For much of the twentieth century Australians with an interest in British and American films of the 1930’s and ‘40’s believed that the actor Merle Oberon was “one of ours” and that she had been born in Tasmania. Several years after Oberon’s death in California in 1979, the truth about her origins became known, following the publication of Charles Higham’s and Roy Moseley’s Princess Merle in 1983. Higham and Moseley revealed the fact that she had been born in Bombay (now Mumbai) in India and that she was Anglo Indian (specifically – of mixed British-Sinhalese heritage).[2]See Sen (2025) p2-4 Subsequent research by Maree Delofski (for her documentary film The trouble with Merle, 2002) and Mayukh Sen for his definitive biography Love Queeniein 2025, has corrected some aspects of Higham and Moseley’s account. But this more recent research also confirmed much about Oberon’s early life in India. Delofski and Sen also found that her birth name was Estelle Merle Thompson, born 18 February 1911 [3]Merle celebrated her birthday on 19 February to Arthur and Constance Thompson. However, she was raised by her grandmother, Charlotte, whom Merle was initially led to believe was her mother.
Reflecting the deeply racist attitudes that prevailed in the early and mid-twentieth century, Oberon’s origins were hidden during her lifetime behind an elaborate story of having been born in Tasmania before moving to India following the death of her father. All of this was an attempt to prove that she was of pure European origin and to protect her from attitudes which would have terminated her career as an actor.
Merle Oberon. Undated fan card. Author’s collection
Both Higham & Moseley’s book and Delofski’s documentary drew on the memories of Harry Selby, who was Oberon’s half-brother. Selby supplied photographs of two of Oberon’s Mumbai homes and these were reproduced in Princess Merle. The second building which Oberon and her grandmother Charlotte lived in is identified as Imperial Mansion on Ripon Road and is shown below.
Imperial Mansion on Ripon Road, photographed by Harry Selby and reproduced in Princess Merle.
Further information about Imperial Mansion can be found in an article which recently appeared on the Mumbai news site Mid-Day.[4]see: The three wishes of Macbeth Lane
Today Mumbai is a rapidly changing city, with a population roughly the equivalent of Australia’s total population. While parts of the city are protected by UNESCO World Heritage listings, new buildings are springing up everywhere. For the moment Imperial Mansion remains standing, and provides a tangible and remarkable link with Oberon’s childhood in Mumbai.
To find Imperial Mansion, head to Nagpada Junction in Byculla, South Mumbai. What was known as Ripon Road has now been renamed Maulana Azad Road and runs approximately northwards from Nagpada Junction. The building is located at 245 Maulana Azad Road, on the east (right) side perhaps a hundred metres to the north from Nagpada Junction. The building is on the southeastern corner of a lane now known as Nasratullah Abbasi Marg (formerly Macbeth Lane). Another helpful landmark is the American Express Bakery in Mirza Ghalib Road (formerly Clare Road), which adjoins Nasratullah Abbasi Marg at the other (eastern) end of the lane.
Today the area where Oberon lived presents as a typical highly congested Mumbai suburb, with people, traffic and activity everywhere! In earlier times, like much of Mumbai, it had been swamp land. After reclamation the area became a residential area, with a distinctly multicultural aspect. Jews, Catholics, Muslims and Hindus all lived in close proximity. In the lead up to 1947, Nagpada was also a hub for the Indian Independence movement.
Merle’s childhood home in Mumbai was here. Imperial Mansion in February 2026. Author’s photo.
Nagpada is an area of some interest. The word Nag means snake and there is an early shrine in the area that is dedicated to the snake. The area is also the site of the Khada Parsi Fountain which is a memorial to the prominent Parsi Shet Cursetjee Manockjee (1763-1845). Manockjee’s son who funded the construction of the Fountain in the 1860’s was a Bombay judge and supporter of female education, founding the Alexandra Girls English Institution in 1863. The statue of Manockjee which stands above the fountain was designed by the Englishman John Bell (1811 – 1895), a noted sculptor. The fountain and statue, which replicate a similar one in Chile, have recently been restored and can be found near the Byculla flyover road. The American Express Bakery, mentioned above, is famous for the fact that it provided “express” delivery of baked goods to American cruise ships in an earlier era.
Merle Oberon has at least sixty acting credits – for films made in the UK and US. She died in California in November 1979, aged 68.
Jock Murphy March 2026
Further Reading
Mayukh Sen (2025) Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood’s First South Asian Star. W. W. Norton & Company His website is here: https://www.mayukh-sen.com/
Angela Woollacott (2011) Race and the Modern Exotic. Three ‘Australian’ Women on Global Display. Monash University Publishing
Marée Delofski (2002) The Trouble with Merle (documentary film) available via Kanopy
Charles Higham & Roy Moseley (1983) Princess Merle: The Romantic Life of Merle Oberon. Coward-McCann Inc.
This site has been selected for archiving and preservation in the National Library of Australia’s Pandora archive
Above: Johnnie and Freddie Heintz, sit distracted on the ground in front of older children of the Pollard Lilliputian Opera Company, while on the long performance tour of 1904-1907.[1]University of Washington Sayre (J. Willis) Collection of Theatrical Photographs, via Wikimedia Commons
Until quite recently, accounts of Pollards Lilliputian Opera Company, as run by Charles Pollard and Nellie Chester, have tended to be of a celebratory and nationalistic nature, coloured by the success of a few of its Australian graduates. At the time, a great effort was made to represent the company [2]or more correctly – companies, as the troupes changed over time as a type of travelling educational institution,[3]Democrat and Chronicle (New York), 9 March 1902, p.10 while all sorts of spurious claims were made regarding the qualifications of the adults accompanying the children.(See for example, the account at left from the Chicago Tribune, 19 May 1902. Click to enlarge)
We have few records from the child performers themselves. Only one Lilliputian was interviewed in any depth, much later in life. The experience of Freddie and Johnnie Heintz, related below, shows a childhood spent with Pollards was much less spectacular than the prevailing stereotype suggests.
Maggie Moore on Child Actors
Maggie Moore c1902. Bangs Photographer.[4]State Library of Victoria. Coppin Collection MS 8827
In 1904, during one of her many performance tours of Australia, popular US born actress Maggie Moore (1851-1926) wrote an article on the valuable experience the stage provided for children. The piece in The Australasian Stage Annual was entitled “Tales of Tiny Thespians,” and it was unusually long for a magazine devoted almost exclusively to short articles about the legitimate stage.[5]The magazine appeared at Christmas time each year. The State Library of Victoria holds editions of 1900-1906 It made the point repeatedly, that a career on stage provided children, especially those from poorer families, with an education, personal development and a worthwhile career.
She told readers; Recently a law in England was passed to prevent young children going upon the stage. Oh! The pity of it! How many tiny mites will have a cold, cruel Christmas – no sunshine, no laughter, no shillings for mother at the end of the week. Who knows, perhaps they will be hungry. Nothing to eat on Christmas day, nothing to put in the empty stockings.[6]The Australasian Stage Annual, 1904 p14, State Library of Victoria
Moore’s intention was completely serious here – there was no tongue-in-cheek, 21st century humour going on.
The Australasian Stage Annual, 1904 p14 [7]State Library of Victoria
The article was peppered with personal anecdotes, many of them about working class urchins who were venturing on stage for the first time, but still in need of a bath or a face wash, and whose speech she rendered into that peculiar and patronising style favoured by writers of the time, sometimes bordering on caricature;
[Moore] And tell me why you are called ‘Ginger’? What is your proper name? “Oh! Me oder name: that’s Sonny… Yes me mudder always called me Sonny. It’s only since I went dancin’ in the pubs dat I’ve been ‘Ginger'” [Moore] Your mother is dead is she? “Yes” And tears came to his eyes…[8]The Australasian Stage Annual, 1904 p26, State Library of Victoria
Maggie Moore on “Joe and Jim O’Reilly”
Maggie Moore also recounted working with a pair of four year olds in a pantomime, who she named as Joe and Jim O’Reilly. “Joe was very quiet and always very tidy, Jim was a terror.” The boys fought to collect the flowers thrown at the end of one particular song to put on “daddy’s drave” (grave). Paid sixpence as tea-money, on one occasion they missed a cue because they spent the money instead on seeing another panto at a nearby theatre. But she reassured readers they had now grown up and were at work, although aged only fourteen. “The stage was their school until they lost their childish tricks, and I am sure both will be good, clever men when they get older.” [9]The Australasian Stage Annual, 1904 p22, State Library of Victoria
Did Joe and Jim O’Reilly really exist? Perhaps they did… in some other form.
Freddie and Johnnie Heintz
In the same year that Moore wrote her article, a Fitzroy widow was considering the future for her twin boys, Freddie and Johnnie Heintz. Annie Heintz lived in a small cottage in Kerr St Fitzroy, but had lost her husband John, a baker, in 1901.[10]Leader (Melb) 2 March 1901, p44 Despite the era’s significant mortality rate with childbirth (and with the birth of twins particularly), Mrs White, an experienced local midwife, had assisted in a successful delivery of Annie Heintz’s twins at home in December 1895. But by the time of John Heintz’s death there were six children aged under 12 in the Heintz family – it must have been a financial strain. Annie’s oldest son, Ernest, soon joined the thriving boot trade of inner Melbourne, but another son, Oscar, had turned in a different direction and in 1901, aged 10, had joined Pollards Lilliputian Opera Company. This arrangement generated a modest but steady income for the family.
Johnnie and Freddie Heintz with their mother Annie, c1904-1907. Private Collection.
Freddie and Johnnie join the Pollards
Like their older brother Oscar, Freddie and Johnnie developed an interest in performing. Ethel Monte Punshon (1882-1989) met them later in life and recounted that following the death of their father, the Heintz twins sold sweets outside Melbourne theatres, where they were also observed to be entertaining mimics.[11]See Tessa Morris-Suzuki’s bio of Punshon (2024), p80
The enthusiasm for an adventure performing musical comedy with the Pollards also affected other children living in Kerr St, Fitzroy. The girls of the neighbouring Trott and Bennetto families had already toured with the Pollards by 1904. The Topping girls had too – they also lived nearby, just around the corner in Fitzroy Street. Without a doubt, these children also knew each other from the very small playground and crowded classrooms of the nearby Bell Street School in Fitzroy.
Red dots mark the homes of Pollard homes in Kerr St Fitzroy, today. In 1900, No. 84 (red door on the left) housed the Heintz family, No 76 (centre of photo) the Bennettos, and No 56 (the white cottage in the right far distance) was home to the Trott family. Author’s collection
Ernest Wolff and Nellie Chester in happier times c1903. [12]Australian Performing Arts Museum
Coincidentally, in early 1904, the Pollard company’s musical conductor, Ernest Wolff (1874-1948), attempted to induce some of the Pollard parents to join a new break-away juvenile company he was planning, with higher rates of pay on offer. The tall, good looking and over confident Ernest Wolff personally visited many of the parents in April, and convinced them that that their existing contracts with the proprietors of Pollards (Charles Pollard (1858-1942) & Nellie Chester nee Pollard(1861-1944) were not binding. It is clear from surviving Supreme Court records that Annie Heintz had accepted Wolff’s offer to employ Oscar. However on May 4, after Oscar missed some rehearsals, Charles Pollard visited Annie Heintz. He assured her the original contract with him was valid and said, ominously, that the matter would be soon be going to Court. Annie quickly backed down, re-engaged with Pollards, and it was soon after this that she also signed up Freddie and Johnnie to join the next Pollards troupe. Other parents who had been lured by the promise of higher salaries also re-committed to Pollards.
