Sex, scandal and tragedy in famous Devon town

A woman's life was cut short in tragic circumstances

When Paignton's richest man hooked up with the world's most famous free-spirited dancer it began a story of sex, scandal and tragedy in which Devon's famous seaside town played a brief but starring role. The love affair between Paris Singer and American dancer Isadora Duncan, was a high society potboiler packed full of famous names, glitzy locations, scandal, alcohol, death and artistic flouncing around, that defined an age.

They even made a film about it in the 1960s with Oldway Mansion - now a sorry shell of its once glamorous self - featuring in key scenes. There was no happy ending.

Unconventional to the end, Duncan's final words indicated she was on her way to a romantic afternoon with a lover. But before she got there her life was cut short in bizarre circumstances when she was accidentally throttled by her own scarf.

Paris Singer was born into vast wealth in 1867. Remarkably, he was the 22nd (some say 23rd) of 24 children of inventor, sewing magnate and fathering machine Isaac Singer. His mother was so beautiful that it is said she was used by French sculptor Auguste Bartholdi as his model for the Statue of Liberty.

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Paris was raised at OIdway and educated at Newton Abbot Proprietary College. Tall and handsome his main activities before meeting Duncan involved remodelling the 115-room Oldway into a Devon version of the Palace of Versailles, entering into a respectable marriage and fathering five children.

Then in 1909, Paris separated from his wife and met Isadora. The 32-year-old American was already a celebrated dancer and choreographer who had performed to great acclaim throughout Europe and the US.

Passionate and unconventional, she pioneered a style based on natural movement, in contrast to the rigid ballet of the time. She spent most of her 20s and 30s jumping around in flowing Greek tunics, honing her techniques, rewriting the dance rulebook and making money by performing to small audiences of the Edwardian elite.

The pair met in Paris after one of her performances. Singer appeared at Duncan's dressing room with the words, “I have come to help you. What can I do?”

With such an opening, she couldn't resist. In her autobiography, Isadora called him “Lohengrin,” a knight in German Arthurian legend. He whisked her off to Venice and by September 1909 she was pregnant. After a cruise on the Nile, Patrick Augustus was born in May 1910.

Paris, Venice and the Nile may have been a difficult act for Paignton to follow. Imposing as the mansion was, it was not really to Isadora's taste. The pair spent a month in Devon where the dancer made use of the huge building that, many years later, was used for council planning meetings.

It is believed she rehearsed some of her finest dances during her stay at Oldway. But her memoirs complain of the rain, the food and the lifestyle of the British leisure class. She soon became depressed and it was obvious she was not cut out for a life as lady of the manor at Oldway.

In 1912 Singer bought Duncan a property overlooking the Seine. On April 19, 1913 the pair met for lunch in Paris. It was later that day, when the chauffeur was driving the two children home with their governess, that a terrible tragedy occurred. The car stalled and the chauffeur got out to crank the engine. The car restarted on a slope and moved off.

It picked up speed before crossing the road and disappearing over a grassy bank into the Seine. All three occupants drowned, Patrick Augustus among them, despite desperate efforts to save them.

Isadora was plunged into grief and retreated to Corfu. She bore a child with an Italian sculptor but he too died shortly after birth.

By now, the First World War was raging. The opulent lifestyle of Edwardian England was never the same again.

The ownership of Oldway was transferred and it was converted to a hospital. Paris' affair with Isadora Duncan finally came to an end in 1917.

He went on to found the famous Everglades Club at Palm Beach in Florida - playground of some of the world's richest people. There is also a Singer Island. But he lost a fortune in the stock market crash on 1929 and died in France in 1932.

Isadora continued to perform around Europe. She moved to Moscow, married a Soviet, divorced and by the 1920s cut a sad figure. Author F Scott Fitzgerald sat in a Paris cafe and watched a drunken Duncan stealing salt and pepper from the table. But she still had the power to charm and attract attention.

The final sad chapter in Isadora's life was written in 1927. On September 14, 1927, in Nice, France, Duncan was a passenger in an open-topped Amilcar CGSS automobile owned by a French-Italian mechanic. Her friends had asked her to wear a cape due to the weather but she only consented to a designer scarf.

As she set off she is said to have called out "I am off to love". But her long scarf became entangled in the open-spoked wheels and axel. Her friends tried to warn her of the danger but it was too late and she was flung from the vehicle at fatal velocity.

In 1967, Universal Pictures made a movie of her life starring Vanessa Redgrave in the title role of 'Isadora'. Filming took place at a number of locations in the Bay, including Oldway and the Palace Hotel. A lot of people in Torbay were extras in the film.

There was uproar when they learned that one of the scenes would show Paris Singer horse whipping a man on the terrace. Eventually the scene was cut. His legitimate daughter Winnaretta who still lived in nearby Little Oldway, wrote a fascinating letter to the Herald Express, in which she complained about inaccuracies.

"I thought that Miss Vanessa Redgrave was charming but not very like Isadora Duncan whom I met in Paris when I was at school there, and of course, before the affair with my father started," she said. "I also saw her dance twice but then of course not again.

“The scene I thought really objectionable, and one that could not have taken place, was the fanfare of trumpets playing the Wedding March for the arrival in the courtyard. “My father had extremely good taste and I do not believe that he could have perpetrated this. He was married to my mother and in spite of the grief caused to her and of course myself by the affair and the birth of the child, she would not I feel sure have divorced him.”

In 1997, members of the Duncan family returned to Oldway to have a look around. At that time it was still in reasonable condition and used by the community. Thousands of couples tied the knot each year when it became a register office.

The truth is that Isadora spent just one month at Oldway with a party of friends after the birth of their son Patrick. But the legend of this remarkable and ground-breaking woman made a lasting impression on the town that endures to this day.