Perhaps you’d like some MacRobertson’s Old Gold Chocolate while watching the show?
Mmmmm!
Or some Turkish Delight – as favoured by the scantily clad harem dancers shown here?
Maybe you have a cough? That Allen’s nurse looks like she knows what she’s on about.
Or maybe its time for something filter smooth… in the foyer? Actors Evelyn Laye and David Niven are reputed to have helped market this brand of tobacco.
(As far as I can tell, smoking was banned in Australian theatres from the 1940s, largely for safety reasons. Not so the UK. In the 1970s the author watched a Sean Connery film in a stuffy London cinema – through clouds of smoke – an experience I have no desire to repeat.)
After all those lollies and soothing smokes, you might need some of this?
Should be good – plus Califig is 11 percent proof!
So after all, maybe all you need is some fresh Aussie fruit?
Or perhaps just a nice cup of Glen Valley Tea?
Glen Valley tea sign, Johnson Street, Fitzroy, January 2019. Author’s Collection
In 2013 this painted sign for Indian Root pills was briefly exposed in Nicholson Street North Fitzroy when an unstable terrace house was demolished. A new building has since covered the sign.
But perhaps you shouldn’t have been at the cinema! Perhaps you needed some furniture carefully removed!
Westgarth Street, Fitzroy, December 2017 – a few streets from Daphne Trott (Pollard)’s birth place. Author’s Collection
Above: Years before he became well known as a Hollywood character actor, Robert Greig is shown here with fellow actor and wife Beatrice Holloway. They remained a devoted couple until his death in 1958, although the move to the US meant the end of her career. Photos from The Green Room Magazine, (left) 1 October 1918 and (right) 1 February 1918. Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW.
Robert Greig was the quintessential movie butler of Hollywood’s golden age. He first appeared in the Marx Brothers“Animal Crackers” in 1930, playing the role of Hives the butler, followed by another twenty years of related roles – more butlers, doormen, stuffy judges and remote English lords. Various online biographies generally make no reference to the first forty-five years of his life, or the place of Beatrice Denver Holloway, his wife and Australian on-stage collaborator for many years, who moved with him to the US in the mid 1920s. This writer is inclined to the view that while work in Hollywood was lucrative and life was easy, it was probably much less rewarding for a couple who had once been at the forefront of Australian theatre.
Beatrice Denver Holloway was born in Richmond, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, on 12 October 1884. Her father was Charles Holloway, an actor and long time member of the Bland-Holt and the Holloway Dramatic companies, and actress Alice Deorwyn (Alice Hayward). A number of members of her extended family were involved in theatre – her uncle William J Holloway was very well known.
Beatrice first appeared in 1890, in a performance of the drama The World Against Her, with her parents. It was the beginning of a long career on stage with many accolades. She learnt her craft with the Holloway Dramatic Company, often on tour around Australia with her parents. Eight years on, the Melbourne Punch was typically complementary of her work in The Silver King – “Miss Beatrice Holloway, as Cissie Denver; an important part played by the little lady with childishnaturalness.” By 1900, Beatrice was well enough known that Table Talkcould simply describe the 16 year old as “the clever young daughter of Mr Charles Holloway.”
Above: Beatrice in Table Talk, 7 June 1900, P10. Photo by Talma. Via National Library of Australia’s Trove.
Beatrice (right) in The Two Little Vagabonds. The Theatre,1 Sept 1906, p6, Via State Library of Victoria.
Robert Greig was born in Toorak, Melbourne, Australia on 27 December 1879. At birth, he was named Arthur Alfred Bede Greig. However, Robert Greig was his stage name and in life he was generally known as Bob or Bobbie to all who knew him well. After an education at Xavier College and some mundane experience working at Dunlop Tyres and as a commercial traveller, he became increasingly interested in amateur theatricals, and nearing the age of 30, made the transition to professional performer. He was offered a contract with the Hugh Ward Comedy Company, in 1909. He toured with them for a season, performing comedy roles in The Man from Mexico and Mr Hopkins.
Bob Greig in Melbourne Punch, 1 July 1909.
Beatrice and Bob met and first performed together in Beauty and the Barge in 1911. It was the start of a long and productive partnership. They married in December, 1912. It was a novelty wedding for the time – considerable press attention was given. Melbourne Punch ran full page photos of the wedding party which included Fred Niblo and Josephine Cohan – who had arrived from the US only six months before. They had met while preparing for George M Cohan’s Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford,which had its Australian premiere at the Criterion Theatre in Sydney, in August 1912. Niblo gave the bride away and was a witness.
