1. References

Her mother, Ernestine Marguerite "Margot" Erskine, was a granddaughter of the Earl of Kellie.^[5] At the time of Babe's birth, her mother was married to Richard Murray McGusty, of a family of Dublin solicitors, who worked in Canada for the government.^[5] Babe's biological father was Arthur Bendir, with whom her mother had an affair starting in 1906, and eventually married in 1921, having divorced McGusty in 1908^[6] following the child's birth. Arthur Bendir was the Chairman of Ladbrokes, which he founded in 1902, and immensely rich, although some, including Evelyn Waugh, made demeaning references to his "common" origins. Despite her name being recorded as "Bendir" at birth, Babe used the name "McGusty", presumably to obscure her illegitimate origins.^[7][8][9]

She played a leading role in the hedonistic activities of the Bright Young Things, usually in the company of her friends Sylvia Ashley and Elizabeth Ponsonby (the latter also a cousin by marriage).^[10] In 1926 she married David Plunket Greene (19 November 1904 – 24 February 1941), the son of the singer Harry Plunket Greene. His mother, Gwendoline Maud, was the daughter of the composer Hubert Parry, with whom Harry Plunket Greene had collaborated. The marriage was short-lived, ending in divorce in 1928.

She was also romantically involved with the Winchester-educated Anthony Herbert de Bosdari, son of the Italian banker Count Maurizio de Bosdari (allowing Anthony to also use the title of "Count", alongside his brothers). Anthony de Bosdari's romantic entanglements are somewhat unclear; he was engaged to the actress Enid Stamp Taylor in 1926; married, for a brief period in 1928 (from March 15 to October 31), to Josephine Fish, an American heiress; and was engaged to Tallulah Bankhead from the end of 1928 to May 1929. In 1931 he was engaged to marry the Duchess of Croy (born Helen Lewis, of American origin). Bosdari and Babe, having married in October 1929, divorced in 1935 following several years of separation, with the illegality of Bosdari's divorce from Josephine Fish having come to light.^[11] Bosdari was, according to the writer Alec Waugh, a friend in the 1920s, interned by the Germans during the World War II, and he is said to have later lived in North Africa or South America.^[7]

In Brian Howard: Portrait of a Failure, Marie-Jaqueline Lancaster mentions a third marriage of Babe's, to "an American Hollywood magnate" (p. 160). This was German-born screenwriter and director Lothar Mendes.^[12] Their 1935 marriage record gives the bride's surname as "Greene or McGustry {{sic}} or Bendir".^[13]

References

• British national parks
• British National Party
• British National Party (1960)
• British National Space Centre
• British National Vegetation Classification
• British Natural History Museum
• British Naturalists' Association
• British Naturalists’ Association
• British Naturism
• British Naval ensigns
• British naval forces in the Falklands War
• British Naval Forces in the Falklands War
• British naval supremacy
• British Navy
• British Nazi Party
• British Newfoundland Development Corporation
• British New Guinea
• British New Wave
• British nobleman
• British North America
• British North America Act
• British North America Act (1867)
• British North America Act 1867
• British North America Act, 1867
• British North America Act 1949