Frisky Galore! The movie star who got divorced and remarried within an hour
HE was the dashing aristocratic Scots actor best known for his roles in movies such as Whisky Galore! and The Cruel Sea.
But it appears Bruce Seton’s reputation as a star of the silver screen may be usurped by another – as the man who recorded the shortest time between a divorce and a remarriage.
New documents reveal the actor married English actress Antoinette Cellier in Edinburgh on Valentine’s Day 1940.
Incredibly, Seton tied the knot only one hour after he was granted a divorce from first wife, glamorous German-born actress Tamara Desni, whom he met in 1934 on the set of his first film, Blue Smoke.
The details are among the records of births, marriages and deaths published online today by National Records of Scotland (NRS).
Seton’s marriage was one of 53,522 in Scotland in 1940, all of which are being made available online through the official website Scotlands-People.
Officials said: ‘Among the marriages is the extraordinary story of a dashing Scottish actor-turned soldier who mar-
‘This may be the shortest time ever’
ried an actress an hour after being divorced in a Scottish court on St Valentine’s Day 1940.
‘Captain Bruce Seton, a well-known leading man in films, married his second wife, Antoinette Cellier, in a special ceremony in Edinburgh on 14 February, 1940.
‘Only an hour before, he had been granted a divorce in the Court of Session from his first wife Tamara Desni. This may be the shortest time ever between a divorce and remarriage in Scotland.’
An NRS spokesman said it was ‘an extraordinary case’.
According to officials, Seton must first have obtained a copy of the Court of Session judgment dissolving his marriage and it may be that court officials obliged by speeding up its issue.
He is reported to have then gone to his lawyer’s office and declared before witnesses that he and Miss Cellier were man and wife.
He would then have applied for the marriage to be recognised as an ‘irregular marriage’, and recorded in the court’s records and at the local registration office, according to the officials.
Seton was a younger son of a prominent family. During the Second World War he was promoted to major and later inherited the title of 11th Baronet of Abercorn, becoming Sir Bruce Lovat Seton.
He was born in Simla, India, and was educated at Edinburgh Academy and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. In 1939, he was commissioned as a lieutenant into the Cameronians.
He is best known as an actor, though, appearing in 40 films between 1935 and 1963. Seton and his first wife Desni were married in 1936.
The Scot also starred alongside his second wife Antoinette in the 1939 musical comedy Lucky to Me.
The marriage register shows that Seton, then 30 and living at 15 Learmonth Gardens in Comely Bank, Edinburgh, married the 26year-old actress and spinster at 9 Coates Crescent ‘in the District of Haymarket, in the City of Edinburgh’, on Valentine’s Day 1940.
The marriage was witnessed by a friend Donald Stewart and Cellier’s father, the actor Francois (Frank) Cellier, both of whom travelled from London for the occasion.
Seton appeared in dozens of wellknown films during his long career, including The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1936), Whisky Galore! (1949), The 39 Steps (1959), The League of Gentlemen (1960) and Greyfriars Bobby (1961). He also found fame as the first TV cop, Inspector Fabian of Scotland Yard, in the 1950s TV series Fabian of the Yard based on the career of a real Scotland Yard detective.
Seton, who died in 1969, aged 60, was outlived by both his wives. Antoinette Cellier died in 1981, while his first wife, Tamara Desni, was married five times before she died aged 94 in 2008.
Seton’s second marriage took place the same year that saw the introduction of civil marriages performed by registrars in Scotland.
The 1939 Marriage (Scotland) Act abolished the old Scottish form of irregular marriage by declaration in the presence of witnesses, popularly known as ‘Gretna Green marriages’.
Other records released today include details of the 114,181 Scottish births in 1915 and 62,868 Scots who died in 1965.