During Niblo and Cohan’s three years in Australia, they often worked with Beatrice and Bob, although apparently not on Niblo’s two Australian filmed versions of Get-Rich-Quick Wallingfordand Officer 666 made for J. C. Williamson’s in 1916. Bob stated a great admiration for American plays. “They are all about natural people…there is always a big, good-natured man in anything American,”he told Adelaide’s Critic in November 1913.
As Elisabeth Kumm has noted, Australian theatre was already undergoing change even before the outbreak of World War One. After a brief hiatus in 1914, Australians flocked back to the theatres for escapism, and US comedies and performers filled some of the headline acts once dominated by British stars, now difficult to engage. In early 1918, Bob became Associate Director for the Tivoli theatre circuit. It seems the disruption of the War and attractive local contracts continued to keep the couple busy. A trip to the United Kingdom (and the USA on the way home) in 1920 seems only to have wetted their appetite for more stage possibilities. On their return, Bob was involved in producing the Australian musical F F F : an Australian Mystery Musical Comedy, which AusStage describes as “probably the first professionally produced Australian musical.” Following this and often under the banner of the Greig- Holloway Comedy Company, the couple performed new plays like Baby Mine in combination with familiar favourites, includingOfficer 666.
Bob and Beatrice starring in Baby Minein 1918. The Green Room magazine, 1 Jan 1918, p14. Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW.
With many friends and connections overseas, Bob and Beatrice often spoke of travelling to the United States, where both he and Beatrice felt sure they would find work. The demand in the US for Beatrice’s “style of work” was great, he once said. In fact, it was not until early 1925 that they finally sought work overseas. It was Bob who appeared onstage at Philadephia’s Garrick Theatre in A Night Out later that year, not Beatrice. Her career appears to have come to a full stop. Bob found more stage work, including 6 months with the Marx Brothers in the musical Animal Crackers, at New York’s 44th Street Theatre from October 1928. He played Hives the butler.
Above: Bob Greig in the stage farce Tonight’s the Night in 1916 – and already looking very much like his Hollywood character.
Bob’s first Hollywood role was reprising this role for the 1930 film version of Animal Crackers. But aged in his 50s and by now, very overweight, he was to find himself consigned to playing similar character roles in Hollywood films. Several Australian newspaper reports appeared in the mid 1930s, stating he was feeling typecast. He gained a role as Sir Charles Drake-Drake in the London musical Yes, Madam? for several months in late 1934, part of what must have been an effort to see if he could break the cycle. But in a career of more than 100 films, the movie butler became his signature role.
Five years after arriving in the US Robert Greig was already well and truly typecast – here as the butler Jarvis in MGMs Peg o’ My Heart (1933) . Photoplay, July – Dec 1933, p65.
In 1935 dancer Madge Elliot described having “a regular Australian night of it” (meaning too much to drink) in Hollywood with partner and husband Cyril Ritchard and other Australians including Bob and Beatrice. Writing for Australian papers, she remarked “The thing that struck me most about Hollywood is that in spite of the amazing climate, nearly everybody you met wanted to get away from it all …, the incessant talk of films, the terrible strain of competition and the monotony of the work in studios bored them to tears… but they stayed on because their earnings were high.” Elliot did not say these were Bob and Beatrice’s opinions, but it seems likely they were.
Bob’s accent
A few years after settling in the US, Robert Greig had a refined transatlantic accent. In this short clip from Dorothy Arzner’s “Merrily We Go to Hell”(1932), Jerry Corbett (Frederic March) complains he can’t find a baritone. Bartender Robert Greig explains that he is one.
By the time of the 1940 US census, Bob and Beatrice lived comfortably in an apartment on Franklin Avenue Los Angeles, with a steady income from his films. Robert died in on 27 June 1958, following complications from an operation. Bea died six years later – on 22 November 1964.
Above – Robert Greig’s memorial plaque at Holy Cross Cemetery in Los Angeles. A sign of the couple’s enduring affection
The couple did not return to Australia and soon lost touch with their many Australian admirers. One hopes they lived a happy life. But one can’t help feeling that the “fondest memories” Beatrice referred to on Robert’s memorial were of the years before Hollywood. What became of Beatrice’s career aspirations we do not know.
Nick Murphy Rewritten November 2020
Further reading
Text
Hal Porter (1965) Stars of Australian Stage and Screen. Rigby
Viola Tait (1971) A Family of Brothers. The Taits and J C Williamson, a theatre History. Heinemann.
Frank Van Straten (2003) Tivoli. Thomas C Lothian
J P Wearing (2014) The London Stage 1930-1939 : A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Enlargement of a photo of Sylvia Bremer, possibly from the Witzel Studios, Los Angeles. c 1918. Author’s Collection.
