Beauty and seductiveness are not always together. Here is the real Mata Hari, the definitive femme fatale. Not exactly a ravishing beauty as Greta Garbo, she did have the sultry allure that brought dozens of French generals and admirals to divulge their military secrets while in bed allegedly causing the deaths of more than 50,000 French soldiers during WWI. (About the only thing common between Mata Hari and Greta Garbo who portrayed here in a 1931 film that made her famous was that both were flat chested.)
Born in 1876, she was a contemporary of the most photographed woman at that time, Cleo De Merode, just a year older than her, (which I colorized early last year). A Dutch by decent, Margeretha Geertruida Zelle took the name Mata Hari (Eye of Dawn) after a brief sojourn with her husband (which she eventually divorced) in Malang, Eastern Java where she reputedly learned the erotic dances of Javenese girls that she reprised upon her return to France at the turn of the 20th century. By 1905, Mata Hari had become a celebrity to many royals and military officers, on par with the likes of Isadora Duncan who was also her contemporary who pioneered in modern freestyle dance.
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