Brief Biography
Crippen was born in Coldwater, Michigan, to Andresse Skinner (died 1909) and Myron Augustus Crippen(1827–1910), a merchant. Crippen graduated from the Michigan School of Homeopathic Medicine in 1884. Crippen's first wife, Charlotte, died of a stroke in 1892, and Crippen entrusted his parents, living in California, with the care of his two-year-old son, Hawley Otto.
Having qualified as a homeopathic doctor, Crippen started to practice in New York, where in 1894 he married his second wife, Corrine "Cora" Turner (stage name: 'Belle Elmore'), born Kunigunde Mackamotski to a German mother and a Polish-Russian father. She was a would-be music hall singer who openly had affairs. In 1894 Crippen started working for Dr. Munyon's, a homeopathic pharmaceutical company. In 1897 Crippen and his spouse moved to England. His US medical qualifications were not sufficient to allow him to practise as a doctor in the UK. As Crippen continued working as a distributor of patent medicines, Cora socialised with a number of famous variety players of the time, including Lil Hawthorne of "The Hawthorne Sisters" and Lil's husband/manager John Nash.
Crippen was sacked by Munyon's in 1899 for spending too much time managing his wife's stage career. He became manager of Drouet's Institution for the Deaf, where he met Ethel Le Neve, a young typist around 1903. After living at various addresses in London, the Crippens finally moved in 1905 to 39 Hilldrop Crescent, Camden Road, Holloway, London, where they took in lodgers to augment Crippen's meagre income. Cora cuckolded Crippen with one of these lodgers, and in turn Crippen took Le Neve as his mistress in 1908.
Read more about this topic: Hawley Harvey Crippen
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