When the matter went to the Supreme Court on May 13, Wolff abandoned his plan.[13]Supreme Court Victoria 1904/329 Pollard & Anor V Wolffe and see also contemporary reports – including Nanaimo Daily News (British Columbia, Canada) July 7, 1904, p3 The court records reveal some of the details of the Pollards operations. Oscar Heintz’s salary, paid to Annie, was 10 shillings per month for the first six months and £1 per month thereafter, on a two year contract.(The contract was due to expire in December 1904 – but it was subsequently renewed)
So, in July 1904, a new Pollard troupe departed Melbourne. The performance tour first took in Queensland (where some of their musical comedies were tested out), then on to Manila, Japanese ports and finally to North America. On board were Freddie and Johnnie, and their older brother Oscar, and all of the other children Wolff had attempted to “poach”. The very familiar Pollard repertoire of musical comedies included A Runaway Girl, The Belle of New York, A Gaiety Girl, The Geisha and HMS Pinafore. Although the troupe was predominantly made up of girls, the Heintz twins joined a small group of boys who took the leading comic character roles.
The Pollards troupe in late 1904, apparently posing outside a Manilla Jail. Oscar Heintz stands left rear, Freddie and Johnnie at the front.[14]University of Washington Sayre (J. Willis) Collection of Theatrical Photographs, via Wikimedia Commons
Compulsory Education and the Pollards
In the Heintz children’s hometown of Melbourne, compulsory education for all children aged between 6 and 15 had been legislated in 1872. But there was often non-compliance with child labour laws [15]See Wilcox and Anderson and the Education Act also allowed for legitimate “exemptions,” such as “that a child is under efficient instruction in some other manner.” This “some other manner” is also what the Pollard management claimed when they took Wolff to court – they stated they were contracted to “properly provide for, maintain and clothe… [the children] and teach and educate [them] in the profession of the stage.” The court found in the Pollards favour and by implication, approved of the contracts.[16]Supreme Court Victoria 1904/329 Pollard & Anor V Wolffe
Freddie and Johnnie Heintz in character for Pollard’s Lilliputian Opera Company in North America, c1906. [17]University of Washington Sayre (J. Willis) Collection of Theatrical Photographs, via Wikimedia Commons
Freddie and Johnnie’s first tour with Pollards did not to return to Australia until February 1907, an extraordinary 32 months away from home. Older brother Oscar was not with them when they returned. Aged 16, he simply stayed on in Portland, Oregon and built a new, non-theatrical life for himself in the US.
After four months back in Fitzroy, Freddie and Johnnie joined the next Pollards trip, which departed Australia in late July 1907, and which followed a similar route to the last, most of the time being spent in North America. In early 1909, fifteen months later, they returned to Australia. The Heintz twins had, by now, spent most of the last five years on the road.
In 1909, following Charles Pollard’s retirement,[18]The Telegraph (Qld.)17 Apr 1909 p8 the youngest member of the Pollard family, Arthur Hayden Pollard (1873-1940), organised another troupe and the Heintz boys joined up, once again. However, within six months the trip had collapsed disastrously and Australian newspapers were carrying news of the accusations of Arthur Pollard’s cruelty towards his charges.
The Arthur Pollard troupe – a photo taken in February 1910, after he had abandoned them. Freddie Heintz stands in the third row, 2nd from left, while Johnnie is sitting front row, third from right. [19]Leader (Melb) 2 Apr 1910, p23
Amongst numerous complaints from children that surfaced while the troupe was in India, Freddie Heintz claimed he had been repeatedly struck by Arthur Pollard. Through the pages of the Madras Times, Pollard attempted to defend himself; “Yes, I have boxed Fred’s ears, and smacked him on the proper place several times, but never without good cause for doing so.”[20]as reported in The Daily News (Perth) 9 March 1910, p7 Other child performers had reportedly been roughly treated, or confined to bread and water, or had their hair cut, or were punished in other ways. Arthur Pollard clearly had a temperament completely unsuited to managing children, even if Freddie Heintz was a difficult youngster. Pollard subsequently made off with the proceeds of the tour and 18 year old performer Irene Finlay, whom he later bigamously married. Stuck in India, it took several months for Freddie and Johnnie Heintz -and the rest of the troupe – to get home.[21]See Gillian Arrighi (2017) and Kirsty Murray (2010) for accounts of this
In Australia after 1909
In Australia again, Freddie and Johnnie joined the Juvenile Comic Opera Company being organised by J C Williamsons to tour Australian cities. Some of the company members were former Pollards players (Ivy Moore, Ivy Ferguson, Florrie Allen as well as the Heintz boys) and the musical comedies performed were from the familiar popular repertoire favoured by Pollards. There the similarities ended however. JC Williamsons took their responsibilities to educate seriously – they could scarcely do otherwise in Australia, with its pioneer laws regarding education. It was at this time that Monte Punshon, the troupe’s teacher, met the Heintz twins.[22]In Arthur Pollard’s ill-fated troupe, 17 year old Ruby Ford had been nominated as the “schoolmistress” – she later claimed this was a ruse so that Pollard could fulfil his … Continue reading
Freddie and Johnnie as members of the JC Williamsons juvenile opera in Adelaide in 1911.[23]The Advertiser (Adelaide) 14 April 1911, p2
Monte Punshon recalled that neither of the Heintz boys attended her morning classes, but they did develop a strong rapport with her. And it was Johnny who confided to Monte that neither of them had ever learned to read or write, an awful inditement of life for some of the Pollard children. Monte even recounted the experience of sitting on a train, with Freddie dictating a letter for her to write, a love letter to a girlfriend – too difficult for him to write himself.[24]Tessa Morris-Suzuki (2024), p79-81 The claim carries more weight when considered with fellow Pollards performer Irene Goulding‘s comments. Interviewed late in life she expressed regret for her limited education, a consequence of a childhood spent on performance tours.
For unrelated reasons, JC Williamsons comic opera company folded, and Monte Punshon’s brief relationship with the twins came to an end. Also at about this time, Johnny left the stage for good. He became a baker and settled in Adelaide. Freddie however, stayed on the stage in variety, but seems to have drifted for a while. On New Year’s morning 1913, he found himself in serious trouble for swearing at a policeman. He was near his home in Kerr Street, so ran inside after the incident, but was pursued by angry police. He then made things worse by throwing a chair at them. In court a few days later, he explained he had been drinking too much with friends. He was fined 20 shillings.[25]The Herald (Melb) 3 Jan 1913, p6
Freddie seeks a career in the US
In Maggie Moore’s 1904 article, the ultimate measurement of success for a juvenile performer was to find work overseas. Of one, unnamed and perhaps imaginary former child actor, now in the US, she wrote; “You should have seen [his]… mother’s face when I called to see her… and what pride she spoke of her boy and the money he had sent her for Christmas.”
Perhaps with a similar dream, but likely at the invitation of Nellie Chester[26]who had set up a new musical comedy troupe in the US comprising ex-Pollards players Freddie left Australia in June 1914. He soon teamed up with some familiar Pollard names – Teddy McNamara, Nellie McNamara and Queenie Williams, to tour the old popular favourites like The Mikado and also their own shorter, snappier musical spectaculars – such as A Millionaire for a Day and Married by Wireless – with smaller casts and an increasing emphasis on mechanical effects.
The “adult Pollards”, almost all Australians, and including Freddie Heintz in top hat, touring California in 1916.[27]The Times-Herald (Vallejo, CA) Feb 6, 1916 p3
Like other performers during the Great War, Freddie dropped the surname Heintz for stage purposes, and went by the less German sounding surname Garland. Although the adult Pollards continued on for a short time, in March 1918 Freddie left the stage and travelled north to join the Canadian army. His military record shows he saw service in France for several months, but in January 1919, with the war over, he was sentenced to 21 days of the notoriously degrading “Field Punishment No1” for carrying out his sentry duties in a “slovenly manner.” He was “demobbed” in April 1919 and returned to the US and back to vaudeville. Whatever his weaknesses as a soldier, throughout his military service, Freddie dutifully sent most of his pay home to his mother Annie, still living at the little cottage in Kerr St, Fitzroy. Sadly, Annie died in June 1919, a victim of the Influenza pandemic.
Freddie in 1922. [28]The Oregonian (Portland) July 25, 1922 p6
Freddie Garland becomes Freddie Steele
In 1922, Freddie re-launched his career again. He was now “Freddie Steele,” and he had allegedly been “adopted” by vaudevillian Lillian Steele and her husband Harry Hoffman, becoming part of their song, dance and comedy act, performing Love Lessons on the Loew circuit.[29]A ridiculous account of his background appears in The Birmingham News (Alabama) May 29, 1922, p2. A more sober announcement appeared in The Vaudeville News, May 19, 1922 p12 This teaming with Lillian Steele continued on and off over the next few years and was apparently a successful partnership.
By 1926 Freddie was appearing in a variety-illusion act called In China on the Pantages circuit.[30]The Edmonton Bulletin (Canada) Feb 19, 1926, p16 Then in 1927, he appeared at the Schubert Theatre in Fog, a mystery melodrama – a complete change of pace for a song and dance man. He was now Freddie Garland again, perhaps to avoid confusion with others.
A typical mixed program of 1928, integrating vaudeville and cinema.[31]Poughkeepsie Eagle-News (New York) Jun 26, 1928 p12
In 1925 Freddie married Sophie Russell, a fellow performer from New York, whilst touring through West Virginia. The marriage had failed within a few years – by the time of the 1930 US census he described his status as single. We might assume that Freddie continued to perform in the 1930s, but his footprints in the historical record are faint and there seems little evidence of any significant activity on stage. With the rise of radio, the onset of the depression and then the booming popularity of the talkies, Freddie’s career as a jobbing vaudevillian meant he was particularly vulnerable. According to the 1940 US census, by that year he was boarding with the Emil Coretty family in Freeport, on Long Island, New York, and was now a handyman.
By the late 1940s, Freddie Heintz had moved on, perhaps in search of new opportunities. He was living at the Natick Hotel in Los Angeles when he was accidentally struck and killed by a car, in July 1949. His death certificate stated he was a clerk, although newspapers of the time had also reported he was a “newsboy.”[32]Daily News (Los Angeles) July 20, 1949, p29
A glance at the real and complex lives of the tiny thespians
In Maggie Moore’s view, from 1904, stage experiences beckoned invitingly for children. And for a few young people, membership of troupes like the Pollards really did change their lives, despite the absence of formalised education. Ted McNamara, Alf Goulding and Harold Fraser (Snub Pollard) all built impressive careers in the US. However, in terms of their personal lives, there was often much less success. After the death of his first wife, Alf Goulding remarried a further five times. Snub Pollard married three times but died alone in 1962, while Ted McNamara married twice before his early and unhappy death in early 1928. John Cherry (1887-1968), who often used the stage name Jack Pollard, is perhaps the most successful of the ex-Pollards boys – creating a long career on the legitimate stage on the US east coast while enjoying a stable relationship.
