Princess Elizabeth of Greece
Born Princess Elizabeth of Greece in 1904, she was the second daughter of Prince and Princess Nicholas. As children, the three sisters – Olga, Elizabeth and Marina, had the standard reputation of all the young Greek royals being noisy, boisterous, very attached to each other but respectful and well-mannered when required by the presence of their elders.
Nicknamed 'woolly' as a youngster, on account of her thick head of hair, Princess Elizabeth was apparently as sweet and good-natured a princess as there ever was. However, now aged 23, and with her older sister married the previous year to Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, Princess Elizabeth agreed to be engaged to Queen Marie of Romania's second son, Prince Nicolas – an arrangement which quickly proved abortive.
A similar image, made on the same date was reproduced in The Lady and The Gentlewoman on the occasion of her engagement to Prince Nicolas of Romania.
In her twenties Princess Elizabeth was considered a great beauty, and featured along with her younger sister, Princess Marina (later Duchess of Kent and one of Britain's most popular royals ever), in a 1931 advertisement for Pond's beauty cream, just as Queen Marie had done some years earlier. The caption described her 'as beautiful as a princess out of a fairy story - with all the graciousness and dignity that is her royal inheritance... for she is charming, gay, versatile - and enchantingly pretty.'
Notwithstanding the heady praise of their looks and character, almost ten years after this image she and her sister Marina were still unmarried.
Near to despair their mother, Princess Nicholas, took them on a round of European royal courts to no avail. It was not until a visit to her married sister's country home at Bohinj in Yugoslavia that she met and fell in love with Count Karl Theodor zu Toerring-Jettenbach, a Bavarian aristocrat whose wealth now came from the brewing business. They were married in January 1934.