Geneviève Lantelme

Who was Geneviève Lantelme?

Geneviève "Ginette" Lantelme was a French actress, socialite and courtesan, best known as the mistress of Alfred Edwards, from whose yacht she fell to her death in July 1911. She bore a resemblance to American actress Ethel Barrymore.

At fourteen she was one of the lures at her mother's brothel, but soon became an acclaimed Paris actress. Theatregoers savoured her reputation for enjoying the bodies of men and women with equal pleasure: her languid slouch was imitated by other Parisian vamps.

Misia, Edwards' wife, was extremely jealous of her husband's mistress, and said in her memoirs "I had contrived to get a photograph of Lantelme; it adorned my dressing-table, and I made desperate efforts to look like her, dress my hair in the same way, wear the same clothes." Marcel Proust used this as the model for Gilberte's jealousy of Rachel and Saint-Loup in À la recherche du temps perdu.