Gillian Arrighi has characterised the juvenile Pollards players as “caught in an industrial theatre complex.”[33]Arrighi (2017) p157 Some degree of awareness of this might explain why a number of Freddie’s contemporaries from Pollards chose not to pursue careers on stage. Roy Smith became an electrician in the US, while Willie Thomas became a butcher in Australia. Both Johnnie and Oscar Heintz left the stage.
May Martyn as Maie Vine undated poster c1910[34]Prompt Scrapbook National Library of Australia
For women, societal norms made the pathway to the stage as an adult challenging and their careers were sometimes abandoned after marriage. However, many ex-Pollard girls successfully established themselves on stage. For example, using skills learned with Pollards, May Martyn (1893-1982) and Elsie Morris(1896-1966) both became popular male impersonators in Australia, specialising in the pretentious upper class “swell” or “toff” character. The Heintz’s neighbours from Fitzroy, Alice (1885-1970) and Ethel (1889-1985) Bennetto, also built successful stage careers in Australia. Alice went on to enjoy a long career as the personal and professional partner of comedian Elton Black. Ethel even appeared in an Australian film – Does the Jazz lead to Destruction? (1919)
But of all the tiny thespians with Pollards, it was Daphne Trott (Pollard), also from Kerr Street Fitzroy, who arguably achieved the greatest success – taking into account her stage successes on Broadway and in London, and her later Hollywood screen roles. It is worth noting that when interviewed by film historian Sam Gill in the 1970s, Daphne recalled that when first approached, she didn’t want to take the “step down” from the stage to appear in Keystone comedy films! It took until the late 1920s for her to see the value in acting for the screen.[35]Sam Gill, personal information, January 2026
Of Oscar and Johnnie Heintz
Oscar Heintz died suddenly in Portland, United States in 1939, aged only 48. He had studied, graduated and married by 1915, and had two sons. At the time of his death he was a manager for Ramsay Neon Signs, a company that survives in Portland today. In late 1929 he visited Australia to see his surviving sisters Annie and Eva.[36]The Oregonian, Oct 10, 1929, p6
John (no longer Johnnie in adulthood) Heintz died in Adelaide, Australia in 1945 as a result of myocarditis. He was 49 years old. He had married in 1918 and had a daughter who predeceased him.[37]The News (Adelaide) 29 Aug 1945 p3
Nick Murphy March 2026
References
Thanks to
A J McKirdy for her kind assistance.
Sam Gill
and Claudia Funder, at the Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne.
Text
Gillian Arrighi, ’The Controversial “Case of the Opera Children in the east”: Political Conflict between Popular Demand for Child Actors and Modernizing Cultural Policy on the Child’, Theatre Journal, 69, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017, pp.153–173
Gillian Arrighi and Victor Emeljanow (eds), Entertaining Children: The Participation of Youth in the Entertainment Industry, Palgrove MacMillan, New York, 2014. Chapter 3. ‘Children and Youth of the Empire: Tales of Transgression and Accommodation’, pp.51-71
Peter Downes, The Pollards. A family and its child and adult opera companies in New Zealand and Australia 1880–1910, Steele Roberts, Aotearoa, New Zealand, 2002
Sally Howes, Irene Smith (nee Goulding) interview, Cassette 616, Australian Performing Arts Collection, Art Centre Melbourne, 1985
Kirsty Murray, India Dark, Allen and Unwin, 2010
Tessa Morris-Suzuki (2024) A Secretive Century. Monte Punshon’s Australia. Melbourne University Publishing.
Supreme Court Victoria 1904/329 Pollard & Anor V Wolffe and see also contemporary reports – including Nanaimo Daily News (British Columbia, Canada) July 7, 1904, p3
In Arthur Pollard’s ill-fated troupe, 17 year old Ruby Ford had been nominated as the “schoolmistress” – she later claimed this was a ruse so that Pollard could fulfil his contractual obligations to parents
A ridiculous account of his background appears in The Birmingham News (Alabama) May 29, 1922, p2. A more sober announcement appeared in The Vaudeville News, May 19, 1922 p12
The Five second version. ‘Henry’ Kakusakuro Matsumoto, was born in Japan on 8 September 1879. He spent most of his adult life in Australia, and despite the fact he lived in a limbo-land of non-citizenship—a consequence of the racist White Australia policy—he appeared on stage in Australia in the 1910s, and in two Australian films made by Fred Niblo, followed by a stint on stage in the US. However, his footsteps through the historical record are faint. He was never interviewed and only rarely reviewed, and the Second World War swept away memories and cultural records of the Japanese in Australia. Fortunately, the National Archives of Australia hold very comprehensive files on ‘aliens’ who resided in Australia in the early twentieth century, and here we can meet Henry Matsumoto.[1]National Archives of Australia. SP42/1, C1931/3848, Henry Kakusaura Matsumoto
The Mail (Adelaide) reports on a ‘Jap Comedian’ with the Royal Banzai Troupe of Japanese Acrobats [2]26 April 1913, p6
When South Australia’s Daily Herald announced in November 1912 that Henry Matsumoto was the “first Japanese to appear on the Australian stage”, they were, or course, engaging in a piece of journalistic shorthand.[3]Daily Herald (Adelaide) 27 November 1912, p9 He wasn’t. The success of touring Japanese acrobats in Australia in the late nineteenth century was well known at the time and has been recorded by Mark St Leon.[4]St Leon (2011) pps155-6 In spite of discriminatory colonial and later national legislation, since labelled as the White Australia policy, there were in fact, a few performers of Asian backgrounds who achieved a degree of success in Australia. Most famous perhaps was Melbourne-born Rose Quong (1878-1972), whose journey to the stage has been documented by Angela Woollacott. The story of others of mixed race, including the celebrated dancer of the late nineteenth century, Saharet (1878-1964), is now also well documented, despite her lifelong efforts to hide her origins of Chinese-Australian ancestry.
Henry Matsumoto, undated photo, probably about the time of his arrival in Queensland in 1899. Image courtesy of the National Archives of Australia. NAA: SP42/1, C1931/3848.
Moving to Australia
Kakusakuro Matsumoto[5]He apparently adopted the first name ‘Henry’ on arrival in Australia arrived in Queensland in November 1899. He was employed as a clerk at the Yamato Company Store in Townsville, one of the colony’s first silk suppliers.[6]Killoran (2023) p153 Born in Osaka, a Japanese Treaty Port, he had probably acquired a high degree of fluency with English language before arriving in Townsville, which had a sizeable Japanese population working in the sugar and pearling industries.[7]Sizeable in the north of Queensland, but Armstrong (1973) p8 estimates there were never more than 3,000 Japanese in the entire colony Townsville even boasted a Japanese Consulate office at the time. Queensland’s delay in introducing restrictive immigration laws—as other Australian colonies had done—apparently benefited Henry.[8]See Neville Meaney (2007) p18-19
In 1901, only a few years after Henry’s arrival, Australia’s new Commonwealth Parliament passed the Immigration Restriction Act. In Alfred Deakin’s(1856-1919) words, the law’s stated intention was “the prohibition of all alien coloured immigration, and… by reasonable and just means, the deportation or reduction of the number of aliens now in our midst.”[9]Attorney-General Alfred Deakin, 12 September 1901 The law’s mechanisms for excluding “alien coloured immigration” included the infamous dictation test, applied when non-Caucasians arrived to seek entry to Australia. Exemptions could be granted, but the intention was avowedly to create a ‘White Australia.’
Henry’s National Archives file shows that in 1904 he left Townsville to work as a valet for pastoralist Philip Gidley King at Goonoo Goonoo station near Tamworth, in New South Wales. Then for the three years 1905-7 he was a valet in Sydney, to Sir Frederick Darley, one time Chief Justice and Lieutenant Governor. In 1908 he served as a valet for E.H.L. von Arnheim, Deputy Master of the Sydney Mint. These were impressive appointments, which also provided him with useful character references—just the sort of references required to support exemptions from provisions of the 1901 Act.
In 1909 Henry moved on again, apparently to establish his own import business – to cater for the fashion in oriental fabrics and ceramics—a contradiction indeed in a country wishing to exclude non-Caucasians. Henry also married Ada Maud White, an English dressmaker, in Melbourne, in December 1909. A daughter was born of the union in 1912, and a son in 1913. But the marriage did not mean that Henry became British or Australian. Rather, it meant Ada became a Japanese national.
A New Opportunity beckons
In July 1912, US actors Fred Niblo(1874-1948) and Josephine Cohan(1876-1916) arrived in Australia to launch a tour of American farces for J.C. Williamson, the first being George M Cohan’s Get Rich Quick Wallingford. Niblo and Cohan would have been quite aware that in New York, a Japanese American named Yoshin Sakurai had successfully taken the supporting role of Yosi the Japanese valet in 1911.[10]See Esther Kim Lee (2006), p14. However, Elizabeth Craft suggests a Korean actor “Du Gle Kim” first played the role in the US. Craft (2024) p100 The character of Yosi had not appeared in the original Wallingford stories by George Randolph Chester—it had been added to the play by Cohan.[11]Elizabeth Craft (2024) p236
As Josephine Lee argues, the more authentic use of real Asian actors on stage instead of Caucasians in ‘yellowface’ did not change the fact they were “onstage for the benefit of white spectators, and their performances strongly framed by assumptions about their racial and cultural difference.” They were “exotic novelties” she concludes.[12]Josephine Lee (2015) p63
Yoshin Sakurai playing Yosi in the US in 1911. [13]The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) 16 October, 1911, p14
As Elizabeth Craft notes, the minor character of Yosi, valet to the con-man J Rufus Wallingford, both reinforced and undermined existing stereotypes. The character is mocked and dehumanised as ‘the Jap.’ However, when a resident of Battlesburg—the fictional town where the action of the play is set—assumes he is Chinese and makes an offensive comment, Yosi retorts in fluent English and appropriate US slang, “Go on, you big stiff.”[14]Elizabeth Craft (2024) p100
Melbourne Punch reported that Niblo had asked the Japanese consulate in Sydney for help in casting the part of Yosi and Henry Matsumoto had been nominated.[15]Punch (Melbourne) 21 Nov 1912, p42 The pragmatic Niblo obviously felt the previously unknown Henry could take the part. Table Talk noted Henry spoke “very fair English” and claimed he had previous stage experience in Japan. Henry’s skill with English was important, however, given the play was so dependent on distinctive US slang and mannerisms for comic effect.
During their three-year performance tour for J.C. Williamson,Niblo and Cohan presented eight comedies, all of which were a success.[16]The tour was extended three times; in December 1912, May 1913 and May 1914. The contracts survive in the Australian Performing Arts Collection In addition to Get Rich Quick Wallingford,Henry also appeared in speaking roles in Excuse Me! and Officer 666 although these were again minor roles—as a porter and valet.
The company toured all the Australian capitals and went to New Zealand twice. The travel to New Zealand meant the troupe left the country, and with their return, Henry was potentially exposed to the provisions of the Immigration Restriction Act—including the dictation test. But such was the influence of J C Williamson he was exempted at their request, and Henry breezed back into Australia with the rest of the cast.
