ROSALIND SECOR CHETWYND (ACTRESS ROSA LYND) : MISTRESS OF SIR EARNEST SHACKLETON of ANTARTICA FAME

The married Antarctic explorer Sir Earnest Shackleton was involved with the American born actress ROSALIND CHETWYND, also known as ROSA LYND, from 1910-1922.  He lived in her Mayfair, London home much of the time, while he and his wife had three children.

(This picture of Rosalind is from a closed e-Bay auction in Great Britain - via Google Images.)

As depicted in the film starring Kenneth Branagh about the 1914 Endurance expedition to the South Pole, which appeared doomed after their ship got stuck and then crushed by ice, Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton was a rugged and commanding leader.  He took his party of 28 men to cross Antarctica by foot, pulling two small boats with them, and hoping to get to a whaling station.  Effort alone wasn't enough.  By some miracle they made it. 

The communication systems that exist today that make the South Pole a photo-op for politicians, and the kind of tough but doable travel as exhibited by Prince Harry and a group of disabled veterans in recent times, was not available in the early 20th century, so there was no way for Skackleton and his men to let it be known that they were stranded and needed a rescue. Shackleton was gone a couple years and even considered to be dead.  In one scene in the movie his wife and his mistress talk on the phone.  Neither is giving up on him yet. That made me curious; WHO WAS HIS MISTRESS?

According the obituary that appeared in the New York Times on October 10, 1922, Rosalind Secor was the daughter of William Holt Secor, a New York lawyer, and became "Rosa Lynd", the actress. In 1902 she married Guy Chetwynd, son of Sir George Chetwynd, who was part of the peerage. The couple had a child together, Sir Victor James Guy Chetwynd, 6th Bt. born 14 Nov 1902.  (At some point the couple divorced.) She died in London, suddenly, on October 9, 1922.

So Rosalind is a relatively unknown person, while her man was and is world famous!
(Not so unusual, you know!)