Vernon and Irene Castle's Ragtime Revolution

7. "They liked to test out their guns"

Actress Elsie Janis wrote bluntly of the Castles in her memoirs: “Vernon was the most tactful person I ever knew! Irene the least! The result was that women,unless they knew her well,were not terribly enthusiastic about her. To know her well was about as easy as getting chummy with the Sphinx!” Janis eventually did become friends with Irene, but only after the two were no longer theatrical rivals and both had heartbreaks to nurse. We have no surviving accounts to tell us Vernon’s opinions of his wife’s overwhelming personality, but Irene had ample opportunity to write about Vernon. She once claimed, “I have never heard of anyone who disliked him, and I don’t believe he really disliked anyone, either, but he could get most delightfully bored; things had to keep up a pretty lively tempo to hold his interest, and even those he loved bored him at times.” His public image was one of unflappability: always calm, serene, brushing over the hurt feelings sometimes left in Irene’s wake. But he was also a bundle of energy and could be childish as well as childlike in his moods. “There was no one who could keep up with him,” said Irene. “He rode and swam harder than anyone else and could outsit anyone at a party, requiring very little sleep,and despising,more than anything,an idle moment.He seemed absolutely tireless and more alive than anyone I have ever known.” Irene, as the keeper of the Castles’ flame in later years, reminisced fondly of their years together as blissful, joyous, free of strife. But the Castles , as many of their contemporaries recalled, loved a good fight: if not with managers or rivals, then with each other. Vernon’s spending, his boyish insouciance, Irene’s distaste for rehearsal and her star complex—all were good reasons for verbal battles.These were,after all,two young people who barely knew each other, and who found themselves thrust into a very strange world of constant hard work (involving close physical contact and cooperation), as poverty and unimaginable wealth equally dangled before “THEY LIKED TO TEST OUT THEIR GUNS” CHAPTER SEVEN  38 VERNON AND IRENE CASTLE’S RAGTIME REVOLUTION them. “They liked to test out their guns,” said their manager, Elisabeth Marbury, adding, however, that “these recurrent scenes invariably ended in sunshine, and in renewed turtle-doving.” Their fights seemed staged for the sheer fun and effect,compared by Marbury to a rich little boy who puts on rags and begs in the snow for “the attention of onlookers” and “sympathetic comment.” The term drama queen had not yet been coined, but it seems to perfectly suit the Castles at the dawn of their fame. There were also snide, unpleasant insinuations in the newspapers that Vernon was gay, though in the 90s no one could actually come out and say such a thing.But he was referred to as “lisping,”“drawling,”“sashaying,” “flighty”—all the stereotypes associated with gay men. There were several reasons for this: to some Americans, “British” and “effeminate” went hand in hand. Vernon was an actor and a dancer, both putting him under suspicion . He was slim, graceful, natty, and well dressed, and wore wristwatches, which were considered pretty effeminate before World War I. When he spoke of enlisting in the war, there was a lot of rude disbelief in the press. The rumors continued after his death, as no publicity was given to love affairs with other women (Irene made quite sure of that). Were the Castles genuinely a couple, or was theirs a marriage of convenience ? A little of both,probably.Irene’s son,William McLaughlin,feels the marriage was indeed a love—or at least affection—match and insists his mother never would have submitted to a sexless union, even in her teens. “Whether they were in love or whether they were in ‘excitement’ of an adventure together might be a little hard to tell,”says McLaughlin.“I’m not sure there really is a dividing line: somewhere along the line you melt friendship, convenience, accommodation and so forth into something that might be called ‘romance.’ I think they were romantically inclined.” While Vernon was in The Hen-Pecks, he got an offer from a French producer,Jacques Charles,to appear in a Parisian revue in an extended version of the barbershop sketch. Lew Fields had sold Charles the rights and reluctantly agreed to let...