Image courtesy of the National Archives of Australia. NAA: SP42/1, C1931/3848. F.J. Quinlan was a secretary of Australia’s External Affairs Department.
Poster for Excuse Me! showing Henry in another minor role. Image Courtesy Australian Performing Arts Collection.
In May 1915, Fred Niblo quickly directed film versions ofGet Rich Quick Wallingford and Officer 666 for J.C. Williamson, using the stage cast. These were fairly unimaginative, static camera films. As Ralph Marsden has explained, J.C. Williamson turned to making films because they were concerned about the release of US-made films, based on plays to which Williamson’s already held the Australian stage rights. The Firm probably assumed that filmed plays might provide a means to safeguard their claim on the plays and provide income from distribution to less populous parts of the country.[17]Marsden (2009) p4
Existing credit lists show Officer 666included Henry, and it is reasonable to conclude he also appeared in the (now lost) filmed version of Get Rich QuickWallingford, made only a few weeks earlier.[18]Pike & Cooper (1980) p80 Writing in 2009, Ralph Marsden was obviously lucky enough to see all of the 40 minutes of Officer 666 that survives, but only a two minute clip is freely available to us today—and that clip does not include Henry. In the end, neither film proved successful at the Australian box office, and J.C. Williamson soon abandoned its filmmaking.
Niblo and Cohan finally wrapped up their tour in June 1915 and returned to New York, taking two promising young actors with them—Enid Bennett(1893-1969) and Pirie Bush(1889-1965). Did Henry Matsumoto also dream of an ongoing career on the stage? It would seem he did.
Henry Matsumoto about the time he appeared on stage in Australia c1912-1915 Image courtesy of the National Archives of Australia. NAA: SP42/1, C1931/384
In December 1915, Hugh Ward, the J.C. Williamson Manager who had previously contracted Fred Niblo and Josephine Cohan, returned to Australia with a new US acting partnership—Hale Hamilton and Myrtle Tannehill. Their repertoire again included the very popular Get Rich Quick Wallingford. Several Australians were on hand to reprise their supporting roles from the Fred Niblo-Josephine Cohan tour. But not Henry Matsomoto.
In October 1915, Sydney’s The Theatre Magazine reported that Henry had been cabled by Fred Niblo, urging him to come to New York for acting work.[19]The Theatre Magazine (Sydney) 1 October 1915, p16 He arrived in San Francisco on the SS Sierra in January 1916. On arrival in the US, Henry listed his profession as actor, and his contact in the US as Fred Niblo, care of George M Cohan, New York. For the very thorough US immigration records, Henry was also required to give his nationality. For this question he stated he was Australian, although this was not the case. As far as the Australian Government was concerned, he was Japanese—and there was no provision for dual citizenship at the time.
Back in Australia, the Hamilton-Tannehill performance of Get Rich Quick Wallingford failed to find another Japanese actor to take the role of Yosi. Instead, Frank Seegoolam was engaged. He was a former Officer’s cook from HMS Cambrian and later a personal cook for several wealthy Sydney families. Originally from Mauritius, then a British colony, Seegoolam was a British subject and thus his Australian residency could never be questioned.[20] National Archives of Australia. C1912/21405, Frank Seegoolam But in Get Rich Quick Wallingford the character of Yosi had to be changed to Hassan,[21]National Library of Australia. J.C. Williamson scrapbooks of music and theatre programmes, Sydney and Melbourne, 1905-1921. PROMPT Scrapbook 8 – Vol 3, p129 and presumably some of the dialogue was changed too.[22]The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) 2 September 1916, p2 The racial stereotype was simply transferred from one ethnic group to another.
Henry in the US 1916-1918
After his arrival in the US in January 1916, Henry disappears from the historical record in the US for about twelve months. He may have appeared on stage, but there is, so far, no record that he did. In later life he listed travelling salesman as one of his occupations, perhaps this is what he did in New York in 1916. However, in early 1917 Hale Hamilton and Myrtle Tannehill returned to New York and a revival of Get Rich Quick Wallingfordwas soon announced. In the cast was Henry Matsumoto, reprising his role as Yosi.
The Billboard announces Get Rich Quick Wallingford’s revival featuring Hale Hamilton and Myrtle Tannebill, with Henry as Yosi. May 19, 1917.
The revival had a short run at two theatres in New York and by the end of May it was over. So too, apparently, was Henry’s acting career. He had returned to Australia by August 1918, when, National Archives records indicate, he had recommenced his import business and added teaching Japanese to his resume.
Quite a lot thinner and now 40 years old, Henry Matsumoto after his New York experience c1919. Image courtesy of the National Archives of Australia. NAA: SP42/1, C1931/3848
Henry Matsumoto had long abandoned his dreams of acting by 1934, but he was still required to apply for exemptions and permission to re-enter on his return to Australia from business trips to China and Japan. On his final trip to Japan in 1934, he became seriously ill after stopping over in Shanghai. He suffered a cerebral haemorrhage and died on 27 September while at the Osaka Imperial University Hospital, Japan. In the best traditions of reporting about the exotic East, Australian newspapers speculated that the well-known Sydney merchant had been poisoned by some ‘obscure poison’ while on the ship. Sydney’s Truth newspaper ran the headline: “Tragic fate of popular Sydney Japanese. Scientists baffled. Did orient love potion send him mad?” It claimed he had been seduced, drugged and robbed by a beautiful Filipino girl who had joined the ship in Manila—a type of Mata Hari story.[23]Truth (Sydney) 14 October 1934, p21 The story dragged on for months. It remains completely unclear whether there was any truth to this story at all.
Henry Matsumoto, business card, c1930. Image courtesy of the National Archives of Australia. NAA: SP42/1, C1931/3848.
Despite his early death, the ongoing prejudice and the endless legalities Henry Matsumoto endured, he remains someone we should celebrate. A minor but determined actor and a successful businessman, he never showed any interest in making his life anywhere but Australia, even though the country would not accept him as a citizen.
Following his death, Henry’s family showed no interest in moving either. Ada went through the process of regaining her British citizenship, and seven years later, after war broke out in the Pacific, the family changed their surname to Maxwell.
Twenty years after Henry’s death, probate on his estate was finally granted to his two children.
Nick Murphy November 2025
Sources
Collections
Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre, Melbourne, Australia.
National Archives of Australia.
Text
J. Armstrong, ‘Aspects of Japanese Immigration to Queensland before 1900.’ Queensland Heritage, Vol 2, No 9, 1973. University of Queensland espace Library.
Elizabeth T Craft, Yankee Doodle Dandy. George M. Cohan and the Broadway Stage, Oxford University Press, 2024.
Tianna Killoran, The near north and the far north: The Nikkei community in North Queensland, 1885-1946. PhD Thesis, James Cook University, 2023.
Esther Kim Lee, A History of Asian American Theatre, Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Josephine Lee, ‘Stage Orientalism and Asian American Performance from the Nineteenth in the Twentieth Century’ in Rajini Srikanth & Min Hyoung Song, (eds.) The Cambridge History of Asian American Literature. Cambridge University Press; 2015
Ralph Marsden ‘Melbourne’s Forgotten Movie Studio’ in On Stage, Vol 10, No 2, 2009 (Part 1) and Vol 10, No 3, 2009 (Part 2) Theatre Heritage Australia.
Neville Meaney, Towards a New Vision, Australia and Japan across time, University of New South Wales Press, 2007
Andrew Pike & Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900-1977, Oxford University Press, 1980.
Mark St Leon, Circus, The Australian Story, Melbourne Books, 2011.
Angela Woollacott, Race and the Modern Exotic. Three ‘Australian’ women on Global Display. Monash University Publishing, 2011
This site has been selected for preservation in the National Library of Australia’s Pandora archive
National Library of Australia. J.C. Williamson scrapbooks of music and theatre programmes, Sydney and Melbourne, 1905-1921. PROMPT Scrapbook 8 – Vol 3, p129
Above; Fred Niblo and Josephine M Cohan at the time they left Australia in 1915. Images and Poster for Excuse Me! courtesy Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne. Below left; Fred and Josephine with their son Fred Junior.[1]The Stage Pictorial (Melb) April 1913, p59. State Library of Victoria
The Five Second Version
US husband & wife team Josephine M Cohan(1876-1916) and Fred Niblo(1874-1948) ran a hugely successful performance tour of Australia and New Zealand between July 1912 and June 1915, introducing George M Cohan’s breezy Broadway style to the Australian audiences. Today it might even be called “Josie and Fred’s excellent adventure” – it brought them great popularity in Australasia and they were feted wherever they went. As their surviving contracts with the JC Williamson organisation also show, they were very well paid while in Australia – their contracts being repeatedly extended. Josephine also made the long sea voyage back to New York to see her family twice during the tour, despite her increasingly frail health. In 1915, shortly before they wrapped up, Fred made two quickly filmed versions of their plays Get-Rich- Quick Wallingford and Officer 666 for JC Williamson. Fred took the leading comic roles he often played on stage, but Enid Bennett (1893-1969) took the parts usually taken by Josephine in the stage version. 22 year old Enid Bennett had regularly been Josephine’s stage understudy over previous three years.
Within a year of their return to New York, Josephine had died of the heart condition that had plagued her for so long. She was only 39. In early 1918 Fred Niblo married Enid Bennett and turned to live and work in California’s booming film industry, although not before JC Williamson’s made another attempt to bring him back to Australia, on an even larger contract. It was unsuccessful.
Josephine and Fred on tour in the US about the time they signed their Australian contract.[2]The Cleveland Leader (Ohio) 19 Mar 1912, p6
Off to Australia
In early March 1912, Hugh J Ward (1871-1941), a manager for the Australian theatrical firm JC Williamson[3]So large a concern in Australasia it was known as “The Firm” signed a six month contract with Fred Niblo and Josephine M Cohan, to lead an Australian tour of what was being heralded as the “Farce Comedy Company”. Ward, himself an actor and a US native, had a good sense of what would work in Australia, and may even have seen Fred and Josephine in the US while they toured the comedy The Fortune Hunter in 1911. The repertoire for Australia was anticipated to include other popular “American comedies”[4]Critic (Adelaide) 12 Nov 1913, p21Officer 666, Excuse Me! and Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford – the latter authored by Josephine’s brother George M Cohan.(1878-1942)
Josephine’s stage credentials (Josie to those who knew her) were impressive and she was rightly promoted to Australians as one of “the best-known Broadway comediennes.” With her parents and brother George, she had come to prominence in a family vaudeville act called The Four Cohans.(You can read more about the Four Cohans here) She had married Fred Niblo in June 1901 and a son, Fred Junior, was born of the union in late January 1903. However, with the “breakdown” in her health [5]which included an increasing fatigue caused by the onset of heart disease the singing and dancing of vaudeville had proved too strenuous, and American comedy on the legitimate stage beckoned.[6]Critic (Adelaide) 12 Nov 1913, p21
Fred on the cover of Sydney’s The Theatre Magazine. November 1912 [7]State Library of Victoria
Australians were advised by JC Williamson publicity that Fred Niblo was a “New York Star-comedian.”[8]The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 May 1912 p18 This he was, although he had initially built his reputation as a monologist – his amusing lectures on world travel were well known.[9]See for example The Washington Post, 28 March 1909 pgSM3 After his marriage to Josephine he became increasingly associated with George M Cohan, as a performer and producer.
