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In the movie, Glenn Close plays Albert Knobbs, a fictional 19th century Irish woman who dressed as a man as a way of escaping the limited opportunities and potential for violence ever-present for women living in this time period. In 1933, Victoria Foedi Rieger, a real Hungarian female, used cross-dressing not only to cloak her own identity in secrecy. She used it to help countless Hungarian women to rid themselves of abusive, unwanted, or simply irritating husbands.
The Professional Widowmaker
“Smoking Peter,” as Ms. Viktoria was called, dressed and acted like a hard-drinking, pipe smoking Hungarian cowboy. When a rash of suicides rocked the small Hungarian community of Tsiza Valley, neighbors began to notice that Smoking Peter had been a close acquaintance of the new widow before her husband died. The assumption, of course, was that Smoking Peter was having an affair with the wayward wife and the husband, out of despair, had gone into the barn at night and hung himself.
It did seem odd, though, that after the husband was dead, Smoking Peter never hung around to take advantage of the change in marital status of his recent beloveds. It seemed even stranger that the new widows showed no possessiveness or jealousy when Smoking Peter soon turned his eye to a new woman in the village.
Beware a Man Scorned
Unfortunately for Smoking Peter and his female clients, one of the new widow’s lovers wasn’t quite so open-minded. A Mr. Vecsernyes marched into the police station one day, claiming that the widow Boerscsock had paid Smoking Peter to do away with her husband.
Of course, he would never have told on her if she hadn’t tired of him and, he was convinced (wrongly, as it turns out), that she had gone back to Smoking Peter. What better way to get rid of a rival than have him arrested for murder? Hoping to regain Ms. Boerscsock’s favor, he attempted to convince the police that his beloved should not be punished, but should be viewed as a victim of the sinister Smoking Pete.
The Hanging Divorce
The plot was ingenious. First, Smoking Peter would rig a noose in the barn with a tall box under it. The wife would lure her unsuspecting husband out to the barn, at which point Smoking Peter would club him over the head and knock him unconscious. While senseless, Smoking Pete and the sinister spouse would loop the rope around the husband’s neck, prop him up, tip over the box, and then let him hang. The wife, having slept soundly with the knowledge that her relationship problems were over, would “discover” her dead husband the next morning and run, apparently horrified, to the nearest neighbor the next day.
The Motive: Twisted Revenge?
It’s hard to know a person’s motive even after talking to him or her and nearly impossible when 80+ years have gone by. However, according to the news report of the day, Ms. Rieger’s murderous ambitions may have been inspired by a former husband, whom she claimed treated her like a servant after her father married her off to him at age 18. She ran off after two years, taking her young daughter with her. There are always two sides to a story and Mr. Rieger, who was tracked down after his now-ex-wife was arrested, attributed their marital problems to Viktoria’s mean disposition and uncontrollable temper.
Whatever the truth, Viktoria apparently decided her new calling in life was to assist other unhappy wives gain freedom through widowhood. A glandular disorder reportedly assisted her in her masculine disguise as it gradually transformed her former beauty into an androgynous appearance with a muscular build and a deep voice. Then as now, a woman who hates her husband usually makes no effort to hide her feelings; Viktoria had no difficulty in finding clients willing to pay to get rid of their husbands. And, thanks to Mr. Vecsernyes (who himself received a decade of hard labor for not coming to the police with his information sooner), she was ultimately hanged for it.
