Adeline Aguilar Stanhope

She married actor and theatre manager Thomas Amory Sullivan at St Georges Parish Church, Bloomsbury, London, England Nov 8, 1876. Sullivan divorced her December 18, 1883, after discovering she'd committed adultery with her leading man Nelson Wheatcroft. She eloped with Wheatcroft to be "married" in secret in Buenos Aires without knowing till he died that Wheatcroft was a bigamist. This left her penniless in spite of having a son with him. The court case made national headlines. It was a scandal. There is no birth certificate in existence for her son Stanhope Augustus Sullivan born in San Francisco in 1880 by her first husband Thomas Amory Sullivan. All records were destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Her son's father Thomas Amory Sullivan was granted custody of the lad and he brought him firstly back to London before finally settling in Melbourne, then later Sydney Australia. Thomas's father - famous stage actor Barry Sullivan - had lived for a decade in Melbourne performing in Shakespearean productions and managing both Theatres Royal in Melbourne and Sydney. In the USA, Adeline co-founded an acting academy in New York with Wheatcroft. It operated successfully for many years out of the Empire Theatre on Broadway, which no longer stands. She retired from stage acting in 1917. She died in her Los Angeles flat in 1935. Her only other son (fathered by Wheatcroft) Stanhope Wheatcroft appeared in 55 films; many with Charlie Chaplin. Adeline was buried in the West Hollywood Cemetery.