The Australian contracts
In addition to covering the couple’s first class travel, the six month contract with JC Williamson allowed for a joint salary of £120 per week, for a guaranteed minimum of at least 22 weeks. In todays terms, this is the equivalent of a 6 month salary of at least $AU 370,000, thus one can see why Fred and Josephine took the offer. By comparison, Enid Bennett’s August 1913 weekly salary was £5 per week and when her sister Marjorie Bennett was enticed back to Australia in 1920, her salary was £20 per week.[10]Based on contracts surviving in the Australian Performing Arts Collection. Salary conversions are based on the RBA inflation calculator However, an important distinction was that Niblo was producing (directing) the plays as well as taking leading roles. Ward was undoubtedly also aware that the contract with Josephine and Fred gave Williamson’s easy access to the works of George M Cohan.
Kingsclere apartments built 1912. One of Sydney’s earliest apartment blocks and home to Fred and Josephine in 1914.[11]Dictionary of Sydney
The degree of success the couple enjoyed in Australia is reflected in the fact that Josephine and Fred’s contract was renewed another three times – in December 1912 for a further 6 months, in May 1913 for 12 months and May 1914 for another 12 months. While it is clear that some provision was now made for Josephine’s regular absences from the stage,[12]when she did not perform the salary dropped to £100 per week by the time of the final contract of May 1914-May 1915, the salary had been negotiated up to £160 per week. Thus in their final year Josephine and Fred probably made the equivalent of $AU 900,000 in today’s money, assuming they again worked 40 weeks. That it was lucrative work was noted even at the time. In June 1913, on the first of several trips back to New York to see her son and family, Josephine told reporters in Honolulu how well it was going in Australia. The “pickings are good” she told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, which went on to claim that “a harvest of golden sovereigns” awaited “high class performers” in Australia.[13]Honolulu Star-Bulletin 13 June 1913, p5
Josephine and Fred arrived in Sydney on 6 July 1912. In letters home to her parents, some of which were later published, Josephine commented on the couple’s warm reception on arrival in Sydney. And after a few days in a Sydney hotel (twenty years behind the times, Josephine thought) they moved into a large, comfortable apartment on Macquarie St, with city and sea views, and, much to Josephine’s delight, containing open wood fires. She commented, politely, on all the differences she observed – including the more casual customs and dress of Australians – “they are comical dressers, but they don’t know it… They stare at [Fred’s] evening suit and his gray dinner jacket.” She was impressed by many things, including the sights of winter swimming on Manly beach. “The girls… dress à la Annette Kellerman… [and] are wonderful swimmers.”[14]The Green Book Magazine (US), Vol 9, No 2, Jan-June 1913, pps 332-338
Josephine M Cohan in 1912[15]The Theatre 1 Sept 1912, p37
Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford was given a very enthusiastic reception when it opened in Sydney in August 1912. Australians embraced the irreverent humour of George M Cohan and managed its slang, despite endless press comments about how unfamiliar and difficult it was.[16]These were probably planted by The Firm Sydney’s Daily Telegraph told readers:
Mr. Fred. Niblo and his company carried all before them on Saturday night at the Criterion, in Mr. George M. Cohan’s comedy Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford. The performance was one of the smartest seen in Sydney for years…
Although the Williamson contract was primarily written for Fred Niblo, Josephine also created a distinctive and favourable impression. The Daily Telegraph felt her a most convincing actress – “very natural, even quiet in style, and yet very sure.”[17]The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) 5 Aug 1912, p11The Sun went even further in praise of Josephine ;
The highest praise must be given to Miss Josephine Cohan (who is the sister of the author of the play) for her characterisation of the stenographer Fanny Jasper. It is the most difficult role in the piece. The other characters have straight-ahead parts to play. They are either crooks or “boobs.” But Fanny Jasper has to be, in the first instance, the one sharp-sighted “wise girl” among a town-full of simpletons, and after wards a complete convert to the worship of J. Rufus Wallingford.[18]The Sun (Sydney) 4 Aug 1912, p4
The following cast list for Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford in Melbourne in November 1912 shows the mix of local Australian actors (Lowden Adams, Beatrice Holloway, Enid Bennett, George Whitehead, H.H. Wallace and Robert Greig) and visiting US players (James H Manning, Edwin Lester, Harry Corson Clarke and Margaret Dale Owens). Henry Matsumoto(1879-1934), a Japanese-born, Sydney based merchant turned actor, played Yosi, Wallingford’s valet.
Josephine’s declining health meant that when Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford opened in Melbourne, she was not in the cast. Instead Fanny Jasper was played by 28 year old Beatrice Holloway (1884-1964). A few months later, Josephine spoke enthusiastically about her new understudy, twenty year old Australian Enid Bennett, who she was training up. Enid was “a darling child, and I’ve…set my heart on making her a success.”[20]Sun (Sydney) 27 April 1913, p15 And she did. When Fred and Josephine left Australia on the Matson liner Ventura in June 1915, Enid packed up and went with them. By that time, Fred and Josephine had introduced eight new comedies to Australian audiences – including two more from the pen of George M Cohan – Seven Keys to Baldpate and Broadway Jones . All of these were directed by Niblo and all were a great success at the box office.
Poster and program for Excuse Me! in (left) Melbourne and (right) Sydney. Josephine Cohan is not listed on either program.[21]Marjorie Newton was her usual role Courtesy Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne.
Josephine as Josie Richards and Fred in the title role of Broadway Jones.[22]The Theatre Magazine (Sydney) 1 Jan 1915
A few weeks before they departed, the always sensible Melbourne Age reported on the Cohan-Niblo tour of Australia: The remarkably successful visit to Australia of Fred Niblo is nearing the close. During the three years Mr. Niblo has appeared before Australian audiences he has achieved an unbroken series of successes and an amount of popularity that few artists have enjoyed.[23]The Age (Melb) 24 May 1915 p14 But no mention was made of the films he was hurriedly making for JC Williamson during the day.
Fred Niblo’s first films
Before the couple left Australia in June 1915, Fred quickly directed two films for JC Williamson – Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford[24]a lost film and Officer 666, apparently using the stage cast and costumes.[25]W.J. Lincoln started work directing Wallingford, but was replaced by Niblo, possibly because of his chronic alcoholism It is more accurate to describe these as filmed plays – the camera was static – and sat in place of the audience. Pike & Cooper also describe these as “potted versions” of the plays, and without the snappy dialogue the Cohan plays were famous for, there is not much doubt these would only be palatable to those who had already seen the live show.[26]Pike & Cooper (1980) pps77-78 and 80
Josephine Cohan did not appear in either film – instead Enid Bennett took the leading female roles.
Screengrabs from Officer 666, showing left to right – Sydney Stirling & Enid Bennett, Fred Niblo in a rare Melbourne location shot, and Fred dressing as Officer 666.[Click to enlarge] [27]Screengrabs from Author’s copy of Pictures that Moved: Australian Cinema 1896-1920 (1968)
Writing of the short-lived JC Williamson film studio in Melbourne, Ralph Marsden has revealed a compelling reason for The Firm’s foray into filmmaking in 1915. They were concerned about the release of US-made films, based on plays to which Williamson’s already held the Australian stage rights. Writing in 2009, Marsden was obviously able to see all of the 40 minutes of Officer 666 that survives, but only a two minute clip is available to us today [view here]. Marsden wrote “The film’s strengths are in the performances of Fred Niblo, debonair and amusing, and Enid Bennett, a petite, graceful beauty with large expressive eyes who gives a relatively naturalistic interpretation as the ingénue.“[28]Marsden (2009) p4
The films were not released until 1916, but being pale reflections of very popular stage shows, they were not a success at the Australian box-office. JC Williamson pulled out of film production soon after.
Fred and Josephine, and being in Australia
Over 1912-1915, the reviews of Fred Niblo and Josephine Cohan’s work in Australia and New Zealand were universally enthusiastic. However, the admiration for the couple was also shared by those who worked with them. Maurice Dudley, the troupe’s stage manager in 1915 spoke warmly of Niblo’s approach to delivering comedy on the stage. He described the methodical rehearsals and characterised Niblo as “the most unselfish comedian I have ever known….Mr Niblo doesn’t care who gets… [the laughs] as long as they’re got.”[29]Sun (Syd) 10 Jan 1915, p14 Fred Niblo was probably amongst the first actors to publicly explain the concept of stage “team work” in April 1914 – an idea new to many at the time.[30]The Theatre (Syd) 1 April 1914, p1
When the end of the tour was announced in 1915, Fred went to some effort to explain why the couple were leaving – simply because they could not stay away from their family or professional home indefinitely.[31]Josephine had collected their son Fred Junior on a trip home in September 1914, thus that source of anxiety had been removed
Bob Greig and Bea Holloway’s wedding in Melbourne in December 1912. Josephine and Fred stand at the rear, centre and right.[32]Punch (Melb) 26 Dec 1912 Fred was a witness on the marriage certificate, and gave Bea away.
It was Josephine who characterised the troupe as one “big family” [33]Critic (Adelaide) 12 Nov 1913, p21 and evidence suggests that a strong bond really did exist between some of the players. Young Australians Enid Bennett and Pirie Bush(1889-1965)[34]Pirie Bush was actually born in Wellington New Zealand, but had been with the Niblo-Cohan troupe in Australia from its inception travelled to New York with Fred and Josephine in June 1915.[35]The Age (Melb) 3 June 1915, p12 Lowden Adams(1881-1959) arrived in New York in October 1915. Henry Matsumoto, the Japanese born merchant who had taken some roles with Fred and Josephine in Australia, was convinced to try his luck in the US. At Niblo’s suggestion he travelled to the New York in January 1916 and reprised his role as Yosi in Get Rich Quick Wallingford. Robert Greig and Beatrice Holloway were also close friends and ten years later, after much deliberation, they also headed to the US. There, the talented Beatrice abandoned her career, while Bob Greig endured a film career playing butlers – as did Lowden Adams.
Fred and Josephine expressed their feelings on leaving Australia in a souvenir program printed just before their departure. A century later, they are still quite touching sentiments.
We meet, We part, Sometimes we remember. We have played in every English-speaking country in the world. This is our longest absence from Broadway, and it has been all too short. It has been the most delightful engagement of our professional careers… In saying goodbye to our many friends, we do so with the sincerest regret. The one hope that cheers us is that someday we may be able to return and renew an association that has been so thoroughly happy. Our memories of Australia will be pleasant always. May we hope that we will not be entirely forgotten. Australia, 1915.
Josephine M Cohan died of her heart ailment at their apartment in the Hotel Belleclaire in New York on 14 July 1916, only a year after the return to the US. Fred and Fred Junior were by her side. George M Cohan felt the death of his sister so deeply he suffered a collapse on the day of the funeral.[37]New York Herald, 15 July, 1916, p5 Biographer Ward Morehouse, who interviewed George M Cohan in the early 1940s, noted that by then, he was estranged from Niblo. This writer wonders whether the mercurial George held Fred responsible for Josephine’s death.[38]Morehouse(1943) p20
Above: Enid Bennett in Cock O’ the Walk, with Janet Dunbar and Rita Otway, 1916. Author’s Collection
In New York in early 1916, Enid Bennett went on stage in a supporting role in the comedy Cock O’ The Walk, a vehicle for popular comedian Otis Skinner. At about the same time she also appeared in her first film, A Princess of the Darkfor Thomas H. Ince and Triangle Studios.
