The story opens in Grass Valley, California, in the 1850s. Lola Montez (Paula Morgan) has married Patrick Hull. Lola breaks the 4th wall and offers some of her history, from eloping as a teen to marry Lt. Thomas James, to dancing in England, to an affair with composer Franz Liszt, to her elevation to Countess of Landsfeld in Bavaria thanks to the besotted King Ludwig I. From this great height, she fell during the revolutions of 1848. She tells of meeting Patrick on her way to San Francisco and their marriage. Now caught up to the present and halfway through the episode, her life plays out. The marriage to Patrick crumbles, her fortunes falter further, and she ends her days in a sanitarium in New York where she died at the age of 39.
This is entirely too much story told in too short a time. Sadly, her most interesting life events all took place outside of the American West, the putative subject of Death Valley Days. So, rather than an entertaining and brief anecdote about her life in the West, here is a lighting fast biography of one of the 19th century's most interesting women. This is a thumbnail sketch that deserved a fuller telling. The best option would have been to find something interesting in the West - like that she was an inspiration for actress Lotta Crabtree while she was in Grass Valley - rather than offer a slapdash biography.
Meh.
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