Robert Maynard provided this photo of former Pollard’s star William Thomas at his butcher shop, on Hampshire Rd, Sunshine, sometime in the 1920s. William (centre) proudly holds his daughter Emma. His years performing for Pollard’s Lilliputian Opera Company in North America and Asia are far behind him.
Thanks to…
My lecturers so long ago – Tom Ryan, Arthur Cantrill and Ken Mogg.
And the following people deserve special thanks;
- Sandra Joy Aguilar, Warner Bros Archives, University of Southern California regarding Mary Maguire
- Julie K Allen, Brigham Young University, regarding Saharet
- Melissa Anderson, regarding Lotus Thompson
- Norm Archibald, regarding Mary Maguire
- Richard Bradshaw, regarding Fred Stone
- Dianne Byrne, regarding Mary Magurie
- Sophie Church, Geelong Grammar School regarding Joan Lang
- Catherine Crocker, regarding Midas Martyn and the Pollards
- Simone Cubbin, regarding Mary Maguire
- Jane Cussen
- Bill Egan, regarding Daphne Pollard & Jolly John Larkins
- Jim Eldridge, regarding Saharet
- Lina Favrin, Yarra Libraries regarding the pollards
- Katie Flack, State Library of Victoria.
- Claudia Funder, Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne
- Alan Garner, regarding Norma Whalley
- William Gillespie regarding German representations of Australia
- Marguerite Gillezeau, Archivist at Ascham College regarding Shirley Ann Richards, and also Archivist at Redlands, Sydney Church of England Coeducational Grammar School regarding Anona Winn.
- Martin Goebel, regarding Saharet
- Robert Gott
- Dan Gulino, at radiowasbetter.com,
- Julie Hansen, regarding Shirley Ann Richards and the Garden School
- Prue Heath, Archivist, SCEGGS Darlinghurst regarding Nancy O’Neil
- Joe Henderson, National Archives in Kew, England
- Joe Jordan, regarding The Desert Rats (1953)
- Stephen Langley regarding Reita Nugent/Janet Lind
- Mark Lepp, regarding Saharet
- Robert Maynard regarding Willie Thomas and the Pollards
- Michael McCullough regarding Saharet
- Joyce Mostyn regarding Mary Maguire
- Jock Murphy, former Director of Collections at the Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne,
- Ingrid Purnell, editor
- Kate Rice, inaugural Frank Van Straten Fellow, Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne.
- Jean Ritsema, regarding Saharet, Wanda Radford, Leah Leichner, Dulcie and Ashley Cooper
- Sister Helen Salter, Loreto Convent in Brisbane, regarding Mary Maguire
- John Shrimski, regarding Maie Saqui
- Robbie Stockfeld
- Tony Tibballs, Cinema and Theatre Historical Society of Australia
- Patsy Trench, regarding her mother Nancy O’Neil. Her website is here.
- Mary Vanderfeen, regarding Saharet
- Trish Van Der Werff, regarding Shirley Ann Richards
- Dorothy Weekes, former Archivist at Academy of Mary Immaculate in Fitzroy, regarding Mary Maguire
- Jeffrey Weissman, regarding Hal Roach and Lotus Thompson
- Stephanie Welsh, regarding Jocelyn Howarth
- Libby White, regarding Barbara Smith and Lloyd Lamble
- John Armine Wodehouse, Earl of Kimberley regarding Mary Maguire
- Brenda Young, regarding Elsie Morris
- Charles Zhang, regarding Saharet
and
- Zetta Florence of Brunswick St Fitzroy, who provide all my archival materials. They don’t know it, but they are in such good company, surrounded by the spirits of Daphne and Ivy Trott, Alf and Irene Goulding, the Topping girls, the Finlay girls, the Heintz boys and many other forgotten performers in Fitzroy.
Key Sources
Further reading is provided, wherever possible, at the end of each article. Hot links exist in the text to key primary and secondary sources online. The most common sources used include
Podcasts
- Dr Kate Rice (2020-2021) Performing the Past. A series of podcasts based on the Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne.