In 1918, Fred Niblo and Enid Bennett married.[39]Some Australians were unkind about the marriage. As late as 22 December 1947, journalist Jim Donald of the Sydney Daily Mirror publicly and incorrectly stated Josephine and Fred had divorced before … Continue reading Only a few months later, JC Williamson’s made a sterling effort to get Fred and Enid back to Australia. This time, the salary on offer was an extraordinary £200 per week for two years – an eyewatering sum for the time. The surviving files in the Performing Arts Collection suggest they seriously considered it.
However, in the end Fred and Enid turned this down. Hollywood beckoned, and both went on to long careers there. In addition to their contributions to cinema, they also raised three children and built a landmark home in the Hollywood hills. They never returned to Australia, but they maintained some of their old friends from Australia – and welcomed new ones.
Nick Murphy November 2025
References
Collections
Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne. Thank you, as always, to Claudia Funder, Collection Access Manager.
Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
Frank Cullen (Ed) Florence Hackman & Donald McNeilly (2007) Vaudeville Old & New. An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America, Vol 2. Routledge Taylor & Francis
Ward Morehouse (1943) George M Cohan, prince of the American Theater. J. B. Lippincott Co
Andrew Pike & Ross Cooper (1980) Australian Film 1900-1977. Oxford University Press/AFI
Hal Porter (1965) Stars of Australian Stage and Screen. Rigby
Michael & Joan Tallis(1999) The Silent Showman. Sir George Tallis, the man behind the world’s largest entertainment organisation of the 1920s. Wakefield Press.
Clive Unger-Hamilton(Ed) (1980) The Entertainers. Harrow House Editions
This site has been selected for preservation in the National Library of Australia’s Pandora archive
Some Australians were unkind about the marriage. As late as 22 December 1947, journalist Jim Donald of the Sydney Daily Mirror publicly and incorrectly stated Josephine and Fred had divorced before her death.
The Five Second Version Born Emilie Louise Victoria Reeves, Renée Adorée was not an Australian actor, but neither was she French, as is usually claimed. She spent 10 months in Australia on a spectacularly successful tour in 1918, in the days before Hollywood. Arguably, this was where her “French” stage persona emerged. Renée was hardly alone in constructing a past that suited her. Hollywood’s “Golden Age” saw numerous actors embrace personas that had little to do with their lived experiences. Her marriage certificates and her death certificate contained numerous inaccuracies – that have gone on to become part of her confused narrative. In 2022, almost 90 years after her death, researcher Marlene Pilaeteidentified and published her real name. Renée is credited with more than 40 films made in the US, before her very early death from tuberculosis in October 1933. Amongst her many real accomplishments for someone so young – she was an accomplished dancer and could play the piano, spoke several languages fluently and was extremely well travelled for the era.[1]Photo of Renée on the piano, Picture Play Magazine, December 1929, p74-5 She was in fact, a British subject.
Guy Magley and Renée Adoree performing in Samples in Australia in 1918. [2]The Green Room Magazine, 1 May 1918, p9. State Library of NSW
Understanding the pretence
Why would someone with an English father and a Belgian mother, go to extremes to disguise their parentage? This writer contends that what might have started out as just an exotic stage name, grew rapidly and without much planning to become a life story, very much shaped by early experiences in wartime Australia. In that country, an emerging sense of national identity and a high level of jingoism saw Australians seek “the destruction of …[Germany] with ever deepening hate and conviction.”[3]Bill Gammage (2010) p7 In this environment, no one owned up to a German birth and others disregarded any German ancestry. Ivy Schilling(1892-1972) became Ivy Shilling, while the family of Australia’s leading wartime General, John Monash(1885-1931), had long since dropped the spelling Monasch and downplayed the fact they could all speak German as fluently as English.
Like Merle Oberon’s claim to be born in Tasmania, it was a little white lie that grew and grew.
The headline for Renée Adoree’s first extensive interview, conducted in Australia in March 1918.[4]The Green Room Magazine, 1 March 1918, p1. State Library of NSW
Renée’s [5]the name Renée is used throughout parents were London-born James Reeves (1866-c1913) and Belgian-born Victorine nee Schreiber (1865-1937). James and Victorine married in Paris in April 1891.[6]James Reeves and Victorine Schreiber, Paris Marriages, 4 April 1891. Entry 498 This record indicates both were “artiste au cirque d’hiver” [artists at the winter circus], at Rue Amelot in Paris. The Winter Circus continues today in Paris as a leading venue for circus arts, and is also famous for its history of equestrian acts. It is also very likely that James and Victorine were connected with a large touring circus – like Eduard Wulff’s Continental Circus.[7]Surviving programs for Wulff’s circus indicate a show of spectacular horse acts, clowns and acrobats However, the births for all three Reeves children – Victor [born 1896], Emilie (Renée) [born 1897] and Mira [born 1898] – took place in Hamburg, Germany, not “on the road” as is often claimed.[See record and translation below][8]Note that the family’s official residence at the time of each birth was variously given as London, Amsterdam and Hanover – the first two of which match the known movements of Eduard … Continue reading The irony is, as Marlene Pilaete notes, their births in Hamburg Germany did not make them citizens of that country. Rather, at that time, they were legally British subjects because their father was. Renée knew this. In December 1918, when she completed an Alien certificate for the US Department of Labor, she acknowledged her German birth, but added “British Subject” – which was true.[9]Emily Reeves, Alien Certificate card #5828, December 1918
What we know of her childhood
Renée in February 1918. [10]The World’s News (Sydney) 9 Feb 1918, p5
We know little of Renée’s childhood beyond her own commentary. However, from later evidence, we know that she was a competent pianist, and like her sister Mira grew up to be genuinely multi-lingual, probably fluent in French, Spanish and German in addition to English. In her first interviews in Australia in 1918, Renée said her father was an expert horse trainer[11]She did not use the term “horse whisperer” but that seems to be what she meant for the circus – and a clown – and she had joined the act as a child as they toured Belgium, France and Germany. But, then aged about twelve, she took to dancing in vaudeville,[12]See The Graphic of Australia (Melbourne) 12 April 1918 p.8 and The Green Room (Aust) 1 March 1918, p.1 State Library of NSW and apparently soon after the death of her father, the family moved to England. This change from circus to stage is also suggested by her brother’s military documents – Victor gave his profession as “music hall artist” when enlisting in the British Army in January 1916.[13]See Victor John James Reeves, British Army service records By the time of Britain’s 1921 census, both Renée’s siblings – Victor and Mira, described themselves as music hall artists, and were looking for work.
During 1917, Renée and US dancer Guy Magley worked up a dance act for British variety, called Guy Magley and Mlle Adore, which gained some favourable reviews.[14]See for example, The Referee (London) 7 Oct, 1917, p5 However, their big break was being contracted by impresario Hugh D. McIntosh to appear in an Australian run of the revue Samples on the Tivoli circuit. According to Frank Van Straten, it was the first big revue McIntosh’s Tivoli circuit put on,[15]Van Straten (2003) p137-8 responding as he was to ongoing changes in tastes and the availability (or lack) of imported big name performers in Australia.[16]Kumm,(2016) p14
In Australia in 1918
In late 1917 Renée and Guy Magley travelled to Australia. The surviving December 1917 manifest of SS Justicia lists the 20 year old artiste, Emily Reeves (a German-born, English subject), bound for the US and onward travel to Australia.[17]Manifest SS Justicia, arriving New York 19 Dec 1917 But her name was only ever going to be Renée once in Australia.
Renée and Guy in Australia in Feb 1918.[18]Arrow (Sydney) 8 Feb 1918, p3
Interviewed in early 1918 by Australian newspapers – always keen for upbeat stories to balance war coverage – Renée and Guy Magley spun a series of wild tales. Renée explained she had escaped when the Germans took Brussels, dressed as “an old hag.”[19]The World’s News (Sydney) 9 Feb 1918, p5 She said she had been born in Lille, France, while Guy was from Joplin Missouri, USA. They said they had married in England in 1916, but Guy had also found time to serve in the Lafayette Escadrille (squadron) of the French Air Force for two years before his “nerves got all run down after a nasty fall of 1000 feet… [and] he was discharged as unfit.”[20]The Graphic of Australia(Melbourne) 12 April 1918, p8
It must have been exhausting creating these stories, but Renée and Guy, responding as they were to Press interest, probably fell easily into telling stories about themselves. Guy really was from Joplin, Missouri, but they were not married – he had only recently attempted to divorce his first wife Irene nee Bingham, unsuccessfully.[21]UK Divorce Court File: 7690. Magley v Magley, 1916 He had indeed, briefly volunteered in the Lafayette squadron, but was apparently discharged before seeing action.
As 1918 progressed, Guy and Renée appeared as specialist dancers in other Tivoli revues – Million Dollar Girl and Bits and Pieces, each time to considerable acclaim. What had started out as a three month contract for McIntosh’s Tivoli circuit continued on. And over the course of the year, it was Renée who became a firm favourite with Australian audiences. Melbourne Punch reported:
It is easy to say that such-and such-a pair are the most graceful dancers that have ever been in Australia, but usually difficult to prove. Guy Magley and Renee Adoree however, may fairly lay claim to this distinction… Renee Adoree is small and petite, with beautiful feet and the most wonderful hip movements it is possible to imagine. She has, too, beauty of face as well as form and her native talent for dress also assists this sterling act.[22]Punch (Melbourne) 14 March, 1918, p38
In addition to her dancing, Renée took the part of the heroine Irene in Claude Flemming’s (1884-1952) Australian film £500 Reward.[23]This film is apparently now lost, although a copy had reportedly been found by Flemming in the late 1930s. See The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 June 1938, p18 Advertising for the film assured audiences that Renée’s “debut as a film star is truly a brilliant one.”[24]The Sun (Sydney) 17 Nov 1918, p21 The film is now considered lost, but it was a kidnap-adventure melodrama.
Historians should be grateful that the US began keeping detailed records of migration from the late nineteenth century – it was a time when most countries kept only perfunctory records. The manifest for alien[26]non-US citizen passengers on the SS Niagara, departing Sydney and bound for Vancouver, in November 1918, shows Renée again travelling as Emily Reeves, a 21 year old Hamburg-born theatrical artist, heading for Joplin, Missouri.[27]Manifest SS Niagara, arriving Vancouver, 4 Dec 1918. Renée gave her mother in London as a contact On the same ship was Guy Magley, also headed for Joplin Missouri. However, if Renée went to Missouri with Guy Magley, it wasn’t for very long. By February 1919 she was in New York, in the cast of the musical comedy Come Along, followed by Oh Uncle (soon retitled as Oh What a Girl) and The Dancer.
