Irrepressible: The Jazz Age Life of Henrietta Bingham by Emily Bingham

I was so pleased to discover a biography of Henrietta Bingham had been written. I'd come across her name in my Beatrix Lehmann research. I'd suspected that her and Bea had dated but I knew nothing about her. This filled in those gaps wonderfully. It was a proper insight into the woman, the times she lived in and her unusual life.

The biggest surprise for me was that she was from such a rich American background. Growing up in the south, with a father who was "struggling" compared with some of his relatives but one who still ended up as the Ambassador to England on the even of the second world war.

Henrietta's life was an interesting one, even if she didn't "produce" anything. She was in a tragic car accident when she was 13 that saw the death of her mother (p.22-23). She had to be emotionally supportive for her father as well as a fairly useless elder brother. She was bisexual and had a series of relationships with both men and women. The first woman she was seriously involved with was a teacher at her school, Mina Stein Kirsten who she met in 1918 when Mina was 24 (p.47). She first arrived in England in 1922 travelling with her father and Mina. The two women ended up staying in England together and explored the countryside. Mina insisted Henrietta get psychological counselling, and they both saw a Freudian analyst. P. 72-73 talks about how bisexuality was somewhat accepted at that time, with women such as Bessie Smith and Tallulah Bankhead being more open about their sexuality. p. 81 mentions how Henrietta got to know the Bloomsbury group, including Dora Carrington, with whom she had a relationship, through going to Francis Birrell and David Garrett's bookshop. p. 123, 131 talks in more detail about Dora and Henrietta's relationship. It is probably worth noting that the relatively poly attitude of the queer people at that time still seems to make biographers uncomfortable, trying to figure out which relationships were which, and how jealousy fitted in. They can't seem to accept that people could be having more than one relationship and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

In 1927 Henrietta's father and Mina decided she should marry, but in 1927 she met Beatrix, referred to in the book throughout as Peggy, and the two started a relationship that lasted roughly five years. "In the midst of this summer of nuptials, Henrietta tested what her father would ut up with to have her near him. She asked Miss Lehmann - the twenty four year old English actress who had the use of her Bently and had sent so many letters to her while she was in America - to join the family party as it moved from Edinburgh to grouse shooting near Guthrie Castle. They were more than just friends. A framed photograph of Beatrix stood on Henrietta's dresser to the end of her life".

Even though it didn't last more than a few years it seemed to have been significant as the author said Henrietta had a photo of Beatrix on her dressing table till she died. Which I found very touching.

p. 184 During WWI Peggy disguised herself as a boy so she could attend scout activities. (she would have been 10-13) ... She was likely introduced to Henrietta through Tallulah Bankhead, whom she understudied in three different productions. There were all-night escapades with Bankhead, p. 185 who would suffer pre-opening-night "nerve storms" and insist "that she couldn't be left". Peggy, living on a meagre allowance, meanwhile had "stockings to mend, bills to pay (impossible) and understudy (70 pages) to learn". According to contemporaries - and by the standards of the era - Lehmann was remarkably open about her lesbian leanings. "Tallulah must have been in love with her," recalled Bankhead's co-star Glenn Anders. "We were together all the time". ... The Glasgow bulletin covered the vacationing American press baron and his party, and ran a photo of Miss H. Bingham and Miss P Lehman [sic]. Striding together in their tartans, walking sticks in hand, they flank a shotgun-toting Mr Philips... That same day, Henrietta sat shoulder to shoulder with Peggy, on the moor alongside a chauffeured auto-mobile, their legs tucked sideways under them. The photographer caught them in conversation, cigarettes in hand and nipping dark liquid from small glasses...
p. 186 Henrietta stayed in Britain after the shooting party, fox-hunting and spending time with Peggy...
p. 188 Like Henrietta, Peggy was an entertaining companion, adding spark and cleverness to a group. She could turn her mordant humour against herself, loathed sentimentality, and insisted on her independence. ... But the relationship that began while Henrietta was at least informally engaged to John Houseman persisted through the decade. The woman treated the bond provisionally...
p. 195 The judge relaxed considerably during this period and gave his blessing to the "close friendship" with Miss Lehmann. But even if he and other people knew or thought they knew about his daughter's sexual predilections, Bingham demanded that her clothing and public demeanour not prove it...

