Lady Diana Cooper
Encyclopedia
Lady Diana Cooper, Viscountess Norwich (29 August 1892 – 16 June 1986) was an English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 socialite and actress.

Birth and youth

Born Lady Diana Olivia Winifred Maud Manners, she was officially the youngest daughter of the 8th Duke of Rutland
Henry Manners, 8th Duke of Rutland
Henry John Brinsley Manners, 8th Duke of Rutland KG TD , known as Henry Manners until 1888 and styled Marquess of Granby between 1888 and 1906, was a British peer and Conservative politician.-Background:...

 and his wife, the former Violet Lindsay
Marion Margaret Violet Lindsay
Violet Lindsay Manners, Duchess of Rutland was a British artist and noblewoman.-Family:She was the second daughter of Charles Hugh Lindsay and Emilia Anne Browne...

, but Lady Diana's real father was widely supposed to be the writer Henry Cust
Henry Cust
Henry John "Harry" Cockayne-Cust was an English politician and editor who served as a Member of Parliament for the Unionist Party.-Biography:...

. In her prime, she had the widespread reputation as the most beautiful young woman in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, and appeared in countless profiles, photographs and articles in newspapers and magazines.

She became active in The Coterie
The Coterie
The Coterie was a fashionable and famous set of English aristocrats and intellectuals of the 1910s, widely quoted and profiled in magazines and newspapers of the period. It adopted the hostile description as a "corrupt coterie"....

, an influential group of young English aristocrat
Aristocracy (class)
The aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...

s and intellectuals of the 1910s whose prominence and numbers were cut short by the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. Lady Diana was the most famous of the group, but it included Raymond Asquith
Raymond Asquith
Raymond Asquith was an English barrister and eldest son and heir of British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith by his first wife Helen Kelsall Melland .- Career and honours :...

 (son of H. H. Asquith
H. H. Asquith
Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG, PC, KC served as the Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916...

, the Prime Minister), Patrick Shaw-Stewart
Patrick Shaw-Stewart
Patrick Houston Shaw-Stewart was a brilliant Eton College and Oxford scholar of the Edwardian era who died on active service as a battalion commander in the Royal Naval Division during the First World War....

, Edward Horner, Sir Denis Anson and Duff Cooper
Duff Cooper
Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich GCMG, DSO, PC , known as Duff Cooper, was a British Conservative Party politician, diplomat and author. He wrote six books, including an autobiography, Old Men Forget, and a biography of Talleyrand...

. Following the sudden deaths of Asquith, Horner, Shaw-Stewart, and Anson—the first three in the war; Anson by drowning—Lady Diana married Cooper
Duff Cooper
Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich GCMG, DSO, PC , known as Duff Cooper, was a British Conservative Party politician, diplomat and author. He wrote six books, including an autobiography, Old Men Forget, and a biography of Talleyrand...

, one of her circle of friends' last surviving male members, in June 1919. It was not a popular choice in the Manners household, since the bride's parents had hoped for a marriage to the Prince of Wales
Edward VIII of the United Kingdom
Edward VIII was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, and Emperor of India, from 20 January to 11 December 1936.Before his accession to the throne, Edward was Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay...

. As for Cooper, he once impulsively wrote a letter to Lady Diana, before their marriage, declaring, "I hope everyone you like better than me will die very soon." In 1929 she gave birth to her only child, John Julius (now known as John Julius Norwich), who became a writer and broadcaster.

Career as actress

After working as a nurse during the war and working as editor of the magazine Femina, she wrote a column in the Beaverbrook
Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
William Maxwell "Max" Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, Bt, PC, was a Canadian-British business tycoon, politician, and writer.-Early career in Canada:...

 newspapers before turning to the stage, playing the Madonna in the revival of The Miracle
The Miracle (play)
The Miracle was a 1911 play written by Karl Vollmöller and directed by Max Reinhardt, from which three movie versions were later adapted. The play first appeared as a spectacle-pantomime in Germany in 1911....

(directed by Max Reinhardt
Max Reinhardt (theatre director)
----Max Reinhardt was an Austrian theater and film director and actor.-Biography:...

). The play achieved outstanding international success, and she toured for two years with the cast. Lady Diana subsequently starred in several silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

s, including the first British colour films.

Social figure, wife of ambassador

In 1924, Duff Cooper gained election to Parliament
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

, while his wife continued as a society celebrity. Her reputation became even more celebrated in 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...

 as the centerpoint of immediate post second world war French literary culture when her husband served from 1944 to 1948 as Britain's ambassador to France. During this period, Lady Diana's popularity as a hostess remained undimmed, even after allegations that the embassy guest list included "pederasts and collaborators".

Following Duff Cooper's retirement in 1947, they continued to live in France at Chantilly
Chantilly, Oise
Chantilly is a small city in northern France. It is designated municipally as a commune in the department of Oise.It is in the metropolitan area of Paris 38.4 km...

