Secrets About Tilly Losch

Tilly Losch and the Mitfords

Through Tilly’s early relationship with Adele Astaire[i] she came to know Lord  Charles Cavendish[ii] ( Adele’s first husband, from 1932 ) and this rolled over to  occasional contact with the infamous Mitford sisters   through  Charles’s nephew  Andrew[iii] who married  Deborah ( Debo) Mitford [iv]in 1941.   But during the late 1920s  and early 1930s Tilly also came into contact ( through Edward James pursuing her constantly ) with several members of these siblings, and there is concrete evidence of Tilly  meeting with ( the novelist)   Nancy Mitford[v] in 1929.[vi]  The two of them got on well.  These social meetings in London were at regular dining functions in  Claridges and The Ritz hotels. Tilly often dined with Nancy and others.[vii]  The contact  overflowed  into meets at country retreats like  Beaton’s Ashcombe and the Cavendish rural retreat of Lismore Castle in Ireland. Concurrently was the rise of Tilly’s  friendship with  Cecil  Beaton,  he simply adored  showing Tilly off to his Society clingers and male chums.  Tilly was photographed “ again and again in Beaton’s ‘My Royal Past’, a spoof on Countess Larisch’s My Past.” [viii]   Beaton was temporarily  pushed aside by Randolph Churchill’s[ix] droolings over Tilly and   Nancy’s brother Tom Mitford[x] was another hopeless follower  among her impish, juvenile  loves.  [xi]  Beaton hit back at both  these young upstarts he and Tilly were often seen  together; both  dressed provocatively at parties  to shock and clearly offered themselves to both men and women.  On one occasion even  the flamboyant homosexual Stephen Tennant[xii] swooned over Tilly “ dressed boyishly in a carmine sweater”.[xiii] Always in the horns of a dilemma over her latest love affair Tilly  carried through her flings with Randolph Churchill and Tom Mitford largely to irritate the over eager Edward James, whose proposals of marriage were carried on almost week in and week out. This snub on James in favour of other  men ( whom she slept with and revealed the gory details to James )  was Tilly as her most bitchy, but she knew James was putty in her hands, and could hold out for a marriage on crude financial terms. According to Charlotte Mosley[xiv] “ Tom [ Mitford] did not want to marry Tilly but thought, (rightly) that she would be unhappy with Edward James.”[xv]    The Mitford clan were terrified that Tom would propose to Tilly, or take her on the rebound from James.   In a letter from Nancy to her sister Diane[xvi] on 6 November 1933 she records “he  [ Tom] gave me his solemn word that never –even if Edward died and she were free tomorrow – would he marry Tilly.”[xvii]  Tom Mitford  avoided being cited in the James’s acrimonious divorce suit because of Diana’s [ Diana Mitford first Mrs Guinness later Lady Mosley]  friendship with Edward James, [ which was a particularly  close one ]  but both he [ Tom]  and Nancy were called as witnesses…” [xviii]  in 1934, for Tilly's side.   

Nancy Mitford’s Letters[xix] provide some further insight into Tom Mitford’s personality  traits  (which often seem contradictory ).  The early volumes of diaries by James Lees-Milne[xx] contain a smattering of   references to Tom ( with whom Lees- Milne was  smitten from his Eton schooldays  onwards). Some years after Tom’s death, in Burma in 1945 as a war casualty, one of Tom’s war time loves, Barbara Moray[xxi],  speaks of       “ his attitude to women, whom at bottom he despised.”  [xxii]  Nonetheless, it remains one of the great what might have beens if Tom Mitford and Tilly Losch had married and produced an offspring. 

[i]Adele Astaire, ( 1896-1981). American dancer and entertainer. Sister of Fred Astaire.

[ii]Lord Charles Cavendish( 1905-1944)  Second son uf the 9th Duke of Devonshire. Died aged 38 from acute alcoholism.

[iii] Andrew Cavendish ( 1920-2004),  From 1950 the 11th Duke of Devonshire. Married Deborah Freeman Mitford. Andrew’s older brother William was killed in action in 1944.

[iv]Deborah Mitford ( born 1920) 11th  Duchess of Devonshire, now  Dowager Duchess of Devonshire.

[v]Nancy Mitford ( 1904-1973). Writer and novelist. Eldest of the famous Mitford Girls.

[vi] See The Sketch Magazine, Volume 147. ( 1929). “Miss Nancy Cunard wore a chic red evening dress, and the John family were well represented, and all favoured styles of ... had a striped fancy dress ; Mrs. Evelyn Waugh was in white ; and the company also included Miss Tilly Losch in red.”

[vii]Max Egremont lists “ Osbert Sitwell, Nancy Mitford, Cecil Beaton, Tilly.. and Randolph Churchill ..as some of [ London’] greatest gossips. ”  See Egremont, Max. Siegfried Sassoon.    ( 2006).

[viii] See Robertson, Wilmot. Instauration. Howard Allen Enterprises. Inc. ( 1985)..   

[ix]Randolph Churchill ( 1911-1968). Son of Winston Churchill.  Politician and drunkard.

[x]Tom Mitford ( 1909-1945). Only son of Lord and Lady Redesdale. Known to his sisters as ‘ Tud’.  Trained as a lawyer. German speaking. He was bisexual.

[xi]  See Robertson, Wilmot. Instauration. Howard Allen Enterprises. Inc. ( 1985)..   

[xii]Stephen Tennant ( 1906-1987). Dandy and homosexual.

[xiii]Hoare Philip. Serious pleasures: the life of Stephen Tennant.  Hamish Hamilton. ( 1990).

[xiv] Charlotte Mosley : nee Marten, born 1952. Widow of  Oswald Alexander Mosley, son of Diana and Oswald Mosley.

[xv] Mitford Nancy and Mosley, Charlotte. Love from Nancy: the letters of Nancy Mitford. Houghton Miffin.  ( 1993).

[xvi]Diana Mitford, later Mrs Guinness and later Lady Mosley

[xvii] Ibid.

[xviii] Ibid.

[xix]Ibid.

[xx]James Lees- Milne ( 1908-1997). Writer, diarist and historian.  See  Ancestral Voices, 1942-3 ; Prophesying Peace, 1944-5; Caves of Ice, 1946-7; and Midway on the Waves, 1948-9.

[xxi]Barbara Moray ( 18th Countess of Moray, Dowager Countess from 1943). American born Barbara Murray died 16 April 1996.

[xxii]Lees-Milne, James. Midway on the Waves. Diaries 1948-1949.  Michael Russell (Publishing) Ltd (2005) Entry for 1 February 1949.