Ada Reeve 1874-1966 “One of the Gayest of the Gaiety Girls"

 

Ada Reeve who first went on stage in 1878 at the age of 4 was still acting in her early 80s. Here she is on a tinted postcard at the height of her career.

The eldest daughter of an actor and a dancer, she appeared in many pantomimes as a child and she went on to perform in Edwardian musical comedies and Variety shows.  She toured Britain but also appeared in Australia and was very popular in America.

At the age of 21 she married Gilbert Joseph Hazlewood, an actor of the same age. In 1894 she starred in the title role of The Shop Girl at the Gaiety Theatre, opposite Seymour Hicks, but her advancing pregnancy meant the she was replaced by Ellaline Terriss. The couple had two daughters but within a few years it was an unhappy marriage. In 1900, Ada petitioned for a divorce citing her husband for cruelty and adultery with Mildred Cobb, Dolly Daintree “and various other women." She was given custody of her daughters.

Later that year while appearing as Cleopatra at The Comedy Theatre in London she slipped out during the first act, catching a “hansome to the Palace Theatre of Varieties” where she put on a turn before completing the next act back at the Comedy Theatre!

In 1902 Ada remarried, this time to Wilfred Cotton, an actor and manager, and he moved into her apartment in Buckingham Gate.  Soon Ada and Wilfred bought a property on the Isle of Wight and Ada subsequently toured South Africa in 1906, returning in 1909 due to her popularity. 

                                   

In 1908 she appeared in the musical comedy Butterflies at the Apollo theatre in London.

In 1917 Ada appealed to the courts in Australia to remove her husband Wilfred as her Manager. This was only one of many court cases involving disputes between Ada and other agents in England and Australia.

Ada continued touring South Africa and Australia until 1929. She then remained in Australia, where both her daughters had settled, until 1935.

Back in England she acted on stage and in films throughout the 1940s and 50s. In 1957 she appeared on TV in a production of Nicholas Nickleby.

Ada Reeves died in 1967 at the age of 92 and in the following year Judi Dench unveiled a memorial plaque at St Paul's Covent Garden, The Actors Church.

Details of birth, marriages and divorce from Ancestry.com

Newspaper reports from FindMyPast.co.uk

Postcards from my Grandmother's collection

Clara Evelyn, concert pianist, singer and actress

 

I was intrigued by the words on the back of this postcard from Kate in Lewisham. She told her friend Connie that this famous star had been the pianist they remembered from dancing class when they were younger. With a little research I was able to confirm that Clara Evelyn was born Clara Evelyn Smith. While living with her parents in Rotherhithe and then New Cross she was given a scholarship to study the piano at the Royal College of Music and three years later another scholarship for singing. She also played the piano for her mother’s dancing classes.

Clara was born in 1882 in Camberwell. Her father was an ironmonger and she had 2 brothers and a sister, Ida. In the Edwardian era she starred in several musicals on the London stage including The Merry Widow, and then in The Dollar Princess at Daly’s theatre where she replaced Lily Elsie. In the press she was praised for her excellent singing, though criticised for a slight stoop.

While touring with George Edward’s Merry Widow company she received many excellent reviews and still found time to sing or play at charity concerts. She had further success in the West End in “Girl in the Train” and “Princess Caprice” and she was still performing in concerts in the 1930s.

I wonder if my Grandma, Connie, saw Clara when she came to Bournemouth.

Clara married Julian Day, a merchant banker who also owned more than 50 companies. He died in Switzerland in 1947 but Clara continued living in Chelsea until her death in 1980.

An amazing obituary of Clara Evelyn the last Gaiety Girl written by Hughie Green on https://summertime76.wordpress.com/ a fascinating Blog about Gabrielle Ray.

Lewis Waller and Florence West, a couple of Victorian actors

 

I discovered the show business couple of Florence West and Lewis Waller thanks to a postcard posted on Twitter by MissHistoryGal.  Starting their careers a little earlier than the Edwardian actors I usually research I hadn’t been aware of their interesting lives.