And then, another breakthrough. At the end of 1919 Renée was announced as one of the leads in a Fox studio film version of George Clemenceau’s novel The Strongest.(1920) Studio publicity machines were already hard at work, with claims that the great French statesman had personally selected Renée for the part. This is highly unlikely, even though she was soon reported to be “the most beautiful woman on the screen.“[28]Fresno Herald(California) 26 Jan 1920, p5
Renée’s first US film in 1920. [29]Moving Picture World 21 Feb 1920, p1178
In early 1921 Renée moved to Los Angeles, and soon after, she married actor-director Thomas Moore (1883-1955), having met him at a New Year’s party at Delmonico’s restaurant in New York.[30]Los Angeles Evening Post-Record, 12 Feb 1921, p1&10 The witnesses on her marriage certificate reveal she was already mixing with some of the film colony’s leading figures – Jack Pickford(1896-1933) was best man, while Mabel Normand(1892-1930) was her maid of honour. However, Renée was also well and truly committed to obscuring her past. She listed “Joe Reeves” as her French-born father, while her mother was “Marie De La Floente” from Spain.[See document below][31]California Certificate of Marriage 1921, register number 1276
Renée and Thomas Moore enjoyed a lengthy honeymoon in Hawaii. On returning to the US in mid March, Renée, now Renée Moore, still had to admit to British nationality.
Renée was soon busy, appearing in a mix of film genres – melodramas, comedies and Westerns. Although these were silent films, it is notable how often she was cast as a foreign “type.” These include Moira in Honor First (1922), Eugenie in Monte Cristo (1922), Lucia in Defying the Law (1924), Marie in Parisian Nights (1925), Fifi Lorraine in The Blackbird (1926), Nan Ping in Mr Wu (1927) and Musette in On Ze Boulevard (1927). It is hard to conceive an “Emily Reeves” being cast as Melisande, the French farm girl, in King Vidor’s(1894-1982) The Big Parade(1925). Renee’s relatively short stature (1.41 cm or 5 foot 3 inches) and bobbed dark hair might have meant she was physically suited to such exotic roles, but it was undoubtedly also her public “French” persona that helped in this casting. Even at the time, Renée seems to have become aware of the dangers of type-casting. With the onset of sound films, she was reportedly dismayed by the prospect of a long series of roles as a French maid in bedroom farces.[32]Motion Picture, Feb-July 1929, p106
The Big Parade proved to be an enormous success for MGM. A film set against the fighting on the Western Front in the First World War, it concerns the budding romance of French girl Melisande (Renée) and her American soldier beau, James or “Jimmee”(John Gilbert). The film ran for a record 96 weeks in New York.[33]Eames (1979) p18 A fine copy can be seen here.
In March 1925, Renée’s marriage to Tom Moore ended in divorce. It may have been traumatic, but it seems not to have affected her film output – she appeared in five films released that year. However, in late 1925 another change occurred when Renée’s younger sister Mira appeared in Hollywood, also intent on a film career. Mira called herself Mira Adoree in Hollywood – she seems to have embraced her sister’s narrative completely. Mira was also escaping a failed marriage – in April she had married Henry Lacey in Mexico, but the marriage had lasted only a few months.[34]On Mira’s Mexican marriage certificate of April 4 1925, her mother was listed as “Victoria de la Vincent”, while her father was “Santiago Reeves” Mira spent a year in Hollywood. Although she appeared on stage in a successful run of the play The Green Hat, a film career did not eventuate and by early 1927 Mira had returned to Mexico. Unlike Renée, Mira appears to have been content to admit to her birth in Germany whenever she entered the US.
Left Mira with Renée. Right Mira on her own. c1926-7 [35]Left: The Los Angeles Times, 16 Jan 16, 1927 p137. Right: The Los Angeles Times, 12 Dec 1926, p145
Renée married for a second time in June 1927. This time, the marriage certificate [See document below][36]California Certificate of Marriage 1927, Book 736, page 100 contained even more untruths than the first. Renée was not 26 as she claimed, but 30 years old. Her mother was now described as Victorine Lamarr, her father was a Jean De La Fonte. [37]This latter name stuck – newspapers and other publications reported it and Renée ‘s imaginary name Jeanne De La Fonte has gone on to have a life of its own, that continues to this day. … Continue reading
Renée c1928 on a Hoyts Theatres (Aust) souvenir photo. Author’s collection
Less than two years later William Gill filed for divorce from Renée – claiming she was temperamental, frequently left home for extended periods and refused to account for her whereabouts.[38]Marysville Journal-Tribune (Ohio) 12 Feb, 1929 p1
Two Sound films
Renée appeared in two early talkies – films made with recorded dialogue – not just musical accompaniment. Both of these survive and are accessible today. They illustrate Renée’s clarity of English and her vibrant expression. A slight accent exists but is barely distinguishable. Redemption (1930) was directed by Fred Niblo(1874-1948), and based on a play by Leo Tolstoy. The story of the delay in this film’s release and the contemporary criticism of it as “cinematic gloom” is quite well known. Reviewers also found fault with John Gilbert’s voice. Once a leading man in silent films, Gilbert’s voice was described as “nervous and high strung.”[39]New Movie Magazine. July-Dec 1930, p85 Renée’s supporting role as the Romani girl Masha was well received, with her “piquant beauty and rich voice.”Screenland magazine predicted she had a big future in talkie roles.[40]Screenland July 1930, p87
In this scene Fedya (John Gilbert) and Masha (Renée) chat in their run-down boarding house. He tells her he is “quite gay.”(happy)
Call of the Flesh was made by MGM in early 1930, and it featured Ramon Novarro (1899-1968) as Juan de Dios and Dorothy Jordan (1906-1988). Renée’s supporting role was as Lola – de Dios’s dance partner. Novarro’s biographer André Soares suggests she became ill during filming, but insisted on completing her scenes.[41]Soares (2002) p154
Renée as Lola, as she is teased by her dance partner and the man she loves – de Dios (Novarro)
A death from Tuberculosis
Although improvements in public health saw Tuberculosis (TB) deaths decline after the First World War, it was still present, even in Hollywood. Mabel Normand, Renée’s former maid of honour, had died of the disease in February 1930. The only treatment that sometimes worked in 1930 was “rest cure.” Renée Adoree was publicly reported as ill in March.[42]The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa CA) 4 April, 1930, p15 She went on to lengthy stays at sanitoriums, the last of which she described as “a long imprisonment.” By August 1932 she appeared to have made a recovery,[43]The Fresno Bee (Fresno, CA) 31 Aug, 1932. p4 but she suffered a sudden relapse and died on 5 October 1933. Perhaps, before this, she already knew how dire her condition was. She took the extraordinary step of selling off all her belongings [44]The Los Angeles Times 4 June, 1933 p11 and her home at 851 Burnside Avenue.[45]The Los Angeles Times, 11 June, 1933 p41
Renée sells up in May 1933.[46]The Los Angeles Times 28 May, 1933, p7
A sad legacy was that almost every entry on Renée’s death certificate was wrong or left as “unknown.” It was comedienne/socialite Marion Davies (1897-1961) who acted as informant, but it is interesting to speculate what Renée’s sister Mira, rushing from her home in Mexico, would have advised, had she been there.[47]Sadly, Davies makes no mention of the death of her friend in her autobiography The Times We Had
It is extraordinary that the French persona of Emilie Reeves lasted so long, particularly in the absence of any evidence that she was who she claimed to be.
Renée in the late 1920s. Souvenir card. Author’s Collection.
What happened to everyone else
Victorine Reeves inherited Renée Adorée’s estate.[48]She was called Victorine Adorée by the press when this happened Several sources state that Renée had always kept a treasured photo of her mother and they had regularly corresponded. Victorine died in London in November 1937.
Mira Lacey moved back to England, four months before her mother’s death in 1937. She died there in 1979. She gained some notoriety in 1932, when the manager of the Mexico Country Club suicided, leaving a note and his worldly belongings to her.
Victor John James Reeves married, raised a family and died in England in 1967. I can find no evidence he ever adopted the name Adoree or associated himself with her.
Guy Magley finally got a divorce from his first wife Irene and found a new personal and professional partner – Pearl. He continued to dance with her until the late 1930s, then turned to real estate.
Thomas Moore, Renée’s first husband, continued acting on and off, until his death in 1955. He had remarried.
William S Gill, Renée’s second husband, turned his hand to many things – journalism, running a theatrical agency and a citrus farm. He remarried and died in California in 1965.
Nick Murphy November 2025
Thanks
To Marlene Pilaete for her comments and assistance.
To Ute and Eva Martin for assistance in translating German documents
To Julie Mostyn for assistance in translating French documents
References
Max Binheim & Charles A Elvin (1928) Women of the West; a series of biographical sketches of living eminent women in the eleven western states of the United States of America. Publisher’s Press.
Michel Bracquart (1989) Le vrai nom des Stars.[“The Real Names of the stars”] M.A Editions
Circopedia – The Free encyclopedia of International Circus.
Hal Porter (1965) Stars of Australian Stage and Screen. Rigby Ltd
André Soares (2002) Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro. St. Martin’s Press
Frank Van Straten (2004) Huge Deal. The fortunes and follies of Hugh D. McIntosh. Lothian Books
Frank Van Straten (2003) Tivoli. Lothian Books
A selection of archives
[All of these documents are easily accessiblethrough Ancestry & Family Search. Some are included below]
Shipping manifests
Manifest SS Justicia, arriving New York from England, 19 Dec 1917. [Emily Reeves]
Manifest SS Niagara, arriving Vancouver from Sydney, 4 Dec 1918. [Emily Reeves] See below
Emily Reeves arrives in North America, from Sydney, on the Niagara, Dec 1918. Guy Magley is listed on another page.[Click to enlarge]
Hamburg Germany, Births 1874-1901 [digitised by Ancestry]
Victor John James Reeves birth. Born 6 September 1896, Hamburg Germany. Certificate 3083 ref number 332-5 2405 (Note – father listed as resident in [Wohnhaft au] London)
Emilie Louise Victoria Reeves birth. born 30 September 1897, Hamburg, Germany. Certificate 3021 ref number 332-5 6301. (Note father listed as resident in Amsterdam) See below.
Mira Eugenie Ruves [Reeves] birth. born 22 December 1898, Hamburg, Germany. Certificate 3706 ref number 332-5 6305. (Note father listed as resident in Hanover)
Renée Adorée’s birth registration as Emilie Reeves. Altona, Hamburg, Germany, 30 September 1897. [Click to enlarge]
Paris, France, Births Marriages and Deaths 1555-1929 [digitised by Ancestry]
James Reeves and Victorine Schreiber Marriage. 4 April 1891. Entry 498
UK. Records of the Supreme Court of Judicature and related courts. [National Archives, Kew]
Divorce Court File: 7690. Appellant: Guy Bertram Magley. Respondent: Irene Magley. Co-respondent: George Newman. Type: Husband’s petition for divorce, 1916.
UK. British Army World War I Service Records, 1914-1920. [digitised by Ancestry]
Victor John James Reeves Service record.