The 5 Second version
Born Sylvia Poppy Bremer, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 9 June 1897, she died in New York City, USA, 7 June, 1943. After very successful stage work in Australia, she travelled to the US with her first and much older husband Willett Morrison. Her first film in Hollywood was for Thomas Ince, and she was active in film from 1917-1926. She could not re-establish herself after the coming of sound and an unhappy second marriage.
Sylvia Bremer is hardly a forgotten Australian at all. Ralph Marsden’s biography Who was Sylvia? was published in 2016 – making use of hitherto unseen private photos of Bremer – and including a great deal of painstaking new research on her career. Here are two photos of a very young Sylvia from Australian libraries – they are now out of copyright.
Bremer was born into a comfortable family home in Double Bay, a harbour-side suburb of Sydney, in June 1897. As with several of the other women documented on this website, she was a student at Ascham College, which is probably where she developed her interest in theatre. Her father was Frederick Glasse Bremer – her ambitious mother was Jessie Bremer (née Platt). Her mother remarried after Bremer’s early death. Her origins seem to have been a constant source of interest for the press, or embarrassment for her. In an interview with Julian Johnson for Photoplay magazine in 1918, she tied herself in knots to emphasize (or exaggerate) her British naval connections. Her father was not a battle-ship captain as she claimed, but a hard working public servant in the Lands Department, who had died when she was only 13. She was obviously sensitive to accusations of German ancestry, as in 1917 she had changed the spelling of her surname from Bremer to Breamer, apparently to make her sound less German in the midst of war.
Sylvia as profiled in The Theatre (Syd) 1 Feb 1911. West’s Pictures had run a beauty competition, but 13 year old Sylvia was disqualified due to her age. Presumably she was entered by her mother. State Library of Victoria
Following several years of stage work in Australia and tuition from Douglas Ancelon & Stella Chapman’s school of Elocution and Dramatic Art, in October 1916 she travelled to the US with her first husband, 48 year old actor-director Willett Morrison on the SS Ventura. And there she stayed – her first film for Thomas H. Ince was The Pinch Hitter, released in 1917.
Above; Sylvia in Motion Picture Magazine, August 1917. She had just appeared in The Narrow Trail with William S Hart. The rest of the story here reminds us how unreliable movie mags are as a source – she supposedly grew up in “the Australian bush” at “Baggadella”. Via Lantern Digital Media Project.
As Ralph Marsden recounts, Sylvia’s story was not a happy one at all. Her career in film did not last – it was over well before the coming of sound in 1927 (she made over 40 films in just ten years). She was active on stage from 1926 -1930, her performances with the Bainbridge Players in Minneapolis in late 1930 appear to be her last, except for a role in the 1936 talkie Too Many Parents,a Paramount kid picture with Billy Lee and Frances Farmer. Although its not really clear why she lost her currency, her tumultuous private life and widely published criticisms of the shallowness of work and life in Hollywood probably did not endear her to key figures in the industry – including the powerful film producers who might otherwise have employed her. “Sylvia now loathes pictures and everything Hollywood means. There can be no real friendship in Hollywood-nothing butjealousy and sham,”she was reported as saying in 1930.
Here is part of Sylvia Breamer’s only scene in “Too Many Parents”(1936), as the mother of the insufferable Billy Miller (Billy Lee). Twenty years after arriving in the US, her accent is an English one. Copyright held by Universal films.
A postcard of Bremer, produced about 1920. Ironically, it appears to have been printed in Germany. Author’s Collection
Sylvia married three times, but each relationship ended acrimoniously or abruptly. There were no children from any of the marriages.
She died in New York aged only 45, in 1943. Perhaps one of the most moving photos in Marsden’s book is a grainy photo of Sylvia and her sister on the streets of New York, taken shortly before she died. Her passing appears to have gone unnoticed in Australia. Her mother, step-father, sister and brother all moved to the US. For a time, her brother Jack worked as a cinematographer. Sister Doris married actor William J Kelly in December 1926.
Sylvia and sister Doris in 1920. The Green Room, 1 June 1920 (Mitchell Library, Sydney)
Marsden’s book is recommended for anyone interested in Breamer’s career and those of the other early Australian women pioneers in Hollywood with whom she was acquainted – including Enid Bennett, Marjorie Bennettand Louise Lovely.
Sylvia Bremer advertising for Australian beauty products in The Theatre Magazine. Left, for Healatta soap on 2 December 1912.(Given her age, it appears likely her mother arranged the advertisement) Right for Clements Tonic, 2 October 1916. Via State Library of Victoria.
Nick Murphy, December 2018
Further Reading
Text
Ralph L. Marsden (2016) Who was Sylvia? A biography of Sylvia Breamer. With an introduction by Kevin Brownlow. Screencrafts Publications, Melbourne.
