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.

A horrifying death in actress Gertie Millar's boudoir

In early November 1905 this photograph of the downstairs boudoir of Mrs Lionel Monckton in Russell Square was published in The Sketch, but a very different scene had taken place there. While Mrs  Monckton, better known as actress Gertie Millar, was asleep upstairs with her husband, one of her admirers had crept into the room and shot himself with a revolver. Baron Gunther Rau von Holzhauzen was well known to Gertie, he frequented the theatre whenever she was appearing and sent her many letters. She treated him as a friend, meeting him sometimes for tea with one of her lady friends.

 Gertie Millar was probably the best known musical comedy actress in the country, especially after she appeared at the Gaiety Theatre in "Our Miss Gibbs".  The music for this and most of the other musicals in which she sang was written by her husband former lawyer Lionel Monckton. In 1903 she had appeared in "The Orchid" in front of King Edward VI and Queen Alexandra.

 The Inquest into the death of Baron Holzhauzen was reported in detail in newspapers throughout the country. The parlourmaid described finding broken glass from the window at 7.30 am but it was only at at ten to nine that she spotted the baron's foot as he hid behind the piano. As she ran upstairs to fetch Mr Monckton a shot rang out. The court was told that The Baron "entertained a boyish infatuation" for the actress. It was assumed that intending to commit suicide he decided to spend his last night in the same house as Mrs Monckton.

Lionel Monckton was very unhappy about these events which caused problems in their marriage but he continued to write musicals for her. In 1910 Gertie Millar performed in "The Quaker Girl" which was particularly popular but she was also noticed in society being entertained by the Duke of Westminster.

In an interview with American journalist Alan Dale, she said,

 "Mr. Monckton studies me, of course," she said, "and he can usually gauge my qualities. I never took singing lessons in my life, and I never studied dancing. I can't understand why I am considered a dancer, because I really do nothing. I just jig to the rhythm of the music. I don't consider that there is any art in it. I love dancing, and adore watching it, but I don't admire my own at all."

 In the First World War the public changed their theatrical tastes, Lionel Monckton suffered from ill health and her director George Edwardes died in 1915. Gertie retired from the theatre in 1918. Only two months after Lionel Monckton died in 1924, Gertie Millar married William Ward, the Earl of Dudley. He died in 1932 and Gertie died 20 years later in Chiddingfold aged 73.

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