 Carstairs lived a colourful life.She usually dressed as a man, had tattooed arms, and loved machines, adventure and speed.Openly lesbian, she had numerous affairs with women, including Dolly Wilde—Oscar Wilde's niece and a fellow ambulance driver from Dublin with whom she had lived in Paris—and a string of actresses, most notably Greta Garbo, Tallulah Bankhead, and Marlene Dietrich.