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Name: LONG, Paula Alexandra Gertrude Marie, Mrs
Nee: Gellibrand
Birth Date: 1 Dec 1897 Penarth
Death Date: 25 July 1986 Wandsworth
Profession: A society beauty
Area: Elmenteita
Married: 1. Ivan Wilkie Brooks (1881-1932); 2. In Marylebone 1923 Pedro Jose Isidro Mones Maury, Marquis de Casa Maury (1896-1968); 3. In Watford July 1932 William Edward David 'Bill' Allen (1901-1973) (div.1939); 4. Ernest Caswell 'Boy' Long (1892-1950)
Book Reference: Mischief, Web, Paul Spicer 'The Temptress'
General Information:
Web - a Society beauty married at this time (1928) to the first of her 3 husbands, the Spanish-Cuban racing driver and founder of the Curzon cinema, the 1st Marquess de Casa Maury. She was Cecil Beaton's childhood vision who became one of his favourite models and a life-long friend. He recorded her appearance in words and images (The Glass of Fashion, 1954) and Enid Bagnold's 1924 novel "Serena Blandish" was based upon her life.
Mischief - a famous beauty of the period, married to 'Boy' Long, a cattle rancher at Elmenteita. According to Cyril Connolly she had an affair with Dickie Pembroke. Close friend of Alice de Trafford
Telegraph - Obituary - Paula Long who has died aged 88 was a largely forgotten figure in the Priory at Roehampton. She was once a celebrated Society beauty much photographed between the wars by Cecil Beaton, Baron de Meyer and others.
Her 'Modigliani' face fine profile and exquisite hands made her familiar to followers of fashion magazines, while her colourful adventures are said to have suggested the eponymous heroine of Enid Bagnold's novel 'Serena Blandish'.
She was rumoured to have had an affair at one stage with the late Duke of Kent, whom she took to see a phrenologist. She was later a prominent member of the heady world of the 'White Highlands' in Kenya.
Born Paula Gellibrand, a major's daughter from Wales she first emerged as a protegee of Baroness D'Erlanger, the Society hostess, and married Pedro Jose Isidro Manuel Ricardo Mones Maury, Marquess de Casa Maury, otherwise 'Bobby' or less flatteringly 'the Cuban heel'.
Her remarkable beauty made her an early heroine of the young Cecil Beaton who first caught sight of her in Bond Street in the 1920s when she and Casa Maury swept past the awestruck photographer in a Rolls Royce.
Casa Maury went on to marry Freda Dudley Ward, formerly mistress of the Prince of Wales, later briefly Edward VIII. Paula's friendship with thePrince's younger brother the Duke of Kent, later killed on active service in 1942, was at its height during her marriage to Bill Allen.
Her next husband was 'Boy' Long, a cattle rancher at Elmenteita in Kenya. She was one of the most attractive figures in the sybaritic milieu described in James Fox's book 'White Mischief' about the sensational murder of the 22nd Earl of Erroll in 1941.
Paula Long was certainly much more than a pretty face, being noted for her intuition, intelligence, perception and a refreshing sense of humour.