p. 198 "Henrietta announced an earlier than scheduled return to England. She talked of taking Peggy Lehmann to see Berlin cabarets and soak up the midnight sun in Sweden... On July 13 1930 Henrietta [bought a new Bentley] and Henrietta and Peggy were off to Stokholm, attracted by a grand exhibition of modern designs. Following that, they installed themselves at a Baltic resort. Sweden was "the greatest fun", Peggy told her sister Rosamond; the country was full of perfect blondes, replete with good food, and amazingly free in it social mores. ... they made their way south, via Berlin, with its open transvestite balls and lesbian bars that went well beyond the Bloomsbury's experiments. (Two years later, Peggy would return to Berlin seeking German film roles). In Munich she and Henrietta attended a vast avant-garde production called Totenmal, or call of the dead, mounted by the lesbian dancer Mary Wigman with over the top lights, dances and unaccompanied choirs, and masked men reading the letters of soldiers lost in he great war. It was a staggering work of peace propaganda even as the Nazi party closed in on political control. the couple were
p. 199 deliriously happy in in Munich. "Henrietta" Peggy wrote to Rosamond, "has been adorable and the best of travel companions (and often unspeakably funny").
[They travelled to the Alps, Paris, then crossed the channel and Peggy joined Henrietta on the family holiday in Scotland] Peggy's show of enthusiasm for Judge Bingham, whom she had first met at Guthrie three years earlier, marked a departure from the antagonistic stance of Henrietta's other friends and lovers toward a man who seemed at best overbearing and narcissistic and at worst Mephistophelean. In bringing Miss Lehmann once more into the house party, Henrietta asserted a relationship that was both unmistakable and unmentionable. ...
p. 205 Henrietta meanwhile endured a series of blows that included the increasingly dire economic crisis and the unwinding of her relationship with Peggy. She had spent Christmas 1931 with the Lehmanns, where the family theatricals involved John comically cross-dressing as their American mother. For Henrietta the cheer came aided by quantities of alcohol. Peggy noted her sweetness and the "largesse and generosity" she brought tot he holiday, but none of the Lehmanns could miss the way she applied "herself with religious and fanatical fervour to all bottles.
p. 206 Peggy's appraisal of her life could easily have expressed Henrietta's own, "getting uglier and more lonesome every moment. Always falling in love with the wrong people. It is small consolation that they return the compliment". ...
p. 208 [on finding out Henrietta was starting a relationship with Hope Williams] "Peggy minced no words at the news of Henrietta's attachment to the star. She told her sister that her ex was "living in homo-sin with Tallulah's best girl".
p. 209 In England Peggy Lehmann admitted to "ride-em-cowboy" fantasies. "I should think, she wrote to Henrietta, "It was the ideal country for bringing out most any girl's subconscious wish for spectacular masculinity" [odd to note that this is one of Peggy's letters to Henrietta that ended up in Rosamond's archive!]
p. 210-211 has Peggy writing Henrietta asking her, "What do you do with yourself all day - and night?" Was Henrietta, "rich, poor, happy, miserable, in-love, out-of-love, analysed, unanalysed?"
p. 215 Hope Williams visited at the embassy, and the whole family went to a play starring Peggy Lehmann as Emily Bronte [Wild Decembers] .
p. 226-227 talks of Henrietta visiting Helen's flat with Peggy to help Helen with her novel.
p. 238 There were jealousies too, such as a night where, after dinner at the savoy with Peggy Lehmann and another guest named Percy, they all returned to Madge's. Helen grew so upset at something she witnessed happen that she fled in the darkness of Stiner's stall, where she stroked him until her composure returned.... or Henrietta and Peggy could have been flirting...
p 248-249 talks about how it was becoming less acceptable to be homosexual
p 275 Peggy Lehmann's acting career was compromised by her leftist politics and her unusually open bisexuality. However, 1960s and 70s British television provided roles that engaged her comic abilities and milked her eccentric profile, and fans of the original Dr Who TV series celebrate her campy (and suggestively lesbian) portrayal of Professor Amelia Rumford.

Things were not so good for Henrietta though who suffered from severe depression and alcoholism, thought to be a result of the constant homophobia she faced. A rather sad ending for an interesting and unconventional woman.