Mary Duff Stirling Smurthwaite, Lady Twysden (22 May 1891 – 27 June 1938)
was a British socialite best known for being the model for
Brett Ashley
''The Sun Also Rises'' is a 1926 novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, his first, that portrays American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the bu ...
in
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...
's 1926 novel ''
The Sun Also Rises
''The Sun Also Rises'' is a 1926 novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, his first, that portrays American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the ...
''.
[M. C. Rintoul, ''Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction'', Routledge, p909 (online at google books)]
She was the eldest child of Baynes Wright Smurthwaite by his wife Charlotte Lilias Stirling.
On 4 January 1914 her engagement to John Churchill Craigie, son of
Pearl Richards Craigie
Pearl Mary Teresa Richards (November 3, 1867 – August 13, 1906) was an Anglo-American novelist and dramatist who wrote under the pen-name of John Oliver Hobbes. Though her work fell out of print in the twentieth-century, her first book ''Som ...
, was announced, but her first marriage was to
Edward Luttrell Grimston Byrom, son of Edward Byrom DL of Culver, Devon and
Kersal Cell
Kersal is a suburb and district of Salford in the City of Salford, Greater Manchester, England, northwest of Manchester and was historically part of the county of Lancashire.
History
Kersal has been variously known as Kereshale, Kershal, Ker ...
, Lancashire, who served as
High Sheriff of Devon in 1888, by his wife Florence Maria, daughter and co-heiress of Marmaduke Jerard Grimston, of Grimston Garth and
Kilnwick. Luttrell Byrom petitioned for divorce in 1915 citing one G. Henderson as a
co-respondent. Her second marriage was at Edinburgh on 26 January 1917, to
Sir Roger Thomas Twysden, a naval officer. He had succeeded as
tenth Baronet on 1 May 1911,
so Duff became known as Lady Twysden. Their son Anthony, later eleventh Baronet, was born on 11 March 1918.
Sir Roger and Lady Twysden were divorced in 1926.
Duff Twysden eventually married artist Clinton King. She died in Santa Fe, New Mexico of
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in w ...
when she was forty-seven.
Twysden was famous for adopting a boyish, androgynous fashion style, with a bobbed haircut and workingmen's clothes, before this was fashionable. She was also sexually adventurous without apology at a time when this was scandalous.
In the 1988 miniseries ''Hemingway'', starring
Stacy Keach
Walter Stacy Keach Jr. (born June 2, 1941) is an American actor and narrator. He has played mainly dramatic roles throughout his career, often in law enforcement or as a private detective. His most prominent role was as Mickey Spillane's fiction ...
, Duff Twysden was played by
Fiona Fullerton
Fiona Elizabeth Fullerton (born 10 October 1956) is a British actress and singer, known for her role as Alice in the 1972 film ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' and as Bond girl KGB spy Pola Ivanova in the 1985 James Bond film ''A View to a ...
.
References
Clinton Blair King marriage st giles,London 1928 to Smurthwaite/Twysden
{{DEFAULTSORT:Twysden, Duff
1890s births
1938 deaths
British socialites
Ernest Hemingway
Wives of baronets