Vera, Countess of Cathcart
Toronto Daily Star, March 22 1926
For a brief moment in 1926, Vera, the Countess of Cathcart (1892-1993), was the most notorious woman in the world. Widowed during the First World War, she met and married the much older George, the 5th Earl of Cathcart, in 1919. After presenting him with a male heir, the countess had an affair with the young and handsome (and also married) Earl of Craven.
The Earl of Cathcart obtained a divorce from his Countess in 1922 and the Earl of Craven left her in 1925 to return to his wife. In response, the countess wrote Ashes of Love, a play based on her life, in eight days. British government censors refused to allow the play to be performed in London, so the countess set sail for America.
When American immigration authorities refused to let her into the country on the grounds of "moral turpitude", enormous publicity resulted. When she was freed on bond, the theatre producer Earl Carroll, known for his annual Earl Carroll's Vanities shows, tried to cash in by staging Ashes of Love with the countess in the lead role. After a trial performance in Allentown, Pennsylvania, the show opened on Broadway on March 22, 1926; it was also performed in Washington and (simultaneously with a different cast) in London. The reviews were unfavourable, which isn't surprising when you consider that the play was hastily put together by a writer with no previous experience.
The show ran for eight performances on Broadway before closing. The countess returned to England, wrote some more plays and some novels, remarried, and passed away at the age of 100.
My primary source for this was an article written for an Allentown TV station. I also found this footage of the countess arriving in the United States and a better copy of the photo shown above.
Created September 17, 2025.