Above left: The United Service Club Hotel on the corner of Young Street and Gertrude Street, about the time Florrie was born. Source the State Library of Victoria Picture Collection. At right: The very altered building today. Author’s collection.
Florrie Forde was born Flora Flannagan in Fitzroy on 16 August 1875, to Lott Flannagan and Phoebe (Simmons). In time, she would become one of the great British Music Hall stars of the early twentieth century. A great deal has been written about her – she cannot be described as a forgotten Australian! Yet it perplexes the author that in a neighbourhood that also saw the births of Daphne Trott, Alf Goulding and Saharet, there is, today, no acknowledgment she was ever there.
This short article is intended to showcase her birthplace and her birth certificate. Links to longer articles can be found below.
Above: Part of Flora Flannagan’s birth certificate. Column 2 – date of birth, place of birth (no street number given); 3 – name (Just Flora and no May Augusta); 4 – gender; 5 – father’s name, profession, age and place of birth; 6 – date and place of marriage, other children; 7 – wife’s name age and place of birth (unknown, America). Via Victoria Birth Deaths & Marriages.
She was born at one of the family residences in Gertrude Street Fitzroy – the handsome but modest United Service Club Hotel run by her father at 88 (now 122) Gertrude Street being a possibility – although her birth certificate does not give a definitive address.
The 1875 Sands and McDougall directory for Melbourne lists her father’s business at 200 Gertrude Street. Today, this site is a tiny park, on the corner of Smith and Gertrude Streets, Collingwood. But this was surely only a business address at the time anyway.
In the same edition, the United Service Club Hotel is listed as managed by David Garcia:
Two years later however, the 1877 edition lists Lott Flanagan at the hotel. But it should be noted that there was probably some “lag” in time between when information was collected and the directory was published.
In addition, in a very thorough survey of her early life in Australia, researcher Tony Martin Jones has suggested that instead of a noisy pub, her place of birth may have been at her maternal grandparents shop and residence nearby. Barnett and Susannah Simmons ran a crockery store at 181 (now 203) Gertrude Street. That building is still only a few doors from an even larger, noisy pub – the Builder’s Arms. Unfortunately, we are now unlikely to ever know for sure.
A terrace of shop/residences in Gertrude Street, Fitzroy. Taking into account the change to street numbers, the Simmons crockery store was the building on the right, behind the blue car. Author’s Collection
Florrie first appeared on stage in Sydney in early 1892, and quickly became a popular singer and performer in pantomime. By 1894 she was a regular performer in Sydney and Melbourne. In 1897 she made her first appearance in London – apparently playing three music halls in the one night.
Left: Florrie Forde in 1898. Source: Melbourne Punch August 24, 1898, via National Library of Australia’s Trove.
Centre: Florrie Forde not long after her breakthrough on the stage in London. Source: “The Sketch,” Sept 21, 1898. Photo copyright Illustrated London News Group. Author’s Collection. At right – A signed postcard taken sometime later in, life, probably in the early 1930s. Author’s Collection.
A talented singer with an exceptional wit, she was supremely confident on stage and held a genuine affection for her audiences – music hall being her favourite. Her name is still connected with many of the music hall songs she made popular, such as the World War One favourites “A Long Long Way To Tipperary”,“Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag” and “Has Anybody here seen Kelly.” She appeared as herself in several British films in the mid 1930s, and in character in “My Old Dutch” in 1934. Her Australian accent remained with her all her life, as the numerous recordings she made demonstrate. As theatre historian Frank Van Straten notes, she achieved all this without any formal musical training – a remarkable achievement.
This C1930 booklet of sheet music lists many of Forde’s popular songs. Author’s Collection
Jeff Brownrigg’s entry at the Australian Dictionary of Biography provides an account of her work and quite tumultuous, perhaps dysfunctional, upbringing. She worked all her life – dying suddenly after entertaining in a Scottish naval hospital in April 1940. Obituaries in the UK and Australia were effusive. Florrie was very much the voice of the people, and apparently even Dame Nellie Melba was an admirer.
Above – Only a few months before her death, Florrie was still on stage, here with fellow Australian Anona Winn, in Portsmouth. Portsmouth Evening Herald 24 Feb 1940, listing shows commencing 26 Feb. Via British Library Newspaper Archive, Johnston Press PLC.
Above: Part of Flora Flannagan’s birth certificate. Column 2 – date of birth, place of birth (no street number given); 3 – name (Just Flora and no May Augusta); 4 – gender; 5 – father’s name, profession, age and place of birth; 6 – date and place of marriage, other children; 7 – wife’s name age and place of birth (unknown, America). 
