Yola Letellier | |
Birth Name: | Yvonne Henriquet |
Birth Date: | 28 June 1904 |
Occupation: | Socialite |
Known For: | Inspiration for Gigi by Colette |
Spouse: | Henri Letellier |
Partner: | István Horthy Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma |
Yola Letellier (born Yvonne Henriquet (also spelled Henriquez or Henriques), 28 June 1904 – 5 June 1996)[1] [2] was a French socialite and the wife of a newspaper owner.
Yola is widely credited as the model for the main character in Colette's 1944 novella, Gigi.[3] [4] 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.[5]
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.[6] In real life, Yola married, 36 years her senior, 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.[7]
Yola had affairs with other men, including one with Lord Louis Mountbatten, from 1932 until his death in 1979.[8]
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.[9]
Yola was Letellier's third wife.[10] Colette observed the newlyweds Yola and Henri in 1926 at a hotel near Saint-Raphael, where they all were guests. [2] After the wedding Yola was reported to have been a ballerina at the Paris Opera from an early age.[4]
Described as an "extremely attractive, boyish-looking girl with cropped hair and a little snub nose", Yola was among those photographed by the pioneering French street fashion photographers Frères Séeberger, wearing clothes from fashion houses such as Chanel.[4]
The Letelliers reportedly maintained a normal family life in the French upper-class tradition, albeit one where extra-marital affairs were accepted.When Henri died in 1960, Yola became wealthy in her own right.
Yola simultaneously maintained three relationships: with her husband, with her "official lover" Etienne de Horthy (killed in World War II), son of Hungarian regent Miklos Horthy, and with Lord Louis Mountbatten. Mary Jayne Gold, a close friend Yola met skiing in Davos, introduced her to de Horthy.
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. Mountbatten claimed this was his first extra-marital affair. Yola was to be his principal mistress until his death in 1979.[10] [11] Mountbatten, according to one story, installed a pull-out double bed in his 1931 Rolls-Royce Phantom II to entertain Yola.[12]
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!!!"[10] Yola became a close friend of both Mountbattens, as well as their two children.[7] [13] "Yola did not live with us but would visit frequently, bringing us charming gifts," according to the younger daughter, Pamela.[14] [15] The gifts included a French peasant dress and a short-hair dachshund.Edwina and the children even visited Yola and Henri Letellier at their home in France.