Florence Isabella Brandon was born in Chiswick in December 1859, the eldest daughter of Horatio Brandon a successful solicitor. She had 6 sisters and 2 brothers. She was a keen amateur actress who decided to write to the famous comedian J L Toole to ask for employment with his theatrical company. Having convinced him that she was a serious actress he gave her a trial. Using the stage name of Florence West, she can be found on the billboards of Mr Toole’s company in London and touring England in 1882. In that same year she had quietly married William Waller Lewis, also a keen amateur actor. When a fellow cast member fell ill, she suggested her husband take the part. For several years, Florence continued using the stage name Florence West, perhaps not wanting to affect the matinee idol image which Lewis had acquired along with a host of young female fans. However they were frequently partners on stage.

Lewis was born William Waller Lewis in Bilbao Spain. His father William James Lewis was English, his mother Carlotta Vyse, Spanish. For 5 years he was employed in the city of London, but he always wanted to use, “his fine rich voice,” on stage. His romantic good looks soon made him popular in swashbuckling roles. Florence’s sister, (Constance) Margaret, who as Mrs Clement Scott became theatre critic of the John Bull magazine, described Lewis thus,

“He lived in Cloudland as an enthusiast, a romanticist, a bit of a Don Quixote, a splendid, honest, straightforward, virile man.”

Harry Esmond described Waller’s school of plays as, “The Sword and Caper drama.”

In the mid-1890s he was actor/manager of the Royal Haymarket Theatre and he later impressed with his Shakespearian characters.

The couple had two children, Edmund Lewis Waller born in 1884 who followed his father on stage and Nancy Waller born in 1896. 

In the 1890s as Mrs Lewis Waller, Florence started her own touring company of actors.  In 1904, Florence objected strongly to, “the advertisement of soaps and corsets,” between acts on the screened stage. “I object to half-dressed people being thrown on the screen.”  Such was her influence that the practice stopped during her performances. One of the actresses Florence employed was Ethel Warwick, a famous artists’ model. Ethel later married Edmund Waller Lewis but sadly the marriage ended in divorce.

Both Florence and Lewis died young, Florence, aged 53, in 1912, while her husband was in New York and Lewis of pneumonia, aged 55, in 1915 after a long tour of America, Canada and Australia, with his daughter Nancy by his side.

Ethel Sydney, a Gaiety girl #EdwardianActress #Postcards

 

I discovered Ethel Sydney from someone who responded to my post about The Gaiety Girls and what an interesting discovery she was.  Most Victorian and Edwardian actresses came from theatrical families or at least were supported by their mothers at the outset of their career but Emily Beatrice Lloyd, as she then was, ran away from home to go on stage. Having been born in Burma in 1874, the youngest daughter of Lt-Colonel Malcolm Lloyd of HM Madras Staff Corps she was brought to England at the age of two, by her mother Louise, after her father’s sudden death. In 1893, nineteen year old Ethel married Sydney Douglas Edward Hall, whose father had been an officer of the Bengal cavalry and from this point her acting name was Ethel Sydney. It is in this name that she is listed in the programme of George Edwards’ production of “A Gaiety Girl”.  In newspaper articles she is praised for her ability as a comedy actress as well as her fine singing voice.

When interviewed by The Sketch in 1894 she told of a gold medal awarded to her as champion Lady swimmer of Portsmouth 5 years earlier but now all her ambitions were in musical comedy. 

After playing the title role in The Shop Girl on Broadway in 1895 there was a pause in her career for the birth of her son in 1898. In the 1901 census Ethel is listed in her married name, accompanied by her son Durham Hall staying at the South Shore Hydro, Blackpool along with the cast of the play in which she was performing.  But her marriage did not survive as in 1902 she divorced Sydney Hall, citing his denial of conjugal rights and she later married Samuel Robinson Oliver, a man of independent means. 

However, in 1911 allegations of adultery with John Upton Gaskell were made against Ethel by her husband, Samuel. Guy Oliver, the child she and Samuel Oliver had in 1905, remained in his father’s custody. Once the divorce was finalised, she married John Gaskell and in 1913 they had a son, Peter Upton. At her last three marriages Ethel gave misinformation about her age, probably because she was considerably older than her spouses.

Ethel’s last husband, Alistair Ian Matheson, was at 25, half Ethel’s age but on the marriage certificate in 1924, she is listed as “of full age”. 

