Vernon and Irene Castle

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Castle, Vernon [né Blythe] (1887–1918), dancer. Coming to America from his native England, he made his debut in About Town (1906), the first of seven Lew Fields shows in which he danced and often served as Fields's stooge: The Girl Behind the Counter (1907), The Mimic World (1908), The Midnight Sons (1909), Old Dutch (1909), The Summer Widowers (1910), and The Hen‐Pecks (1911). After he married Irene Foote (1893–1969), who danced in the chorus of the last two shows, they went to Paris, where they perfected their ballroom technique and became a dancing sensation. On their return they almost single‐handedly initiated a rage for ballroom dancing in America, starting what was called “the dancing craze” and introducing or popularizing such dances as the tango, the Maxine, the Castle Walk, and the Turkey Trot. Vernon appeared briefly in The Lady of the Slipper (1912), a Victor Herbert musical Irene had walked out of during rehearsals, but they then danced as a team in The Sunshine Girl (1913) and in Irving Berlin's ragtime musical Watch Your Step (1914). The Castles were also applauded for their vaudeville appearances. While Vernon was training pilots for the war, Irene appeared alone in Miss 1917. After her husband was killed in a training accident, she retired from performing, although she helped later Broadway shows re‐create period dances. Autobiography: (Irene): Castles in the Air, 1958.

Ballroom dancers Vernon (1887-1918) and Irene (1893-1969) Castle led the craze for ragtime and Broadway routines adapted as social dances in the years before World War I.

Vernon Castle was born Vernon William Blythe in Norwich, England, on May 2, 1887. Although he graduated from Birmingham University with a degree in engineering, he also worked as a conjurer in clubs and at private parties. He came to New York with his sister Coralie and her husband Laurence Grossmith, who were actors. Adopting the surname Castle, he appeared in a series of shows produced by Broadway comedian Lew Fields: About Town (1907), The Girl Behind the Counter (1907), Old Dutch (1909), The Midnight Sons (1909), The Summer Widowers (1910), and The Hen-Pecks (1911). Castle's specialty was slapstick comedy. He was often cast as "second banana" to Fields and served as dancing partner to Lotta Faust and Topsy Siegrist.

Irene Castle was born Irene Foote on April 17, 1893, in New Rochelle, New York. She was the second daughter of Dr. Hubert Townsend Foote and Annie Elroy (Thomas) Foote, whose father was press agent for the Barnum and Bailey Circus. She attended several boarding schools but did not graduate from high school. As a child she studied dancing with Rosetta O'Neill, who taught a generation of children ballroom dancing. When she was a teenager, Irene appeared in amateur theatricals, often singing "The Yama-Yama Man," - the song made popular by Bessie McCoy in the Broadway show The Three Twins (1908). After attaining stardom, Irene credited certain aspects of her style to McCoy, "the high shoulder, the way I held my hands, and anything that looked well about my dancing."

The couple met in 1910 at the Rowing Club in New Rochelle, which was by then a popular place for show-people to live. He arranged an audition for her with Lew Fields, who engaged her as a dancer replacement for The Summer Widowers, her first professional appearance. Despite her father's doubts about welcoming an actor into the family, the couple was married in New Rochelle on May 28, 1911. They went to England for their honeymoon to meet his family, but returned to New York in time for the August opening of The Hen-Pecks with both Castles in the cast.

The Castles returned to Europe because he was engaged to appear in the barbershop sketch from The Hen-Pecks in a French revue (Enfin … Une Revue, Olympia Theatre, Paris, March 1912). The revue included a dance for the Castles set to the music of the young songwriter Irving Berlin's "Alexander's Ragtime Band." While in Paris the Castles tried out a ballroom dance routine at the Caféde Paris and made an instant impression. Later, she attributed their popularity to being "young, clean, married and well-mannered," but their appeal was based also on her appearance - a slim, boyish figure dressed in simple but tasteful dancing frocks (as she called them). She was the image of "the girl next door." The Castles projected their delight in dancing with each other and made the new dances look easy.

The Castles sailed back to New York after six months in Paris. They were booked by Louis Martin for his fashionable Café de l'Opera, and New York went dance crazy over the Castles.

In the period after 1910 when the Castles were busy devising their many dances, Black music and Black dance - the Texas tommy, foxtrot, grizzly bear, and others - had started to filter into the mainstream of American life. Ragtime became the inspiration for the composers of Tin Pan Alley. The Castles were the first white entertainers to hire Black musicians. James Reese Europe's orchestra provided music at the various clubs opened by the Castles and for the nation-wide "Whirlwind Tour" (1914), on which the Castles and their entourage played 24 cities in 32 days.

The Castles were cast in Charles Dillingham's 1912 Broadway production of The Lady of the Slipper, but left the show. Next came The Sunshine Girl (Knickerbocker, February 1913) and the opening of Castle House, their dancing school across from the Ritz Hotel and Sans Souci, a supper club. Later they opened Castles in the Air on the roof of the 44th Street Theatre. He taught dancing to fashionable ladies during the day and performed with his wife in their current Broadway show. Afterwards they would finish up in the wee hours of the morning at one of their after-hours clubs where they also performed.

In 1914 the Castles made a silent feature film, The Whirl of Life, loosely based on their own rise to fame. They also made a series of short films of their own dances.

She became a fashion leader. When she bobbed her hair, millions of women followed. Irene's light, floating "Castle frocks," headache band, and Dutch bonnet were extensively photographed, described in the journals, and copied. She endorsed fashion designs and sewing patterns through the Ladies Home Journal and Butterick Patterns.

