The Hatching Cat of Gotham

“Her death last year was the hardest to bear of any – until his came. Somehow I like to think that her little soul was waiting to greet his, so that he mightn’t feel strange or alone in the great world above us. I can see her jumping and running for joy and licking his hand to show she has not forgotten, and crying – just a little—to find I had not come too.”—Irene Castle shares memories of Zowie in her book “My Husband,” 1919

You’ve no doubt heard of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. This is a story about Vernon and Irene Castle, a great dance team that rose to fame when Fred and Ginger were just children.

In the early 1900s, Vernon and Irene Castle were two of America’s favorite stars. The dances they created, like the Castle Walk and Hesitation Waltz, were all the rage around the world. Irene and Vernon were international symbols of youth and beauty, and millions of people tried to dance and dress and style their hair just like them.

According to one story told in the Tarrytown Daily News and several other upstate New York papers, Vernon and Irene were both swimming in the Long Island Sound at the New Rochelle Yacht Club in the summer of 1909 when a little English bulldog swam beyond her limit and began to flounder.

Irene and Vernon both came to her rescue and thus became acquainted. They named the dog Zowie after Zowie, the Monarch of Mystery, which was a role Vernon Castle (his stage name) played in The Hen-Pecks at the Broadway Theatre. (Other reports claim that Irene and Vernon received the dog as a gift from Irene’s father after they married, which makes more sense when you look at the timeline. The Hen-Pecks first opened in February 1911, so they couldn’t have named the dog after Zowie the Monarch of Mystery in 1909. But of course, I prefer the rescue tale.)

Born in 1893 in New Rochelle, New York, Irene was the daughter of Dr. Hubert Townsend Foote and Annie Elroy Thomas Foote. She lived in New Rochelle until 1910, when she moved in with her older sister, Elroy, on Columbus Avenue in Manhattan to be closer to her new beau, Vernon William Blythe. Vernon proposed to her on Christmas Day, 1910, and they married on May 28, 1911, at the Foote residence in New Rochelle.

In 1912, the Castles traveled to Paris, where Vernon was appearing in a French musical revue. Their stay in Paris was short lived, though, as Irene had to return to America in May 1912 to attend her father’s funeral.

Accompanied by Zowie, Irene spent a lot of time on the ship looking out for icebergs and staying on deck, determined to get in a lifeboat if necessary (the Titanic had gone down only a year earlier). “In the confusion of abandoning ship, they would think I was carrying a baby” she told the press. “A very ugly baby.”

A Castle Tour of New York City

During their brief marriage, Vernon and Irene Castle spent most of their time between New York City and Long Island. They had a townhouse in the building previously occupied by Irene’s father and grandfather at 120 Lexington Avenue.

They also purchased the J.R. Ely estate in Manhasset near the Long Island Sound. Here they had kennels and stables for their 24 dogs (including 12 police dogs), 5 horses, donkey, and numerous other animals.

Irene and Vernon never had children; however, they had lots of pets to keep them company, many of whom were performing animals that they rescued from the theater. In addition to Zowie, some of their favorite fur-babies included a German shepherd named Tell van Flugerard, a monkey named Rastas, and a dog named Punchinello. Many say that in addition to their dancing, it was their shared love of animals that kept them united.

Goodbye, Zowie and Vernon

Born in Norfolk, England, in 1887, Vernon was very concerned about the fate of his home country during World I. So he temporarily gave up dancing, enlisted in the British military, and joined the 84th Royal Flying Corps Squadron. He flew 300 combat missions, shot down two German planes, and was awarded the French Croix de Guerre (War Cross) for heroism.

In 1917, Vernon returned to the U.S. as part of a program established by General John J. “Blackjack” Pershing to train American and Canadian aviators at Benbrook Flying Field in Texas. That same year, the couple lost two beloved pets. On July 18, 1917, Punchinello, a small dog (probably a Griffon), was killed in a fall. A few weeks later, on August 2, Zowie passed away. Both dogs were buried in the Castle plot at Hartsdale Pet Cemetery in Westchester County.

On February 15, 1918, Vernon was killed during a training mission in Texas. According to news reports, Captain Castle had attempted to avert a collision with another plane by “zeeming up” 75 feet. At such a sharp angle, his engine died, causing the plane to turn on its side and plunge nose-first to the ground. Neither the cadet student nor Vernon’s monkey Jeffrey were injured in the crash.

Vernon was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. For his memorial, Irene recreated a bronze sculpture of a tired ballet dancer titled End of the Day, which depicts a nude dancer coiled into a ball after an exhausting day of practice. A memorial for Vernon was erected in 1966 at the crash site in Texas near the corner of Vernon Castle Avenue and Cozby West.

Just six months after Vernon’s death, in August 1918, Irene was secretly married to U.S. Army Captain Robert E. Treman, reportedly a childhood friend. (Their public marriage took place on May 3, 1919.) She sold her property at 120 and 122 Lexington Avenue two months later, and the couple moved into their gift from Terman’s father — a large home called Greystone on Cayuga Heights Road in Ithaca.

Four years later, on July 24, 1923, the couple got a divorce in Paris on the ground that “he refused to observe the marital relations.” (In the early 1900s, many couples established legal domicile in France in order to more easily obtain a divorce in the French courts.) The couple’s beautiful home overlooking Cayuga Lake was purchased for $67,000 by the Sigma Chi Alumni Association at Cornell University in 1925. Today the home is the chapter house of the Alpha Phi Chapter of Sigma Chi Fraternity.

Not unlike Mable Lorraine Miller, the femme fatale in my last post who had five husbands, Irene didn’t waste any time making her next conquest. Just four months after her divorce to Captain Treman, she married Major Frederic McLaughlin, a divorced sportsman from Chicago who was a millionaire coffee merchant and owner of the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team.

In September 1937, Irene sued her third husband for divorce (I’m beginning to think that divorce was very popular in the 1920s and 1930s). She withdrew the suit two years later, but the couple continued to live apart. Frederic died in December 1944, and Irene was married one more time in 1946 to George Enzinger, a divorced Chicago advertising executive.

Irene Foote Castle Treman McLaughlin Enzinger died at the age of 75 on January 25, 1969, in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Just five years earlier, while in New York to be the guest of honor at America’s Ball of the Year, Irene told a reporter that when she died, she wanted her gravestone to say “humanitarian” rather than “dancer.” She said she only danced for fun and money, but “Orphans of the Storm comes from my heart. It’s more important.”