  Alistair Matheson had been a 2^nd  Lieutenant during the First World War and then became a commercial artist specialising in animation including the Bonzo cartoon for New Era Films.  Despite the age difference Ethel and Alistair remained together for the rest of her life. Ethel died in London in 1967, her husband a year later.

The African explorer, the séance and the post-card Beauty – Isabel Jay’s unfortunate marriage #EdwardianActress #MondayBlogs

When I was a young child of about 7 or 8, my parents took me to performances of the light operas by Gilbert and Sullivan which I absolutely loved, so when I discovered that one of the popular beauties of Edwardian post cards, Isabel Jay, had become part of the D’Oyly Carte company after singing for Arthur Sullivan, I wanted to know more about her life.

In 1901 a journalist interviewed Isabel and her mother at their residence in Westminster Palace Gardens. She appeared to be sweet and naïve, proud of her achievements while at the royal Academy of Music when she had been awarded bronze and silver medals for elocution and a gold medal for operatic singing.  She was still practising the piano each day but really enjoying the parts she had been given in The Mikado, Iolanthe and the Pirates of Penzance.

A reviewer for The Era wrote of her: "Miss Isabel Jay's bright, alert acting and fascinating personality would have condoned many deficiencies. But in addition to winning all hearts by her freshness and earnestness, Miss Jay gave us a delightfully easy and accomplished rendering of her share of the score, and the way in which she used a very valuable voice told of sound training and keen intelligence."

Isabel Jay left the company in 1902 to marry the explorer Henry Sheppard Hart Cavendish

Henry Sheppard Hart Cavendish, born in Kensington in 1876, was famous for his explorations and hunting achievements. After leaving Eton, he travelled widely in Africa, firstly shooting big game up the Zambesi. Later he visited the west side of Lake Rudolph in East Central Africa making notes for the Geographical Society of London. On this journey he was accompanied by 80 armed Somalians and 150 camels. When he reached Lake Stephanie a wounded elephant charged him and sat on him for 30 minutes. Its head was presented to the British museum. Cavendish also returned to London with 38 kinds of game. When in England he loved music, classical and popular and this is how he came to meet Isabel Jay.

Cavendish also attracted the attention of journalists. Photographs of his London home in 1900 showed the collection of antelope, elephant, giraffe, buffalo and lion heads which he had shot personally.  Prior to his marriage Cavendish became entangled in a friendship with a man called Major Strutt after believing his dead mother told him at seances to make the Major his financial advisor. Early in the marriage Cavendish was bankrupt and their relationship was in trouble.  The details of their subsequent divorce are painful to read because of his ill-treatment of Isabel but amazingly he remarried four more times.

Isabel returned to the stage in 1903 and after Cavendish reneged on this promise to give up alcohol the couple were divorced in 1906.

Isabel Jay

Frank Curzon

 In the meantime, Isabel appeared in productions of the actor manager Frank Curzon and the couple eventually married in 1910.  Isabel retired from the stage at the age of 31 before the birth of her second daughter. She died in 1927, aged 47, in Monte Carlo. Her husband Frank died later that year, after watching the horse he had trained win the Derby.

The RSM Isabel Jay Medal for Singing
You can read more about Cavendish and Major Strutt at Stage Beauty

Edna May - Edwardian actress #biography #oldpostcards

Edna May Petty was born in the city of Syracuse in New York State. Her parents encouraged her ability to sing and entertain and like her sisters, Jennie and Marguerite, she became a child star.  By the age of 7, she was performing in productions of HMS Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance.  At 16, she travelled to New York to study music at the Conservatoire but while there she met and fell in love with Fred Titus, a celebrated professional cyclist and in 1895, at the age of 17, she married him.  Her first performance in New York was in 1896, when Oscar Hammerstein cast her in Santa Maria, but her big break was in September 1897 when she appeared as a sweet Salvationist in The Belle of New York. Although a moderate success the play’s real fame occurred when the production moved to London. Edna May was soon a favourite among postcard collectors.

Now a star, she made frequent performances in London and in New York. Her marriage failed, and she and Fred Titus divorced in 1904. In 1906 The Belle of Mayfair opened at the Vaudeville Theatre. Edna played a similar character to that of The Belle of New York and the Manchester Courier reported,

"The Belle of Mayfair" is synonymous with Miss Edna May, who received a warm welcome last night, but the play is by no means a one part piece, and there are half a dozen actresses who could impersonate the title role charmingly.”

