Blanca Errázuriz
Encyclopedia
John de Saulles
John Gerard Longer de Saulles was an American athlete, real estate broker, and businessman whose murder by his millionaire wife led to a widely-reported trial.-Early life:...
.
Early life and marriage
Blanca Errázuriz was born in Viña del Mar, the eldest daughter of Guillermo Errázuriz Urmeneta and of Blanca Vergara Alvarez, a beauty known as the Star of Santiago, and thus a member of the politically influential Errázuriz familyErrázuriz family
The Errázuriz family of Chile became politically influential since the beginning of the 19th century, and played a very significant role in Chilean politics. Francisco Errazuriz, an immigrant of Basque origin, was the first member of this family to arrive in Chile in 1735...
, of Basque
Basque people
The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
descent. Her father, a mining magnate, died when she was two and was educated at Sacred Heart Convent in London, England. In 1911, when she was 16 years old, she met John Gerald Longer de Saulles
John de Saulles
John Gerard Longer de Saulles was an American athlete, real estate broker, and businessman whose murder by his millionaire wife led to a widely-reported trial.-Early life:...
, an American businessman and society figure 15 years her senior; he had travelled to Chile as representative of the South American Concessions Syndicate to negotiate a new railway line. After some initial difficulties with her family (mostly due to the difference in age and religion) they were soon engaged and on December 14, 1911 married at an English Catholic chapel in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. (The civil ceremony had taken place the previous day.).
De Saulles had previously been engaged to the heiresses Mary Elsie Moore
Mary Elsie Moore
Mary Elsie Moore was an American heiress who married and divorced Italian prince Don Marino Torlonia, 4th prince of Civitella-Cesi.-Early life and education:...
(later Princess Torlonia) and Eleanor Granville Brown. He was later briefly appointed as U. S. Minister to Uruguay in 1914, a post he resigned shortly after accepting and without ever leaving the U.S.
The newly married couple settled in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. They had one child, John Longer de Saulles, who was born on December 25, 1912, and for whom the steel magnate Charles H. Schwab stood as godfather.
The divorce
In 1915 Blanca Errázuriz, by then unhappily married, befriended Rudolph ValentinoRudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...
in New York City, where he was working as an exhibition dancer (taxi dancer
Taxi dancer
A taxi dancer, or taxi for short , is a paid dance partner in a partner dance. For official purposes in the US, their occupation was referred to as "dancer", when they worked in taxi-dance halls that had all the necessary business permits...
) and had gained attention for his rendition of the Argentine tango
Tango (dance)
Tango dance originated in the area of the Rio de la Plata , and spread to the rest of the world soon after....
, which was the craze at the time. Whether the two actually had a romantic relationship is unknown, but Valentino did agree to provide proof in court during the de Saulles' divorce case that Joan Sawyer, his dancing partner, was having an adulterous relationship with John de Saulles; he himself took the stand to support Blanca's claim of John's infidelities. De Saulles was also accused of various financial improprieties involving his misuse of his wife's fortune, claims that received greater validity when it became clear upon his death that de Saulles was deeply in debt.
John de Saulles was not pleased with this, and once the divorce was granted on December 1916, he used his political connections to have Valentino arrested along with a madam named Mrs. Thyme (the exact charges are unknown). The evidence was flimsy at best (Valentino having been near the wrong place at the wrong time) and after a few days in jail, Valentino's bail was lowered from $10,000 to $1,500. The scandal was well publicized along with the trial, and Valentino felt degraded and misused. No one would hire him, his old friends would no longer talk to him and Blanca seemed to not even thank him for his testimony.
The murder and trial
Roslyn, New York
Roslyn is a village in Nassau County, New York, on the North Shore of Long Island. As of the United States 2010 Census, the village population was 2,770...
to the home of her ex-husband, The Box, in Meadowbrook Colony, near Westbury
Westbury, New York
Westbury incorporated in 1932 as a village in Nassau County, New York in the United States. The population was 15,146 at the 2010 census.The Village of Westbury is in the Town of North Hempstead....