The Castles opened on Broadway in Irving Berlin's Watch Your Step (December 8, 1914, New Amsterdam Theatre). He played the role of Joseph Lilyburn, a dance teacher. She played herself in a number with the boys chorus, "Show Us How To Do The Foxtrot," but the hit of the show was Berlin's "Syncopated Walk," which gave America a foretaste of the jazz decade ahead.

After the start of World War I Castle, who was a British citizen, grew restless as the dark news poured in from Europe. He left Watch Your Step in 1915. The Castles gave two farewell performances at the Hippodrome in New York with an orchestra led by John Philip Sousa. Vernon sailed for England, where he joined the Royal Air Force.

While he was away, she continued playing in Watch Your Step until 1916, then made Patria, a 15-part silent film. (She appeared in 16 more films before 1923.) In 1917 she was one of the stars in the Broadway flop Miss 1917, produced by Dillingham and Flo Ziegfeld.

He became an aerial photographer and was awarded the Croix de guerre for bravery. He was killed in a plane crash at Fort Benbrook, Texas, on February 15, 1918, on a training mission with a student pilot.

She appeared in vaudeville with William Reardon (1921-1922) in an act which Fred Astaire helped create. Her public career ended by 1923 when she married her third husband, Frederick McLaughlin, and moved to Chicago. (An earlier marriage after Castle's death to Robert E. Treman ended in divorce). The McLaughlins had two children. Castle married her fourth husband, George Enzinger, after McLaughlin's death.

In 1939 Castle acted as adviser to the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers film The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle. She also performed in several summer stock plays. Her chief interest in later life was in the field of animal rescue work.

Irene Castle died in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, on January 29, 1969. She is buried next to her first husband at Woodlawn Cemetery, New York.

Further Reading

Vernon and Irene Castle published Modern Dancing (1914), which described the dances they created. After Vernon's death, Irene published My Husband (1919), based on Vernon's letters from the front; later she wrote Castles In The Air (as told to Bob and Wanda Duncan, 1958). Both My Husband and Castles In The Air have been reprinted by Da Capo Press, New York. A chapter describing the 1939 Astaire-Rogers film The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle can be found in John Mueller's Astaire Dancing: The Musical Films (1985).

Additional Sources

Castle, Irene, My husband, New York: Da Capo Press, 1979, 1919.

Castle, Irene, Castles in the air, New York, N.Y.: Da Capo Press, 1980.

• Born: Apr 07, 1893 in New Rochelle, New York
• Died: Jan 25, 1969 in Eureka Springs, Arkansas
• Occupation: Actor, Writer
• Active: teens-'30s
• Major Genres: Drama, Musical
• Career Highlights: The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, Slim Shoulders, No Trespassing
• First Major Screen Credit: French Heels (1922)

Biography

Irene Castle, who formed a dance team with her husband Vernon Castle, was a trend setter of the early 1910s. She was one of the first women to popularize bobbed hair, and her easy style of dress formed the transition from the curvy, post-Victorian fashions to the streamlined flapper of the 1920s. As a team, she and her husband brought ballroom dancing into vogue and the couple were known for such steps as the fox trot, turkey trot, bunny hug, grizzly bear -- and, of course, the Castle Walk. Since the Castles became famous just when motion pictures were becoming respectable, it only made sense that they would eventually wind up on film and after Vernon's death in 1918, Irene starred in pictures for a number of years. The dancer was born Irene Foote, the daughter of a New Rochelle physician. In 1910, when she met Vernon Castle, he had already been a successful Broadway actor for several years. The couple wed in May 1911, and their fame as a team took off a few months later, when they went to Europe and were booked into the Café de Paris. Their dancing caused a sensation and when they returned to New York in 1914 -- a trip hastened by World War I -- they were already darlings of the international set. They appeared in Irving Berlin's Watch Your Step and had their own Manhattan cabaret Castles in the Air, along with another one in Long Beach called Castles by the Sea. After appearing in several short subjects, the couple made a feature film, 1915's The Whirl of Life. This was their only film together -- Vernon, a British subject, joined the Royal Flying Corps and in February 1918, he was killed in a flying accident while training pilots outside of Houston, TX. In 1939, the story of their marriage became the film The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle which starred Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. During shooting, Irene was a stickler for accuracy, much to the annoyance of the cast and crew. While Vernon was in the service, Irene starred in a 15-episode serial produced by William Randolph Hearst called Patria, which was so rabid in its anti-Mexican and anti-Japanese propaganda that then-President Wilson requested that changes be made. During 1917 and 1918, she starred in nine features for Pathe (one of them Sylvia of the Secret Service features Erich Von Stroheim in a bit part). After appearing as France in J. Stuart Blackton's allegory The Common Cause, she made three pictures for Artcraft/Paramount. In May 1919, Castle married Robert Elias Treman. Though a banker by profession, he turned producer and starred his new wife in four films with Edwin L. Hollywood as director. The couple divorced in 1923. In November 1923, Irene Castle married her third husband, Major Frederic McLaughlin, and retired from the screen. Two years after McLaughlin's death in 1944, she wed George Enzinger and they settled in Arkansas on a fruit farm. In later years, she devoted herself to animal rights and was a highly vocal anti-vivisectionist. She couldn't totally leave her past behind, however, and in 1964 she was honored as the First Lady of Ballroom Dancing. Castle died of congestive heart failure after a brief illness. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

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