The daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel James Balcombe of 1 Marino Crescent, Clontarf, and of Phillippa Anne Marshall,[2] she was a celebrated beauty whose former suitor was Oscar Wilde.

Her furious response to this copyright infringement was prompt and uncompromising; not only did she want the financial reparation she felt was due to the estate, she demanded that the negative and all prints of the film (which she would never actually see) be immediately destroyed.

The suit took some time to resolve; at one point, the German production company Prana Film declared bankruptcy to avoid paying for the adaptation.

Despite this ruling, prints of the film slowly began to resurface in the late 1920s, with the first American screenings taking place in New York City and Detroit in 1929.

In 1927 Horace Liveright bought the American dramatic rights from Florence and hired John L. Balderston to edit it for the New York stage.