Lou Tellegen

Lou Tellegen, born Isidor Louis Bernard Edmon van Dommelen on November 26, 1883, in Sint-Oedenrode, Netherlands, was a Dutch-born stage and film actor, film director, screenwriter, and book writer whose Broadway career spanned from 1910 to 1933. He was the illegitimate child of lieutenant Isidore Louis Bernard Edmon Tellegen (1836–1902) of the West-Indian Army and Anna Maria van Dommelen (1844–1917), who was a widow at the time of his birth.

Tellegen made his stage debut in Amsterdam in 1903 and built a sufficient reputation over the following years to earn an invitation to perform in Paris, where he eventually co-starred with Sarah Bernhardt in multiple productions. His romantic involvement with Bernhardt accompanied his professional partnership with her. In 1910, the two appeared together in the French silent film La dame aux camélias, based on the play by Alexandre Dumas, fils, marking Tellegen's motion picture debut. That same year, Tellegen and Bernhardt traveled to the United States, where The New York Times published and subsequently retracted an announcement of their impending marriage; Bernhardt was 39 years his senior. The pair returned to France and made a second film together in 1912, Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth, followed by Adrienne Lecouvreur in 1913, a film now considered lost.

In the summer of 1913, Tellegen traveled to London, where he produced and starred in a stage production based on Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. He subsequently returned to the United States to work in theatre and made his first American film in 1915, The Explorer, followed by The Unknown, both featuring Dorothy Davenport as his co-star. He then appeared in three consecutive films alongside Geraldine Farrar. His Broadway credits during this period and beyond included starring roles in A King of Nowhere and The Great Lover, as well as appearances in The Lady Refuses. In 1920, Tellegen authored and starred in Blind Youth, which toured in Toronto at the Princess Theatre before its Broadway run.

Tellegen married four times. His first marriage, in 1903 to a sculptor, produced a daughter. He married Geraldine Farrar in 1916; that marriage ended in divorce in 1923, and when asked to comment on his death, Farrar replied, "Why should that interest me?" His third marriage was to actress Nina Romano, whose real name was Isabel Craven Dilworth, with whom he had a son. His fourth wife was silent film star Eve Casanova, whose real name was Julia Horne. Tellegen became an American citizen in 1918. On December 25, 1929, he sustained burns to his face after falling asleep while smoking, an incident that occurred while he was preparing for an out-of-town tryout. He subsequently underwent extensive plastic surgery to repair the damage.

In 1931, Tellegen published his autobiography, Women Have Been Kind. By that same year, his popularity had declined considerably, and he struggled to find acting work while also facing significant debt, ultimately filing for bankruptcy. He was diagnosed with cancer around this time, though the diagnosis was withheld from him. On October 29, 1934, while staying as a guest of Edna Cudahy at the Cudahy Mansion at 1844 North Vine Street in Hollywood, Tellegen died by suicide. He was cremated and his remains were scattered at sea.