A high-class prostitute – the first Hungarian celebrity scandal

Max Schmidt and Emília Turcsányi - Wikipedia

Do you think the interest for celebrities known and followed by a whole country is a new phenomenon of the 21st century? If your answer is yes, you might find it interesting to read about the most famous Hungarian high-class prostitute, a real celebrity from the past century.

The story of the millionaire Max Schmidt and Emília Turcsányi was a real celebrity scandal in 1914. The affair of the wealthy Austrian furniture manufacturer and owner of the palace of Kiscell and the young washwoman from the pre-Trianon Upper Hungary caused absolute mass hysteria. Especially the death of the young woman.

To put into context the importance and power of Schmidt: his home in Kiscell functions as a museum today, which was even featured as a venue for a famous Netflix series.

Emília moved to Budapest to work as a maid and washwoman, in the beginning, to climb up an imaginary status ladder and become a waitress and high-class prostitute.

At this point, she only dealt with high profile noblemen, helped them choose a drink and a meal, and the luckiest could even take her home – for a nice amount of money, of course.

According to storytellers, that is where she met Schmidt, who instantly fell in love with the 20 years younger girl. From this moment on, she stopped working and became the queen of the night. Her lover gave her everything: a lovely apartment on the Danube bank, jewels and clothes straight from Paris; the millionaire even paid for her education, writes 24.hu.

Naturally, many people envied her very much, especially those who came from the same low status.

This jealousy and envy caused her tragic death, actual scandal and sensation known by the whole country.

Newspapers and even a famous Hungarian writer wrote about her story, the circumstances of her death and her strange relationship with Schmidt. Furthermore, her death news even travelled through Austrian, German, Dutch, English and American newspapers. According to sources, tens of thousands of people attended her funeral.

The circumstances of her death were rather strange and not very obvious at first. She was getting ready to go to bed when the lover of her landlady entered her room and strangled her with a towel. Together with the landlady, they put Emília into a basket and tossed her into the Danube. However, the police found it rather strange that the couple took very few things of little value from her room, all of which was instantly found in their apartment as the police started the search. Moreover, the basket did not actually end up in the Danube but got stuck on a stair leading to the river, and they obviously did not care enough to finish their job. Most probably, it was an unplanned act of rage and jealousy.

These are not the information, though, that kept the public’s attention alive, but all the juicy details about Emília’s and Schmidt’s love life. Schmidt was very well known in Budapest, not only for his merits in the furniture business but more for his perverted taste.

Stories said that down in a crypt, he made women dress up in white wedding gowns and climb into a coffin so that he could make love to them.

This was not the only weird thing Schmidt asked of his lovers. As Zsófia Dénes, a writer and friend of Schmidt’s wife, wrote in her book, the three of them went on the married couple’s honeymoon, where the wife complained to her friend how she had to sleep in a canopied bed adorned with ribbons sent to the funeral of Schmidt’s mother. No wonder she committed suicide, although under unclear circumstances.

Turning back to Emília, even after her death, Schmidt loved her so much that he prepared a room in his palace for himself with a view on the cemetery where her love was laid to rest so that he could take a look at her grave every single day. Although this sounds more like a legend written by a newspaper at that time to generate interest, almost the whole of Budapest can indeed be seen from the palace’s tower. Moreover, there were windows on that side of the building whose view was blocked neither by trees nor by buildings at that time.

The Schmidt Palace – Fortepan/Vajkai Aurél

We can not tell with absolute certainty whether these stories and details of Max Schmidt’s life were all true, as at that time, showing off among their trusted friends with details of their conquests and intimate life was a regular thing. Such as many men do so today.

The same can be said about a juicy scandal about a young girl making her fortune but suffering a terrible end that