, until his death in 1954. He was created Viscount Norwich
Viscount Norwich
Viscount Norwich, of Aldwick in the County of Sussex, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1952 for the Conservative politician, author and former Ambassador to France, Sir Duff Cooper. He was the son of Sir Alfred Cooper and the husband of Lady Diana Manners. the...

 in 1952, for services to the nation, but Lady Diana refused to be called Viscountess Norwich, claiming that it sounded like "porridge". She made an official announcement in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

to this effect, stating that no matter her husband's change in rank, and therefore her own, she would continue to be known as Lady Diana Cooper.

Later years

Lady Diana sharply reduced her activities in the late 1950s but did produce three volumes of memoirs: The Rainbow Comes and Goes, The Light of Common Day, and Trumpets from the Steep. The three volumes are included in a compilation called Autobiography (ISBN 978-0571-247578). She died in 1986, aged 93.

Books about or influenced by Lady Diana

Philip Ziegler
Philip Ziegler
-Background:Born in Ringwood, Ziegler was educated at St Cyprian's School, Eastbourne, and went with the school when it merged with Summer Fields School, Oxford. He was afterwards at Eton College and New College, Oxford...

 wrote Diana Cooper: A Biography (ISBN 0-241-10659-1) in 1981; it was published by Hamish Hamilton
Hamish Hamilton
Hamish Hamilton Limited was a British book publishing house, founded in 1931 eponymously by the half-Scot half-American Jamie Hamilton . Confusingly, Jamie Hamilton was often referred to as Hamish Hamilton...

. Several writers used her as inspiration for their novels, including Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...

, who fictionalized her as Mrs. Stitch
Mrs. Stitch
Mrs. Algernon Stitch, more familiarly known as Julia Stitch, is a character created by Evelyn Waugh, best known for her role in the novel Scoop. The character was inspired by Waugh's friendship with the well-connected socialite, Lady Diana Cooper....

 in the Sword of Honour
Sword of Honour
The Sword of Honour trilogy by Evelyn Waugh is his look at the Second World War. It consists of three novels, Men at Arms , Officers and Gentlemen and Unconditional Surrender , which loosely parallel his wartime experiences...

trilogy and elsewhere, and Nancy Mitford
Nancy Mitford
Nancy Freeman-Mitford, CBE , styled The Hon. Nancy Mitford before her marriage and The Hon. Mrs Peter Rodd thereafter, was an English novelist and biographer, one of the Bright Young People on the London social scene in the inter-war years...

, who portrayed her as the narcissistic, self-dramatizing Lady Leone in Don't Tell Alfred. In F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...

's short story "The Jelly-bean", the character Nancy Lamar states that she wants to be like Lady Diana Manner. Enid Bagnold
Enid Bagnold
Enid Algerine Bagnold, Lady Jones, CBE , known by her maiden name as Enid Bagnold, was a British author and playwright, best known for the 1935 story National Velvet which was filmed in 1944 with Elizabeth Taylor....

 published The Loved and Envied (ISBN 0-86068-978-6) in 1951. The novel, based on Lady Diana and her group of friends, dealt with the effects of aging on a beautiful woman. Oliver Anderson dedicated Random Rendezvous, published in 1955, to "Diana Cooper and Jenny Day".

Titles from birth to death

These are Lady Norwich's formal titles; however, she continued to be informally styled after 1952, at her request, as Lady Diana Cooper.
  • The Lady Diana Manners (1892–1919)
  • The Lady Diana Cooper (1919–1952)
  • The Rt Hon. The Viscountess Norwich (1952–1954)
  • The Rt Hon. The Dowager Viscountess Norwich (1954–1986)

Selected filmography

  • The Glorious Adventure
    The Glorious Adventure (1922 film)
    The Glorious Adventure is a US/UK feature film directed by J. Stuart Blackton, written by Felix Orman.-Production background:The film was made entirely in Prizmacolor, and starred Lady Diana Manners, Gerald Lawrence, Cecil Humphreys, and Victor McLaglen, and was released by United Artists.Neither...

    (1922)
  • The Virgin Queen
    The Virgin Queen (1923 film)
    The Virgin Queen is a British silent historical film directed by J. Stuart Blackton and starring Diana Manners, Carlyle Blackwell and Walter Tennyson.-Production background:...

    (1923)

Lady Diana Cooper in Popular Culture

Lady Diana Cooper is briefly mentioned in the last verse of the vaudeville song, Burlington Bertie from Bow
Burlington Bertie
"Burlington Bertie" is a music hall song composed by Harry B. Norris in 1900 and sung by Vesta Tilley. It concerns an aristocratic young idler who pursues a life of leisure in the West End of London....

:

I'm Burlington Bertie I rise at ten thirty
And Buckingham Palace I view.
I stand in the yard while they're changing the guard
And the queen shouts across "Toodle oo"!
The Prince of Wales' brother along with some other
Slaps me on the back and says "Come and see Mother"
I'm Bert, Bert, and royalty's hurt,
When they ask me to dine I say no.
I've just had a banana with Lady Diana
I'm Burlington Bertie from Bow.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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