Elizabeth grew up in India, England and Scotland. 1837 she married the officer Thomas James. The marriage was divorced and she turned back to England.

Elizabeth Gilbert turns into Lola Montez. She appears in London as a solo dancer from Sevilla in June 1843 for the first time.

Her identity change is seen through by the audience. The dancer leaves England and moves over the continent. She made a guest appearance in Saint Petersburg, Warsaw, Berlin, Dresden and Paris. After her appearances, which are always accompanied by scandals and affairs, she mostly is expelled from the towns. In France it comes to a sensational trial, after her lover was killed in a duel.


The stay in Brueckenau in 1847 became the high point of her biography. Ludwig I. King of Bavaria appoints his lover Lola Montez as Countess of Landsfeld. She becomes the catalytic trigger of the 48s revolution in Munich. In February 1851 Lola Montez reaches New York. She dies on January 17th, 1861 shortly before her 40th birthday in New York. She is buried on the cemetery in Brooklyn.