Carlotta Monterey

Carlotta Monterey and Eugene O'Neill

Carlotta Monterey (born Hazel Neilson Taasinge; December 28, 1888 – November 18, 1970) was an American stage and film actress. She was the third and final wife of playwright Eugene O'Neill.

Biography

Hazel Tharsing (Carlotta Monterey) in her teens, from a 1907 publication.
Carlotta Monterey and Louis Wolheim in the Broadway production of The Hairy Ape (1922)

Carlotta Monterey was born Hazel Neilson Taasinge on December 28, 1888,[1] in San Francisco, California. Abandoned by her father, she was raised by an aunt from the age of four.[2] After she won the title of "Miss California" in a beauty contest, she traveled to London to study acting with Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree.[2] She adopted the name Carlotta Monterey after her return to the United States at the start of World War I, and pursued a career in the theatre. She garnered disparaging reviews of her acting ability, but her beauty was much admired.[2]

After divorcing her third husband, the illustrator Ralph Barton, in 1926, she became romantically involved with Eugene O'Neill. whom she had met in 1922 when she acted in a production of his play The Hairy Ape. They married in July 1929 in Paris.[3] She remained with O'Neill for the rest of his life, and dedicated herself to maintaining his privacy. After his death in 1953, Carlotta authorized the publication of his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey Into Night, which O'Neill had instructed his publisher to withhold until 25 years after his death. The play was awarded the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and is O'Neill's best known work.

A resident of the Valley Nursing Home in Westwood, New Jersey, Monterey died there on November 18, 1970.[1]

Partial filmography

Notes

  1. 1 2 Gent, George. "Carlotta Monterey O'Neill Dies; Widow of Playwright Was 82; Ex-Actress Shared 24 Years of Artist's Life Model for 'Strange Interlude's' Nina", The New York Times, November 21, 1970. Accessed October 27, 2015. "Mrs. Eugene O'Neill, widow of the playwright, died last Wednesday at the Valley Nursing Home in Westwood, N.J., where she had been living since last summer."
  2. 1 2 3 Lynn 1997, p. 301
  3. ↑ O'Neill & Estrin 1990, p. 215

References

  • Lynn, Kenneth Schuyler (1997). Charlie Chaplin and His Times. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 068480851X
  • O'Neill, E., & Estrin, M. W. (1990). Conversations with Eugene O'Neill. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 0878054472
  • American Experience: Eugene O'Neill
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