. She had legal claims over the custody of their son, since she and her husband had been given shared custody over him, but de Saulles refused to acknowledge the court's decision. She arrived at The Box shortly after 8 PM, and found her former husband sitting on the porch of the house. They argued, and she pointed a gun at his head demanding of him to immediately hand over the child to her. When he tried to disarm her, she shot him five times. He was rushed to the Nassau County
Nassau County, New York
Nassau County is a suburban county on Long Island, east of New York City in the U.S. state of New York, within the New York Metropolitan Area. As of the 2010 census, the population was 1,339,532...
Hospital, but died there at 10:20 PM of his injuries. In the meantime, she awaited at the house for the arrival of the police, to whom she surrendered. She was charged with murder in the first degree and imprisoned in the Nassau County Jail at Mineola, New York
Mineola, New York
Mineola is a village in Nassau County, New York, USA. The population was 18,799 at the 2010 census. The name is derived from a Native American word meaning a "pleasant place"....
, leading to a sensational trial.
The widely reported case went on for months. Blanca was defended by Henry Uterhart, a noted criminalist of the time, and the principal witness for the defense was Suzanne Monteau, Blanca's French maid, who had accompanied her that night and completely supported her version of the events. Blanca Errázuriz became the darling of the press, and the champion of the suffragettes who portrayed her as the victim of the chauvinism
Chauvinism
Chauvinism, in its original and primary meaning, is an exaggerated, bellicose patriotism and a belief in national superiority and glory. It is an eponym of a possibly fictional French soldier Nicolas Chauvin who was credited with many superhuman feats in the Napoleonic wars.By extension it has come...
prevalent in the society of the time, while Valentino's name was again dragged through the mud though he had nothing to do with Blanca by this point.
Blanca Errázuriz was unanimously acquitted of the murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
charges on December 1, 1917 in what was called a "popular" verdict.
Aftermath and later life
Following the trial, Blanca Errázuriz moved first to San Francisco, CaliforniaSan Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, where she sought and obtained full custody of her son, and later to Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. Eventually she and her son returned to Chile and settled there. On December 22, 1921 she remarried, this time to Fernando Santa Cruz Wilson in Santiago
Santiago, Chile
Santiago , also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile, and the center of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of above mean sea level...
; the couple later divorced.
Blanca Errazuriz lived until 1940, when she committed suicide in Viña del Mar.
Legacy
The case was the basis for the 1918 silent movieSilent Movie
Silent Movie is a 1976 satirical comedy film co-written, directed by, and starring Mel Brooks, and released by 20th Century Fox on June 17, 1976...
The Woman and the Law, directed by Raoul Walsh
Raoul Walsh
Raoul Walsh was an American film director, actor, founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the brother of silent screen actor George Walsh...
. It featured Jack Connors, Miriam Cooper
Miriam Cooper
Miriam Cooper was a silent film actress who is best known for her work in early film including Birth of a Nation and Intolerance for D.W. Griffith and The Honor System and Evangeline for her husband Raoul Walsh...
and Peggy Hopkins Joyce
Peggy Hopkins Joyce
Peggy Hopkins Joyce was an American actress and celebrity, famed as much for her several marriages to wealthy men, colorful divorces, scandalous affairs, her diamonds and generally lavish lifestyle as for her work on stage or screen.-Brief Biography:Born Marguerite Upton in Berkley, Virginia, she...
. (Guillermo Errázuriz, the diplomat brother of Blanca, killed himself in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1922, despondent over his love affair with Joyce.) The name "de Saulles" was changed to "La Salle" but the film's opening credits admit to being based on the story. Producer William Fox
William Fox (producer)
William Fox born Fried Vilmos was a pioneering Hungarian American motion picture executive who founded the Fox Film Corporation in 1915 and the Fox West Coast Theatres chain in the 1920s...
wanted Miriam Cooper
Miriam Cooper
Miriam Cooper was a silent film actress who is best known for her work in early film including Birth of a Nation and Intolerance for D.W. Griffith and The Honor System and Evangeline for her husband Raoul Walsh...
to play in the film, as she so closely resembled the woman she was to portray. According to Cooper, people on the street would mistake her for Blanca de Saulles. Cooper fell ill when the film was to go into production, bowed out, and was replaced by another actress, who proved to be so terrible that Fox laid down the law with Cooper, telling her to make the film no matter how sick or how well she felt. It also helped that Raoul Walsh was her husband.