Ads, articles, and filler from old Toronto newspapers
Here’s another photo from the August 22 1925 edition of the Toronto Daily Star:
I looked Miss Nancy Bowes Lyon’s name up in Google, and the only person of that name referenced was a Nancy Bowes-Lyon who lived from 1918 to 1959, which was obviously a different person. So this Nancy was almost certainly not related to the Earl of Strathmore. Oh well – nothing ventured, nothing gained.
The August 22 1925 edition of the Toronto Daily Star contained this photo of a Scottish nobleman and his bride.
Oddly enough, the Wikipedia page for Sir Michael Bruce (1894-1957) doesn’t mention his marriage to Miss Doreen Greenwall, let alone his near-marriage to the unfortunate Emmeline Marion Grace, daughter of the president of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. He is listed as marrying Elizabeth Constance Plummer of Toronto, who unfortunately passed away in the war, and then as marrying again in 1945.
This page states that Sir Michael married a total of four times: between his (presumed) divorce from Miss Greenwall and his marrying Miss Plummer, he married and divorced Anne Patricia Disney.
The August 22 1925 edition of the Toronto Daily Star contained this photograph of the then Duke and Duchess of York, who were apparently being considered as rulers of Poland.
Since the Duke of York was second in line to the English throne, it was assumed that his older brother would become King, leaving the Duke free to rule Poland or wherever. But no one knew at the time that the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII, would abdicate in 1936, meaning that the Duke would become King George VI.
And Poland has never re-established the monarchy since it was abolished in 1918, so the job of King of Poland has never become available.
One last photo from the June 3 1925 Toronto Daily Star:
I included this photo mostly because a Google search for “Louise Kartonisch” turned up absolutely nothing at all. A search for “Revanche” also turned up nothing, mostly because there is a recent film with the same name that overwhelms the search results. The mysterious Louise and her mysterious Revanche appear to be lost to history.
The photo section of the June 3 1925 Toronto Daily Star contained this photograph of two young English women enjoying themselves:
I guess this is an early example of, ahem, stock photography. (Sorry.)
The June 3 1925 edition of the Toronto Daily Star contained two ads on the same page for products that claimed that they were effective against rheumatism.
Product #1 had the appropriate name of Rheuma:
Who would not want swift, gratifying relief from agonizing pains (I mean, seriously)? A Google search on Rheuma found nothing, so I have no idea what it contained.
Product #2 was gin pills:
Gin Pills were apparently primarily marketed as being good for the kidneys, and gin-soaked raisins have long been considered a folk remedy for arthritis, though there is no proof that this actually works.
According to Google Maps, there actually is a place named Lower Economy in Nova Scotia. I guess business didn’t exactly boom there.
The June 3 1925 edition of the Toronto Daily Star contained this photo of Princess Ingrid of Sweden:
Ingrid of Sweden was 15 when this photograph was taken. She later switched Scandinavian countries – she became Queen of Denmark from 1947 to 1972 when her husband, Crown Prince Frederick, became King Frederick IX. She passed away in 2000; her daughter is now Queen Margrethe II.
Recently, I’ve found two separate movie ads featuring Betty Balfour. The first is from the February 22 1923 edition of the Toronto Daily Star:
She was apparently winsome, piquant, and charming.
The second ad was a little over two years later, in the May 7 1925 edition of the Daily Star:
Now, she is billed as the “Queen of Happiness”. That’s quite a title to live up to!
Betty Balfour (1903-1977) was a British actress who began performing on the stage when she was ten. She appeared in movies regularly until 1936; after that, she had only one movie role, and apparently failed when attempting to return to the stage in 1952. She never made a movie in the United States.
As for the movies listed here:
Here’s another photograph from the May 7 1925 edition of the Toronto Daily Star:
Alla Nazimova (1879-1945) emigrated to the United States in 1905. The Encyclopedia Britannica entry for her states that she became a U.S. citizen in 1927. Among other things, she was the godmother of future U.S. First Lady Nancy Reagan.
Her divorce turned out to be quite interesting: she wasn’t actually married in 1925. She had originally married Sergei Golovin, a Russian actor, in 1899, and the two divorced in 1923. On moving to the U.S., she pursued relationships with women, and pretended to be married to Charles Bryant as a cover. When Bryant married later in 1925, it was discovered that he and Nazimova were never married, which caused a scandal.
Ms. Nazimova also owned an estate on Sunset Boulevard named “The Garden of Alla”, and apparently hosted outlandish parties there. Financial setbacks forced her to convert her estate into a hotel in 1927; she then sold it and returned to Broadway. In 1938, she moved back to Hollywood and rented one of the villas of her former hotel, in which she lived until she passed away.
The May 7 1925 edition of the Toronto Daily Star contained a photograph of a British admiral named Sir Doveton Sturdee who had passed away that day, which I have included here just because I love the sound of his name.
Wikipedia has an entry for Sir Doveton, whose full name was Sir Frederick Charles Doveton Sturdee, 1st Baronet GCB, KCMG, CVO. He was awarded a baronetcy in 1916 after sinking almost all of an entire German naval squadron, and passed away only four years after his retirement in 1921.
(By the way: one of my projects is to figure out when newspapers changed from using “to-day” to the modern “today”. So far, all I’ve found is that the old spelling was phased out sometime in the early 20th century, but I already know that.)
Toronto Old News 