This may have influenced the actress as she later walked out of the cast. Miss May objected to the featuring of Camille Clifford jointly as a joint star on The Belle of Mayfair bills. The theatre management's retort was that they must feature Miss Clifford, because she was engaged to marry a British nobleman.  Edna May was particularly upset that a special song had been written for Miss Clifford, Why am I a Gibson Girl, but that no suitable song had been found for her. More scandal was to follow when the 15 year old, Phyllis Dare was brought back from school in Belgium to take over from Miss May rather than the understudy.

In fact, Edna May soon found her own fiancé, not a British nobleman but an American millionaire. Oscar Lewisohn 6 years her junior, was the son of Adolph Lewisohn, the copper King.  The couple lived in Berkshire but to the dismay of her public Edna was retiring from the stage. Her swan song was the play Nelly, Nelly 

Edna briefly returned in 1911 to perform The Belle of New York York at the Savoy Theatre and in 1915 The Masque of Peace and War in London. Edna’s husband died in 1917. At first she remained in Berkshire but by 1936 she had moved into the Ritz in London. She died in Lausanne in Switzerland in 1948.

To read more about The Gibson Girls

The disappearance of Mabel Love #Edwardian actress #wwwblogs

Mabel Love, a beautiful child star from a theatrical dynasty, caused consternation in 1889 when she suddenly disappeared in the middle of London.  The Star newspaper reported, “The Disappearance of a Burlesque Actress.”  Only 14 years old, she was described as, “of fresh complexion, with light grey eyes and fair hair, curling and hanging loose over the shoulders. She was wearing, when she left home, a black and white striped fish-wife skirt, Oxford patent shoes, black plush hat and feathers, and a terra-cotta coloured cloak trimmed with white fur round the collar and cuffs and with large metal buttons.”

She had already been on the stage for two years, appearing in the first play version of “Alice in Wonderland,” in a Christmas pantomime at Covent Garden and had recently been contracted by George Edwardes at the Gaiety to dance in the burlesque "Faust up-to-date".  A very pretty girl, she had many admirers and a great deal of pressure.

But she had been spotted by several people after leaving her parents house in Arundel Street, The Strand with her payment from The Gaiety Theatre.  Luckily she was traced a few days later in Dublin and returned to Euston Station to crowds of admirers.

Article from "The Era" newspaper 

Mabel was the granddaughter of entertainer and ventriloquist William Edward Love and the daughter of actress Kate Watson (Love). Mabel's father was the brother of Robert Grant Watson, who served in the diplomatic service and had held the posts of First Secretary to the British Embassy in Washington, and Charge d'affaires in Japan.

Sadly Mabel still suffered from a distressed state of mind as a few months later she made a suicide attempt.

Mr Vaughan showed great sympathy for her and gave her the following advice.

Subsequently she was able to return to her career and no more dramatic events were recorded.  By the age of 20 she was even more popular with the public as well as young Winston Churchill and Edward the Prince of Wales.  She appeared in musical comedy and burlesque and when photographer Frank Foulsham produced postcards of her, they were widely bought and sent.

In 1913 Mabel gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, Mary, later called Mrs Mary Lorraine.  There is mystery about Mary’s father but she was acclaimed for her bravery during the second world war. Originally an actress like her mother, she became a secret agent for the SOE in France and was captured and tortured by the Gestapo.  After the war she suffered from mental health problems and died in poverty, unaware that her mother had left her a substantial legacy.

After retiring, Mabel Love continued to enjoy visits to the theatre. She moved into an hotel in Weybridge with her best friend Vesta Tilley and died there in 1953 at the age of 78.

©Elizabeth Lloyd

More tales of scandal on the Edwardian stage:

Jean Alwyn the lady Harry Lauder

The notorious Maud Allan

Lily Elsie the most photographed woman in the British Empire

The murder of William Terriss

Jean Aylwin, the Lady Harry Lauder #Edwardian Actress

Like many of her contemporaries on the Edwardian stage, Jean Aylwin progressed from provincial theatre to fame as a “Gaiety Girl.”  Born in Hawick in 1885 and educated in Edinburgh, she later became a fashion icon and was entertained by men of means.  She was an excellent singer earning the title of, “The Lady Harry Lauder.”

