Jennie Jerome

Jeanette (Jennie) Jerome (January 9, 1854 - June 9, 1921) was an American society beauty, best known to history as the mother of British prime minister Winston Churchill.

She was born at 8 or 197 Amity Street, in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn, New York, (the exact address differs between sources). She was the eldest daughter of financier Leonard Jerome and his wife, Clara Hall. A noted beauty—an admirer said that there was "more of the panther than of the woman in her look"—Jennie Churchill also worked as a magazine editor and bore a fashionable tattoo of a snake twined around her left wrist. Hall family lore insists that Jennie Jerome was part Iroquois, but no evidence of any Native American ancestry has yet been uncovered, despite much genealogical digging.

She married firstly, in 1874, at the British Embassy in Paris, France, Lord Randolph Spencer Churchill (1849-1895), third son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough. They had two sons: Winston Churchill (1874-1965) and John Strange Spencer Churchill (1880-1947). It has been long rumored that John Churchill's father was not Lord Randolph but instead was possibly an Irish nobleman, Col. John Strange Jocelyn (later 5th Earl of Roden, 1823-1897), though that seems unlikely, given the similarity of names, which would seem a bit obvious under the circumstances. She did, however, have numerous lovers and admirers, including Count Charles Andreas Kinsky, King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, and King Milan of Serbia.

She married secondly, in 1900, George Frederick Myddleton Cornwallis-West (born 1874), a captain in the Scots Guards. They separated in 1912 and were divorced in April 1914. He married, in April 1914, as his second wife, Beatrice (Stella) Tanner, better known as Mrs Patrick Campbell (1865-1940), the celebrated actress.

Jennie married thirdly, in 1918, Montague Phippen Porch (1877-1964), a member of the British Civil Service in Nigeria. He married, in 1926, as his second wife, Donna Giulia Patrizi (died 1938), a daughter of the marchese Patrizi della Rocca.

Lady Randolph Churchill, the name she preferred to known by despite her remarriages, died after surgery to remove a gangrenous leg, and is buried in the Churchill plot at St. Martin's Churchyard, Bladon, Oxfordshire, England.

She has been portrayed on screen by Lee Remick in the television series, "Jennie", and by Anne Bancroft in the film, "Young Winston".