DOWNTON ABBEY SPECIAL: The Press baron and the heiress were larger than life and Cora and Richard Carlisle were based on them

Mary Leiter and Lord Beaverbrook were larger than life – and Cora and Richard Carlisle were based on them

Cash for coronets

There were many young women like Lady Grantham in Edwardian England, wealthy Americans who married into English aristocracy.

The specific inspiration for Cora, Julian Fellowes acknowledges, was Mary Leiter, daughter of a rich Chicago property speculator and a vulgar, ambitious mother.

A dark-haired beauty, she at first made little impression on the London social scene, until she was singled out by the Prince of Wales for the first dance at a society ball.

 

Blast from the past: Elizabeth McGovern's character Cora, Countess of Grantham, was inspired by American socialite Mary Leiter (right)

After that, invitations poured in as men threw themselves at her feet.

But she had set her heart on the Hon George Curzon, the penniless son of a peer. When they married, her father bought them a house and settled £625,000 on her. Curzon became Viceroy of India, a position that gave Mary almost regal status.

She became the highest-ranking American, man or woman, in the history of the British Empire.

The real Richard Carlisle

Lady Mary’s new suitor, Sir Richard Carlisle, is a thrusting newspaper tycoon. Ambitious men like him made a major mark in the changing world of the First World War.

  

Inspired: Iain Glen's character, Sir Richard Carlisle, was inspired by bombastic newspaper magnate Lord Beaverbrook

Carlisle is loosely based on the bombastic newspaper magnate Lord Beaverbrook, a prominent figure largely due to his political friends as well as his rousing leaders in the Daily Express. Lord Northcliffe, who led the way in popular journalism with the establishment of the Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail, was another contemporary Press baron.

When the Daily Mail was first printed in 1896, the effect was electrifying. Gone were word-for-word dull reports of political speeches; in were first-person accounts of events. ‘The three things which are always news are health things, sex things and money things,’ Northcliffe said.

This recipe made him a millionaire.

 

Newspaper magnates: Lord Beaverbrook's contemporary, Lord Northcliffe, changed the course of journalism when he set up the Daily Mail. More information about the inspiration behind Downton Abbey's characters can be founf in Jessica Fellowes' The World of Downton Abbey

The World of Downton Abbey by Jessica Fellowes is published by Harper Collins, £20. To order a copy for £16 (p&p free) call             0843 382 0000      

I SAY! THE BEST PITHY LINES FROM ABOVE AND BELOW STAIRS

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  Gems of wisdom: Michelle Dockey's Lady Mary has one of the best lines in the show
  'Women like me don’t have a life. We’re stuck in a waiting room till we marry.' – Lady Mary
• 'Get those kidneys up to the servery before I knock you down and serve your brains as fritters.' – Mrs Patmore, the cook, to the footmen
• 'Send not to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for me.' – Anna the housemaid, on being summoned 
• 'I have plenty of friends I don’t like.' – Violet, the Dowager
• 'Countess Why are their papers ironed?' – Daisy. 'To dry the ink, silly. We wouldn’t want his lordship to have hands as black as yours.' – O’Brien
• 'Say what you like, men like to see waists.' – Lady Mary
• 'I may be a Socialist but I’m not a lunatic.' – Branson the chauffeur  'I’m not sure Papa knows the difference.' – Lady Mary 
• 'We may have to have a maid in the dining room.' – Carson 'Cheer up. There are worse things.' – Lord Grantham 'Not worse than a maid serving a duke.' – Carson
• 'If she’s got a boyfriend, I’m a giraffe.' – O’Brien, on Mrs Hughes meeting an old flame