, who repeated to me as many of Lady Astor’s remarks as they could remember. Nancy gave William Randolph the rounds of the kitchen, telling him exactly what she thought of him; the meeting occurred on deck one bright sunny morning in the presence of Mrs Hearst and her two sons.7

  Throughout her long public career Lady Astor recognised the obligation to dress smartly and appropriately on all occasions, in order to be taken seriously in what was largely a man’s world of politics. She had little intrinsic interest in clothes, but relied on the skills of her long-suffering maid Rose Harrison, who accompanied her on ocean voyages, as being on board ship was no excuse for lower sartorial standards. For women who were fashionable society figures, such as Lady Edwina Mountbatten and Lady Diana Cooper – both noted beauties – clothing and appearance were essential aspects of their public personae. For all wealthy women travelling in first class, any sea voyage required a large amount of clothing, as stylish passengers frequently changed from one outfit into another several times a day. Indeed, one appealing aspect of a transatlantic voyage for the modish was the prospect of showing off one’s wardrobe and accessories over the course of six or seven days afloat, in evening outfits for dinner and dancing, and daytime clothes for all eventualities – breakfast in bed, lunchtime parties, sports attire for the gym, tennis court or pool, or stout tweeds for a walk on deck in autumn murk. In addition, passengers on the Atlantic run were advised to bring heavy outerwear such as coats for wearing on deck.

  Despite the much trumpeted health-giving properties of exercise and bracing sea breezes, canny women travellers were wary about exposing their garments to ocean weather. Black wool could develop a green tinge because of the salt in the atmosphere, and the texture of serge could pucker if damp. Fur becomes heavy when wet, and can give off a distinctly animal odour. Feathers in hats and bandeaux would lose their joie de vivre, while metallic embroidery and sequins tarnished in salty spray. Notwithstanding modern depictions of interwar heroines in evening wear glittering romantically at the ship’s rail, the truth was more prosaic. Women who cared about their wardrobes stayed firmly indoors while sailing across the North Atlantic, especially when wearing evening dress.

  For those travelling in first class, smart luggage was essential. In 1920 the London firm of Waring and Gillow ran advertisements to promote their brown cowhide suitcases, using the clumsy but unsettling slogan ‘By their luggage you shall know whether they be well-born folk or not’. This phrase was guaranteed to play on passengers’ insecurities, whatever their background.

  It was important to look the part while travelling, and vast quantities of luggage, from portmanteaux to hatboxes, dressing cases to hold-alls, added to the status of the traveller. Baggage contained clothes and matching accessories to wear on the voyage, as well as jewels, make-up and toiletries. Travel writers recommended Americans take one wardrobe trunk for a man and two for a woman; the second should be empty so that madame could fill it with clothes bought in Paris, or monsieur with Bond Street suits, spats and hats. Where possible, luggage should be stowed under the bunks or even in an adjacent cabin, to prevent these heavy objects being overturned and causing injuries during stormy weather. Any items ‘not wanted on voyage’ were stowed in the hold.

  There was an impressive system for identifying and loading luggage of all kinds during the short turn-around time in port: every shipping line required each piece of luggage to have two labels attached, one tied on, the other stuck, detailing the passenger’s name, address, ship and date of sailing. Cabin baggage would also be labelled with the number of the cabin and a large initial denoting the passenger’s first name, so that it could be identified by the stewards. Hold luggage would be picked up by the company and delivered to the pier the day before sailing. The baggage master was in charge of sorting out the allocation of mounds of labelled luggage, despatching it to individual cabins. With porters and stewards to manage the ‘heavy lifting’, the well-heeled traveller would not see their luggage again until they arrived in their cabin.

  Manoeuvring large cabin trunks aboard on embarkation was a fraught business; Violet Jessop described watching a hard-pressed steward grappling with one huge piece of luggage, mounted on a hand-barrow:

  Down the long alleyway a huge wardrobe trunk on its truck moved waveringly forward. It was the kind of wardrobe trunk without which, at that period, no American woman would think of travelling. It hesitated, as passengers and friends crossed the path of its uncertain progress: now and then, around one side would peer a face – perspiring and apparently sorely tried – but equally determined to carry on.8

  A number of specialist firms provided indispensable trunks to suit the need of every elegant traveller. The Parisian company of Louis Vuitton was renowned for its ingeniously designed, practical and chic luggage. Reassuringly expensive, every piece was covered in the company’s distinctive ‘monogram’ patterned canvas, featuring the founder’s initials. One popular design for sea passengers was a large desk trunk, which resembled a tall, compact chest of drawers. It took up comparatively little space in cabins, but its many compartments neatly held accessories and small items of linen.

  Packing for a sea voyage was an intricate business. Of course, the wealthy passenger would not
pack their own luggage before departure. That was still a specialist job for a servant, though a steward or stewardess might be pressed into service to unpack when the luggage was deposited in the cabin. ‘With expedition and with a sure hand, because her task is accomplished without anxiety, the maid can pack the trunks and bags that will be shipped across the Atlantic, for fashion is now extremely kind to the traveler.’9

  Many of the better-off first-class travellers brought their own maids or valets along on the voyage specifically to care for their wardrobes and general appearance. Body servants, as they were called, were usually accommodated in special interior cabins linked to the individual passenger’s stateroom or cabin, so as to be constantly available for their employers. On the luxurious Olympic, the servants shared a special dining room for maids and valets, and exchanged gossip about their employers: ‘Mary Pickford’s maid tells Rudoph Valentino’s valet how many pairs of silk stockings Mary has, and Rudolf’s valet tells Mary’s maid about Rudolf’s favourite purple satin pyjamas.’10

  The printed passenger list for a typical trip on Aquitania, leaving Southampton for New York on 25 June 1921, lists alphabetically the names of 464 people travelling in saloon class, as first class was known on this ship. Nineteen of them had brought their maids, eight had their valets, two had both a maid and a manservant in attendance, and one person was accompanied by a nurse. Second class listed 370 passengers’ names, but no servants. Those travelling without servants inevitably relied on the assistance of their cabin steward or stewardess, and tipped accordingly. The most fashionable ships catered for their passengers’ concern with their appearance by providing fine laundering aboard, and an ever increasing workforce of dressmakers, masseuses and beauty therapists were employed to improve their female passengers’ sense of wellbeing and bonhomie. Many of the women engaged by the shipping firms to pamper their female passengers originally came from quite ordinary or humble working-class backgrounds, and often grew up in port cities such as Liverpool or Southampton. The positions newly available on board the great liners ploughing across the Atlantic provided excellent opportunities for them to earn a good living, to travel the world, and to acquire a level of sophistication and worldly knowledge that would not have been available to them had they stayed on dry land.