Lois Sturt

The Honourable Lois Ina Sturt (25 August 1900 – 18 September 1937) was one of the Bright Young Things of the 1920s. Later the lover of the Earl of Pembroke and the Duke of Kent, she married Evan Morgan, 2nd Viscount Tredegar. Biography Lois Ina Sturt was born on 25 August 1900, the daughter of Humphrey Sturt, 2nd Baron Alington, and Lady Feodorowna Yorke. Her maternal grandfather was Charles Yorke, 5th Earl of Hardwicke, and her brother was Napier Sturt, 3rd Baron Alington. She became famous as the most painted woman of England: at just 20 years old, she had already seven portraits taken, including 4 sketches by Etienne Drian, studies in oil by Ambrose McEvoy, Olive Snell and Gerald Kelly and a self-portrait. All seven were exhibited in 1921 at the annual show of the National Portrait Gallery. She attended the Slade School of Art and scandalizing society, she opened her own art studio in Chelsea. Wyndham Lewis said she was "the most beautiful debutante of her day" and Barbara Cartland said she was "fiery, impetuous, and with dark, flashing eyes." She was one of the Bright Young Things of the 1920s. She was among the founders of the notorious all-night treasure hunts, and she was fined for having driven her car at 51 miles an hour through Regent's Park at 2 o'clock in the morning. She had told the arresting officer, "But I must get there, I must get there before someone else finds the next clue." Her close friends were: Tallulah Bankhead, Poppy Baring, Lady Victoria Bullock, Barbara Cartland, Madame Louis Cartier, Gladys Cooper, Nancy Cunard, Mona Dunn, Hon. Diamond Hardinge, Sonia Keppel, later Hon. Mrs Roland Cubitt, Anita Leslie, Eleanor Smith, Viola Tree. Dubbed as "bacchante", she drank a lot and partied even more. She was one of the few female racehorse owners of her day. Moreover, she was an accomplished dancer and a fully trained pilot. Even if she was a trained artist, she in the end became an actress, one of the first of the Bright Young Things to make it. In 1921 she played a court lady in The Virgin Queen (Lady Diana Cooper played Queen Elizabeth I) and in 1922 she was Nell Gwyn in The Glorious Adventure, the first British colour film.