It was touring in the play “The Red Coat” in 1904 which brought her to England and she made her debut as principal in “The Spring Chicken,” two years later.  By 1907 she had joined George Edwards’ Gaiety Theatre and in 1909 she was the only British actress in the play “Our Miss Gibbs” when it opened in New York.

In 1913 Jean married Colonel Alfie Rawlinson of the Intelligence Corps, but this did not stop her touring Scotland and the north-east of England with productions of “A Careless Lassie.”  She was highly praised in the local papers, the Dundee Evening Telegraph saying, “Miss Aylwin is a clever actress and her gaiety is quite infectious.”  Fashion designers loved to dress her and she inspired a lace dress copied by many.  She starred in two films, "Winning a Widow" in 1910 and "The Greatest Wish in the World" in 1918, in which she played Mother Superior.

In 1923 she rented a flat opposite the Chelsea Theatre where she was playing “Polly.”  When her husband Col. Rawlinson discovered her there with the composer Hubert Bath, he began divorce proceedings.  Miss Aylwin announced her intention to leave the stage and travel to India to work with the Wesleyan Missionary Society, but this did not prevent the high-profile scandal of the divorce evidence.  On her return to Britain she became a radio broadcaster with a programme of "Scotch Tales and Songs" for the BBC.  She died in Kent in 1964.

You can read more about The Gaiety Girls here

The notorious Edwardian dancer, Maud Allan

Maud Allan, famed in England for her dance of the seven veils had formerly changed her name and fled across the Atlantic to escape the scandal of her brother's actions, but in later life it was her own behaviour which provoked criticism.

Beulah Maude Durrant was born in Canada, but in 1879 her family moved to San Francisco where her elder brother later started training in medicine.  A well respected member of the Emmanuel Baptist Church, Theodore Durrant was the Assistant Sunday School Superintendent.  In April 1894, Blanche Lamont, a young member of the same church, disappeared without trace.  Ten days later, the body of Minnie Flora Williams was found, gruesomely murdered, in the Library of Emmanuel Church. Searching the church the following day, police discovered the naked body of Blanche Lamont hidden in the church Belfry.

After a long trial, the mainly circumstantial evidence convinced the jury that Theodore was guilty.  In January 1898 he was executed.  Before this happened Maud had been sent to Berlin to study Music.  She was also a graphic artist and in 1900 she published an illustrated sex manual for women.

The British audience first came to know Maud Allan in 1908 when she made her dancing debut in The Vision of Salome at the Palace of Varieties in London.  Inspired by Oscar Wilde's earlier play, Maud's dancing captivated Edwardian audiences, particularly women.  Maud was paid £250 a week for her performances.  In the same year she wrote her autobiography "My Life and Dancing."  Many compared her to Isadora Duncan but Maud hated this comparison.  As she took Salome on tour, some places such as Manchester banned her performance.  This only increased demand so she took her tour worldwide.  She appeared in Carnegie Hall but doubts were expressed about her performance in India.

"Her appearance is expected to have an ill-effect on the native mind,"  She also appeared in the silent film, "The Rug Maker's Daughter."

But things came to a head when Noel Pemberton Billing wrote an article called "The Cult of the Clitoris." He maintained that Maud Allan was one of a group of German agents "spreading debauchery and lasciviousness."  He said that she was having an affair with her good friend, Margaret Asquith, wife of the former Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith.

Maud took him to court. In May 1918, Billing appeared at the Old Bailey accused of obscene criminal and defamatory libel.  During the court case Billing stated that there was a black book of Britains in high office who were being blackmailed to enable spying activities.  Her connection to her executed brother Theodore Durrant was revealed and all the juicy details filled the newspapers.  The case against Billing was dismissed and Maud's life was never the same again.

However, in 1921 after spending four years teaching dance, she returned to performing in public.

From 1928 she began a 10 year relationship with her secretary Verna Aldrich.  Her last performance on the British stage was in 1932 when she was 60.  Four years later she gave her final performance in Los Angeles.  Settling in California, she worked for many years as a draughtsman and died in 1956.