California births deaths & Marriages
Marriage Licence & certificate #1876 Thomas Joseph Moore & Renee Adoree. 13 February 1921. See Below
Marriage Licence & certificate #8150 William Sherman Gill & Renee Andree Moore. 28 June 1927. See Below
Certificate of Death. #11389 Renee Gill also known as Renee Adoree. 5 October, 1933
Renée Adorée’s 1921 and 1927 Marriage Certificates. [Click to enlarge]
This site has been selected for preservation in the National Library of Australia’s Pandora archive
Note that the family’s official residence at the time of each birth was variously given as London, Amsterdam and Hanover – the first two of which match the known movements of Eduard Wulff’s circus.
This film is apparently now lost, although a copy had reportedly been found by Flemming in the late 1930s. See The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 June 1938, p18
This latter name stuck – newspapers and other publications reported it and Renée ‘s imaginary name Jeanne De La Fonte has gone on to have a life of its own, that continues to this day. See for example Bracquart (1989) p16
Above: Claudia Cardinale in Girl in Australia(1971) She won a David di Donatello Award for Best Actress for this role.
A directory of films & TV programs made about(but not by) Australians1960–1984
On the Beach (1959), The Sundowners (1960) and They’re a Weird Mob (1966) – these well known and widely available films were made in Australia by visiting foreign crews, at a time when there was very little home-town production. What follows is a list of less well known films and TV programs which also portray Australia or Australians. They are all curious in some respect – reminding us that their primary audiences were not Australians at all. The tradition continues today – as seen in the 2020 Netflix miniseries The Crown. Although set in Australia, Episode 6 of Season 4 was famously and very obviously filmed in Spain, much to the amusement of Australian audiences.
Comment: Funded by evangelist Billy Graham’s World Wide Pictures, this “Christian Western” starred US actors Dick Jones (1927-2014) and Georgia Lee (1925-2006) but also included some local actors, notably Aboriginal singer Jimmy Little (1937-2012). It was filmed near Camden in New South Wales. The plot concerns siblings Bob and Kathy Prince (Jones and Lee) who are sent from the US to Australia to run a cattle property for their father. Billy Graham’s preaching is interwoven into the plot – which also sees Dick Jones’s character embrace Christianity and shed his racism.[1]Pike & Cooper (1980) p300 Dated and predictable though it is, it is superior to many B-Westerns of the era. [Screengrabs show top; Georgia Lee and Jimmy Little, and below; the final cheerful song of the film ]
2. The Saint (c1964)[TV Series] Series 3, Episode 7 The Loving Brothers
Comment: This writer has a friend who, although a classic Roger Moore/Saint fan, has attempted to render his DVD copy of this episode unreadable, such is his annoyance with the stereotypical presentation of Australians and the leaden script. Apparently filmed in an English quarry (passing for Australia), it is of interest for the large number of London-based Australian actors who briefly feature. These included Reg Lye (1912-1988),(hamming his accent up so ridiculously he is unintelligible), Ed Devereaux(1925-2003), Ray Barrett(1927-2009), Betty McDowell(1924-1993), Dick Bentley(1907-1995), John Tate(1915-1979) and Grant Taylor(1917-1971). Annette Andre(b1939), who had only recently arrived in London, played the love interest. In an interview with Stephen Vagg, Andre recalled that Director Leslie Norman repeatedly complained that her accent wasn’t distinctively Australian enough. [Screengrabs shows top; Annette Andre, Reg Lye and Roger Moore, and below; Andre with Ed Devereaux and Betty McDowell]
3. Thunderbirds (c1965) [TV Series] Series 1, Episode 6 The Mighty Atom
Comment: Thunderbirds was a British children’s TV puppet show, so it should not be taken very seriously. All the same, the futuristic series always had aspirations of providing vaguely plausible scenarios. At the start of this episode, an atomic desalination plant – somewhere near Melbourne, Australia, is almost wrecked by “the Hood,” a foreign baddie and series regular, who has evil intent and mystical powers. Fortunately, the wind changes and the atomic cloud “blows away” somewhere. Australian Ray Barrett(1927-2009) voiced many of the parts, including the Hood and Thunderbird #5 hero John Tracy. In the emerging habit of British TV, the surrounds of Melbourne are presented as a desert wasteland even before the atomic cloud is released! However, curiously, the Melbourne Herald newspaper (which really existed at the time) features several times.
4. Thunderbirds (c1965)[TV Series] Series 1, Episode 18, Cry Wolf
Comment: In this episode of Thunderbirds, two little Australian boys accidentally contact International rescue – while playing near their desert home. (Where else would they live!) After being rescued by Scott Tracey flying Thunderbird #1, their widowed father lets them go on an educational trip to International Rescue’s secret tropical island base.(They put on blindfolds at the last minute so they don’t realise where they are) Back at home they run into trouble again, with “the Hood” and his evil plans. British actresses Sylvia Anderson(1927-2016) and Christine Finn(1929-2007) voiced the two children, while Ray Barrett was busy again with multiple parts. Barrett recalled in his 1995 biography that while work on Thunderbirds was enjoyable, none of the actors benefitted by its long term success – the residuals were meagre.[2]Barrett (1995) p150-1[Screengrabs show top; a very ropey “computer” map of Australia, and below; one of the boys in their TB 2 go-cart]
5. The Drifting Avenger [Koya No Toseinin] (1968) [Feature Film]
Comment: This Toei Company[3]a major Japanese studio feature was largely filmed near Tamworth in New South Wales – with interiors shot in Japan. Popular Japanese cinema star Ken Takakura(1931-2014) and Kevin Cooney (a Japanese speaking US boy) were brought in for leading roles, while the supporting cast were mostly Australians. The National Film & Sound Archive describe this as a Japanese–Australian co-production, but it is hard to see how this was really so. The Director was Junya Satô(1932-2019), who was working from a script by the prolific Yoshihiro Ishimatsu (b 1932). Filmed in English but then dubbed into Japanese in post production, it was never released in Australia. It is a “revenge” story, set in the 19th century American West, yet many viewers will find its exotic Australian setting distinctive.[4]See Pike & Cooper (1980) p313
6. Girl in Australia(1971)[Feature film] (Italian title: Bello Onesto Emigrato Australia Sposerebbe Compaesana illibata)
Comment: Girl in Australia was a comedy made for Italian-speaking audiences, and as Pike & Cooper note, it manages to say much about the life of migrants in Australia – particularly the loneliness endured and the sacrifices made. Michael Powell’s less effective but better known account of an Italian migrant – They’re a Weird Mob had been made only five years before.[5]Pike & Cooper (1980) p337-8
Two very popular Italian actors, Alberto Sordi (1920-2003) and Claudia Cardinale(1938-2025), took the leading roles in this film while some of the supporting actors were Australians. The very capable and prolific Luigi Zampa(1905-1991) was director. The film was only given limited release in Australia – perhaps distributors were concerned by the plot’s geographical howlers -“Sydney to Broken Hill takes… [the leads] through dense tropical jungle and past Ayer’s Rock.”[6]Pike & Cooper (1980) p338 In 1972, Cardinale won a David di Donatello Award for Best Actress in this film.[7]See the official website for the award, here [Screengrabs show top; Sordi in the dance hall scene, and below; Cardinale with Australian actor Noel Ferrier]
7. The Pajama Girl Case (1977) [Feature film] (Italian title: La Ragazza dal Pigiama Giallo)
Comment: This Italian “giallo” (shock thriller) film takes its name from the “Pajama Girl Murder” case of 1934. Set in contemporary Sydney and directed by Flavio Mogherini (1922-1994), it starred veteran Hollywood actors Ray Milland (1907-1986) and Mel Ferrer (1917-2008), and up and coming Italian actors Michele Placido (b1948) and Dalila Di Lazzaro (b1953). One young Australian – Rod Mullinar (b1943), had a supporting role.[8]The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 July 1977, p84
The device of two parallel narratives is unusual, and it results in an unnecessarily convoluted plot. An added complication is that the movie was obviously filmed in Australia AND in Europe. Sterling efforts were made to disguise locations, but Milland’s and Ferrer’s scenes were all filmed in Italy or Spain. Note the restaurant scene 24 minutes in – where despite some English language street signs, in the background Italian cars wizz by on the opposite side of the road to Australia. Note also the red Australian telephone box that appears, repeatedly, to give “local flavour,” and the shots from behind of Milland’s character pacing around Sydney streets, clearly a stand-in. In the end, entertaining though it is, the film has little to do with the real Pajama Girl case and might just as well have been filmed anywhere. [Screengrabs show top: Ray Milland (as Inspector Timson or is it Thompson?) staring at the pajama girl’s corpse, below; Michele Placido and Dalila Di Lazzaro really on location at the Sydney Opera House]
8. The Black Boomerang(1982) [4 part TV Miniseries] [German title:Der Schwarze Bumerang]
“I get bored, go for a walk in the outback, get lost and live with a tribe of Aborigines”(Paul Spurrier’s description of the plot)[9]The Age(Melb), 18 March 1982, p36
Comment: This German miniseries was based on an original work by writer/actor Rüdiger Bahr(1939-2023), and had already been made as a radio play. The plot concerns a Munich scientist, Peter Lester, his wife Helen and son Michael, who move to Australia to work for a chemical company – at a research centre – in the desert naturally. It transpires that Lester’s invention is sought by others, and the research centre suddenly appears to be a prison. Son Michael wanders off into the desert, gets lost and is saved by a (traditional) tribe of Aborigines. The Lester family are all played by an unusual mix of actors – German Klaus Barner(1933-2022), French actor Danielle Volle(1937-2000) and English child actor Paul Spurrier (b1967). However the series had a largely Australian crew, including producers – Jan Bladier and David Lee, and director George T. Miller(1943-2023).[10]for Episode 1, filmed in Germany, Wolf Dietrich directed There were also a number of Australians in supporting roles, including Chantal Contouri (b1950) and very briefly, Allan Cuthbertson (1920-1988) – doing something he once said he would never do – playing an Australian.
The series was not released in Australia. [Screengrabs show top; Actor credited as Robert Dyer near Uluru, middle; Paul Spurrier and another actor at Kilkunda bridge, bottom; Chantal Contouri welcomes the Lester family to the secret lab]
9.Minder (1984) TV Series Series 4, Episode 6, If Money Be the Food of Love, Play On
“I made a serious misjudgement of character about you”[11]Arthur Daly to Dee
Comment: By 1984 there had already been a number of films presenting the adventures of naive, Lager-swilling Australians arriving in London – including Up Jumped a Swagman (1965) and The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972). Paul Hogan(b1939) had also had explored this in TV specials. However this episode of the British TV comedy series Minder reversed the usual narrative. In this case, the Australians in London were clever petty criminals, still running the innocent Colonial act.
Series regulars Arthur Daly(George Cole 1925-2015) and Terry McCann (Dennis Waterman 1948-2022) were also stereotypes of small time London criminals, but the joke of this episode is that they are no match for the Australians. Brisbane-born Penny Downie,(b1954) took the leading guest role as Dee. Julianne White(b1960), playing Sandra, one of the shoplifters, effected a fairly broad Aussie accent – one that she does not have in real life.[12]The author knows, he worked with her in Melbourne amateur theatre in the late 1970s Like Downie, she moved to London in the early 1980s and has worked there ever since.[Screengrabs show top; Penny Downie (Dee),Larry Lamb (Greg), Dennis Waterman (Terry), and George Cole (Arthur), below; