As a young girl, she spent time among her father's friends and fellow politicians and their children, including the Churchills, Guests, Grenfells, Duffs, and many others. This influenced Smith to become a life-long supporter of the Conservative Party.[6]
Smith's paternal great-grandmother, Bathsheba, was said to have been a Gypsy, and this sparked an early fascination with local Romani people, but she credits a book called Lavengro as being one of the greatest influences of her life-long fascination with Gypsies and their culture. She went so far as to learn to read and speak the Romani language, which she called "musical and broken."[6][7]
When she was living in London, Smith had an encounter with Daniel "Kid Spider" Rosenthal, where he called her from his hotel asking her to meet him for lunch to discuss business. Mistaking him for a "film man", she agreed, but this was untrue and he later went to her home and threatened to kill her, and harassed her with marriage proposals until she went to Scotland Yard. They informed her that he was wanted for the murder of his father.[8]
Smith travelled extensively throughout her life, and she was arrested twice, once in Romania for having her career listed as "journalist" on her passport, and once in Rome for walking around in a sleeveless dress.[8]
In 1953, after Smith's death, Frederick Smith, her brother and 2nd Earl of Birkenhead--with whom she was very close--published a memoir about her life.[9]
Career
Eleanor Smith began her journalist career writing society gossip columns for various newspapers, and she wrote a gossip column and film critique column for a Sunday paper on Fleet Street for three years. She quit this job after she was approached by Frederick Martin about a job writing for the newly-formed Great Carmo Circus. She travelled with the Great Carmo Circus for many years, and it is here that she began to write her first novel,[10][8]Red Wagon.
Eleanor Smith worked as a society reporter and cinema reviewer for some time, then as a publicist for various circus companies. In the latter role she travelled widely, and gained inspiration for her third career, writing popular novels and short stories which often provided the basis for the 'Gainsborough melodramas' of the period. These stories often had a romanticized historical or Gypsy setting, based on her own research into Romany culture (she believed one of her paternal great-grandmothers to have been a Gypsy).[6] During her time travelling with various circuses, she had contact with a wide array of artists and performers, and she often ventured out on her own to explore the areas where the circus would make camp.
Smith said during an interview that she began to write her novels at only 12 years old, but she claimed to have burned all of them later in life. Her first novel, Red Wagon, was published when she was 28 in 1930, and it immediately became a bestseller.[11] Smith was a prolific writer, writing about one novel every year on average during her prime. One of her novels, Ballerina, was inspired by her friendships with the Diaghilev and his prima ballerina, Anna Pavlova.[8] Smith said, "Had I not watched Pavlova so closely that day at Golders Green, the book would never have been written...At the same time, I think that Pavlova had either directly or indirectly inspired us all, and Pavlova was dead. She had certainly inspired Pat, Frances, and myself".[8] A few of her most notable novels were also adapted for films, one of which, Caravan, wasn't created until after her death. The actress Margaret Lockwood, one of the most popular actresses of the 1930s and 1940s, famously starred in The Man in Grey.
Smith also wrote ghost stories; many of them were collected in her book Satan's Circus (1932).[6] Smith was a supporter of the Conservative Party.[6] In 1937, she responded to Nancy Cunard's survey of writers and poets on the topic of the Spanish Civil war, saying that she was a "warm adherent of General Franco."[12]
Death
She died in Westminster in 1945 after a long illness.[2] Although it was her wish to be buried in Banbury with her father, her body was cremated by her family.[13]
