Lou Tellegen

Biography

Born in the Netherlands of Greek/Dutch descent, Lou Tellegen (born Isidor Van Dameler) was a marvelously handsome man whose life was temptestuous. Having something of a wandering pair of feet, he journeyed through Europe during his youth, doing odd jobs like prize fighting, driving a cab in Brussels, and joining a Berlin circus as a trapeze artist. He once spent a month in a Russian prison after being caught selling birth-control pamphlets. After roaming about in the Brazilian jungles and working as a stoker on a French freighter, Tellegen got into a scrape involving a lady that landed him once more in prison - this time in Paris. He sent a telegram to his friend, actor Édouard de Max, who obtained his release from prison and introduced him to Sarah Bernhardt. She hired him as her leading man and he accompanied her on tour. Tellegen starred as Lord Essex opposite Bernhardt in 1912's Les amours de la reine Élisabeth (1912). He went on to enjoy a brief career as a matinee hero in silent films and married opera star Geraldine Farrar. They divorced in 1919, and he penned his autobiography "Women Have Been Kind" in 1931, the title of which 'Vanity Fair' later suggested should have been "Women Have Been Kind of Dumb". Ill and debt-ridden, Lou Tellegen committed suicide in 1934 at the Cudahy mansion near Hollywood & Vine by stabbing himself with a pair of scissors.