photograph
Artwork
Accession Number
2014.011a-bDescription
One sepia-toned photograph depicting a man and woman embracing and kissing. The woman, who has short, blonde, waved hair, is looking toward the camera. On the verso is a pink-coloured stamp with credit line information. b: beige piece of paper with printed credit information about a and the title 'Everything is hotsy-totsy now.'Narrative
This press photograph of Dunsmuir descendant Patrick Somerset Holme-Sumner and Mrs. Shelby Worral Somerset was intended for publicity purposes and was produced by the San Francisco bureau of World Wide Photos for publication on or after April 24, 1928. The intended caption was to be: “Everything is hotsy-totsy now” with the following text: “It was all a mistake. And so ends the divorce action of Mrs. Shelby Worrall Somerset, 23, London debutante and beauty contest winner, against her English actor hubby, Pat Somerset. Here [are] Mr. and Mrs. Somerset ‘making up’ ”.Already in The Castle Society’s collection is 2014.6, a December 7, 1927 copy of the Los Angeles Evening Herald newspaper which has a front-page story about the arrest of Patrick Somerset Holme-Sumner (1897-1974) and his bride, Shelby Worrell. The newspaper reported that Hollywood police attended at a “wild party” held at a “celebration of Somerset’s third and latest wedding”.
Mr. Holme-Sumner’s mother was Margaret Joan Harvey, daughter of James and Agnes Harvey (nee Dunsmuir). He was therefore a great-grandson of Robert and Joan Dunsmuir. After the breakdown of his first marriage in Britain, Holme-Sumner resigned his commission in the British Army and moved to California where he changed his name to Pat Somerset and became a motion-picture actor, and eventually, a Charter Member of the Screen Actors Guild.
