Women have one mission in life: to be beautiful. When one gets old, one must learn how to break mirrors. I am very gently expecting to die. - La Belle Otero (1868-1964)
She was baptized Agustina Otero Iglesias, but changed her name to Carolina Otero sometime in her teens.
After she gained fame in the theatres of Europe, she seldom used the name Caroline and became known as La Belle Otéro. Her career as an actress, singer, dancer, and for the lack of a more genteel term, courtesan, took her to St. Petersburg, Moscow, Paris, London, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, New York and dozens of other world capitals. Her fans – and there were many of them – jammed concert halls and theatres to see her.
The press was not kind to Miss Otéro. She was accused of being the lover of no less than six crowned-heads of state – including King Edward of England and Czar Nicholas of Russia. Similar accusations were leveled at the kings of Spain and Serbia, the Grand Duke Peter, and the Duke of Westminster. It is a fact that at least two men fought a duel over her, and another committed suicide because of her rejection of his advances.
By the time of her death on April 12th, 1965 she was living in a one-room apartment at the Hotel Novelty in Nice in a state of poverty nearly as abject as that in which she entered the world 96 years earlier.
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