MANNEQUIN TO PRINCESS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIV, Issue 806, 8 September 1923, Page 12

MANNEQUIN TO PRINCESS.

REVOLVER SHOT ENDS CAREER

LIKE FAIRY. TALE,

• • LONDON, Aug 26. Her face was her fortune,' say the aquaintances of Princess Abbas Halim, who on Saturday died by un accidental revolver shot in Alexandria. She began life as Jessica Harrington, tho daughter of a London publican, and was 26 years old. After marrying a scion of one of the oldest noble houses in England, and next a brother of the former Khedive _of Egypt, she married , Prince Abbas Halim.

When she was sixteeri she became an apprentice to a milliner at tho Maison Lewis, in London. Her blonde beauty was so striking that sho became a mannequin. Her next role was that of showgirl in an Aladdin pantomime at a suburban theatre. Though her part consisted merely of donning tights and carrying a lantern, and sometimes joining the chorus, she met at the theatre Captain J. T. Ellis, the young grand nephew of the late Lord Howard de Waldon. He had just come of age, and inherited £IOO,OOO.

followed, and tho greatest delight of the captain's bride was to roll up at the Maisoi Lewis ill a magnificent motor car. chat to her former apprentice and mannequin friends, and buy on the most lavish scale. ■

After five years in a Park-lane mansion, entertaining on a magnificent scale, Captain Ellis dissipated his fortune. His wife divorced him, and . soon married Prince Diemalid-Eddin, brother of a former Khedive. They were quickly divorced, and Jessica mnrrieu Prince Abbas Halim.

Some of her friends say that she was vivacious and irresistibly gay,- as well as beautiful, but that she 'made jealous enemies among her colleagues of tho chorus, While still in her teens, through her grandiose stylo of driving to Hl3 theatre in her own sumptuous motor car, and wearing wonderful jowols and furs. Jessica's sister Beatrice married Prince Louis of Bourbon, a cousin of King Alfonso.

The verdict at the inquest was one of accidental death.