Text
- Stephen Alomes (1999) When London Calls. The expatriation of Australian creative artists to Britain. Cambridge University Press.
- Kaz Cooke (2017) Ada. Comedian, Dancer, Fighter. Viking /Penguin. A fictional account of Ada Delroy‘s life [funny, extremely well researched and valuable in the absence of interviews with so many early Australian performers.] Her website is here
- Peter Downes (2002) The Pollards. A family and its child and adult opera companies in New Zealand and Australia 1880 -1910. Steele Roberts
- Ray Edmondson and Andrew Pike (1982) Australia’s Lost Films. National Library of Australia.
- Richard Lane (1994) The Golden Age of Australian Radio Drama, 1923-1960. A History through Biography. Melb University Press
- Brian McFarlane (2003): The Encyclopedia of British Film. Methuen Publishing Ltd- BFI
- Kirsty Murray (2010) India Dark. Allen and Unwin. [A fictional work inspired by the Pollard Tour of India in 1909-1910.]
- Phillipe Mora, Peter Beilby, Scott Murray (eds) and others (1974-2001): Cinema Papers (Magazine) Cinema Papers P/L, Richmond, also MTV Publishing and Niche Media. See digitised collection at the University of Wollongong
- Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper (1981 and 1998): Australian film, 1900-1977 : a guide to feature film production. Oxford University Press.
- Hal Porter (1965) Stars of Australian Stage and Screen. Rigby Ltd
- Graham Shirley & Brian Adams (1989): Australian Cinema: The First Eighty Years. Currency Press
- Frank Van Straten (2003) Tivoli. Lothian Books
- Andrée Wright (1986) Brilliant Careers; Women in Australian Cinema. Pan Books Australia.
- Adrian Wright (2020) Cheer Up! British Musical Films 1929-1945. The Boydell Press.
- Angela Woollacott, (2001). To try her fortune in London. Australian women, Colonialism and Modernity. Oxford University Press
- Angela Woollacott (2011) Race and the Modern Exotic. Three ‘Australian’ Women on Global Display. Monash University Publishing.
Digital resources
- University of Washington, J. Willis Sayre Collection of Theatrical Photographs
- Film Critics Circle of Australia
- Theatre Heritage Australia Inc
- The National Library of Australia, digitised newspaper collection -Trove
- The National Archives of Australia
- National Film and Sound Archive (Australia)
- Australian Dictionary of Biography (online)
- Public Records Office, Victoria
- New South Wales State Archive
- Cinema and Theatre Historical Society of Australia
- David Kilderry: Drive-Ins Downunder
- Australia’s Ozsilentfilmfestival
- Screening the Past
- Garry Gillard – Australian Cinema
- Tony Martin-Jones Film History Notes.
- Ozmovies
- Ozflicks – An Australian Film Site
- Dave Lord Heath – Another Nice Mess site devoted to the Hal Roach studio and films, also contains a special Australian-born actors page here
- Leann Richards :HAT-History of Australian Theatre
- Clay Djubal and others: The Australian Variety Theatre Archive: Popular Culture Archive, 1850-1930.
- State Library of Victoria
- Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne.
- State Library of Queensland
- State Library of New South Wales
- The British Library Newspaper Archive project.
- National Archives, Kew
- California Digital Newspaper Collection
- Library of Congress – Chronicling America
- University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Communication Arts: Lantern – Media History Digital Library
- Ancestry.com
- Newspapers.com (by Ancestry)
- familysearch.org
- Bibliotheque National de France
- The Women Film Pioneers Project, edited by Jane Gaines, Radha Vatsal, and Monica Dall’Asta, New York, NY: Columbia University Libraries, has scholarly articles on a number of pioneer filmmakers
Lists of films and stage performances are not provided. Moderately accurate lists of films are often found on the Internet Movie Database. (IMDB), however the reader should note that these are sometimes inaccurate. A list of Broadway performances can be found at the Internet Broadway Database (IBDB).
A list of some Australian stage performances can be found at The Australian Live Performance Database.