Alice de Janzé

Common card · No. 380475

Alice de Janzé (née Silverthorne; September 28, 1899 – September 30, 1941), also known as the Countess de Janzé during her first marriage and as Alice de Trafford during her second marriage, was an American heiress who spent years in colonial Kenya as a member of the Happy Valley set. Her life was marked by promiscuity, drug abuse, and scandals, including the attempted murder of her lover in 1927, the 1941 murder in Kenya of Josslyn Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll, and several attempts at suicide, in which she eventually succeeded. Growing up in Chicago and New York, Silverthorne was one of the most prominent American socialites of her time. A relative of the wealthy Armour family, she was a multi-millionaire heiress. She married into the French nobility in 1921 when she wed Frédéric de Janzé, Comte de Janzé. In the mid-1920s, she was introduced to the Happy Valley set, a community of white expatriates in East Africa, notorious for their hedonistic lifestyle. In 1927, she made international news...

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