Unveiling Lola Montez: The Trailblazing Dancer Who Inspires Mystery

Kirsten Weiss
3 days ago
5 min read

--By Kirsten Weiss, Cozy Mystery Writer

I have a soft spot for scandalous historical figures who refuse to sit quietly, and Lola Montez is one of my favorites.

Her life reads like a serialized gossip column, a stage drama, and a history lesson all rolled into one, and she kept me thinking about how real lives can spark a mystery novel.

From Eliza to Lola — Reinvention as Performance

She was born Eliza in 1821, Irish by birth and audacious by nature.

She reinvented herself as Lola Montez, a Spanish dancer, and the new name was only the first of many theatrical choices she would make in life.

That reinvention is the kind of detail I love to pull into a cozy mystery, because it gives a character a secret origin and a flair for the dramatic.

Lola became famous — or infamous — for performances that flirted with provocation and for cultivating lovers, enemies, and headlines at the same time.

The Spider Dance and King Ludwig — Power and Politics

One of her most outrageous acts was the spider dance, where she pretended to be covered in spiders and dramatically shook them off.

It was audacious, theatrical, and perfectly suited to the effect she wanted to create.

When she arrived in Munich in 1846, the sixty-year-old King Ludwig I fell hard and fast.

He made her his mistress, showered her with wealth, built an extravagant villa, and even granted her a title despite noble objections.

But Lola was not merely decorative.

She had real influence and she used it, pushing the king toward conservative reforms that enraged many and sparked riots.

Her sway over Ludwig and the backlash that followed led to her exile and eventually to Ludwig's abdication in favor of his son Maximilian.

That public melodrama is the kind of historical knot I tug on when I want a thread of political intrigue woven into a mystery plot.

A Life on the Road — America, Gold Rush, and Mentorship

In 1851 Lola arrived in America to cash in on her notoriety as a performer and a scandalous celebrity.

She toured the United States, entering the swirl of the Gold Rush era and carving out a career that mixed performance with spectacle.

She spent two years in California, and during that time she took an eight-year-old Lotta Crabtree under her wing, teaching her dance and stagecraft.

Lotta later became one of California’s most beloved performers, and Lola’s role as mentor is a quieter but profound part of her legacy.

That tenderness toward a young protégé is the kind of human anchor I like to give to morally complicated characters in a cozy mystery.

Australia, a Whip, and Public Fury

Lola tried her luck in Australia in 1855, but the reception was mixed at best.

She reportedly attacked a critical newspaper editor with a riding whip — not a crop — which is equal parts terrifying and oddly theatrical.

She left Australia and returned to the States in 1856, where she shifted from dancing to delivering lectures about love and beauty.

Her career is a study in adaptability, something any protagonist in a mystery novel can admire or exploit.

Spiritualism, Seances, and the Supernatural Thread

One lesser-known part of her story that delighted me was her dabbling in spiritualism.

In the 1850s spiritualism was wildly popular, and Lola hosted seances in her New York apartment, claiming the spirits guided her every move.

Whether she truly believed or used it as another performance tool, the spiritual angle gives a deliciously eerie texture to any mystery I write.

It opened the door for me to imagine haunted objects and surviving relics — like a pair of dancing shoes with a history that hums just beneath the surface.

Compassion and Controversy — The Later Years

Despite her dismissive remarks about women’s suffrage, Lola did help women in practical ways.

She supported a New York sanitarium during the 1860s and worked with fallen women, showing a side of her that complicates the scandal-sheet caricature.

She died at forty-two after a stroke, though many historians suspect symptoms of syphilis were the real cause.

Her ending is tragically human and full of the kinds of medical and social mysteries that pepper 19th-century lives.

Lola’s Dancing Shoes — A Fictional Artifact with Roots in Reality

In my novel Going, Going, Dead, my protagonist Maddie is a paranormal museum owner who bids on a locked box without knowing what’s inside.

She discovers a pair of Lola Montez’s dancing shoes, which I invented for the story, but they sit on a bedrock of historical truth.

Those shoes become a catalyst for a cozy mystery that mixes artifacts, spiritualism, and a dash of California history where my fictional museum lives.

Objects like shoes are perfect mystery devices because they feel intimate, lived-in, and capable of holding secrets.

When you anchor a fictional haunted object to a flamboyant historical figure, you get a plot engine that hums with gossip, politics, and the possibility of the supernatural.

Why Lola Matters to Writers of Mystery and Cozy Mystery

Lola Montez is the kind of historical figure who feeds a writer's imagination in multiple directions at once.

Her life offers scandal, political upheaval, mentorship, spiritualism, and a falling star arc that’s irresistible for a mystery novel.

For cozy mystery writers, she provides the perfect blend of theatricality and domestic detail that allows us to slip the uncanny into everyday settings.

Her story reminds me that history itself is often the first clue.

Artifacts, whether real or imagined, carry stories that can drive a mystery forward and give a protagonist a puzzle to solve, emotionally and intellectually.

Where to Find the Story

Going, Going, Dead features Lola’s fictional shoes and the antics that follow when a paranormal museum acquires a piece of her legend.

My paranormal museum series is available on Amazon and other major retailers, and yes, there are audiobooks too.

If you love a cozy mystery with a wink of the supernatural and a fondness for quirky artifacts, this series might be your next guilty pleasure.

Final Thoughts

Lola Montez was messy, brilliant, dangerous, and generous, and she refuses to be reduced to a single headline.

She’s the kind of historical spark that convinces me real lives can be the breeding ground for great mysteries.

If you enjoy mystery, cozy mystery, or a mystery novel that blends history and hauntings, I hope you’ll pick up Going, Going, Dead and spend an afternoon getting lost in Lola’s shoes.

Thanks for reading!

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Going, Going, Dead

A light-hearted cozy mystery.

An estate auction of artifacts from America’s spiritualist era? How can a small-town paranormal museum owner resist? But Maddie’s first foray into collecting turns deadly when she uncovers the corpse of the murdered auctioneer.

Her mother’s convinced the killer is after a mysterious statuette that once belonged to Ladies Aid, her local charity. Or is it? Because as Maddie digs deeper into the mystery, the ladies of Ladies Aid grow more enigmatic by the minute.

Plunging into the mad world of obsessive collectors, Maddie’s determined to make the best of a bad bargain, find the statuette, and solve the crime. The museum’s ghost detecting cat is determined to… Actually, no one’s quite sure, but it’s always trouble for Maddie.

Will a cunning killer put Maddie out of commission before she can seal the deal?

If you love laugh-out-loud mysteries, witty heroines, and a touch of the paranormal, you’ll love Going, Going, Dead, book 6 in the Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum series of novels. Read this twisty cozy mystery today!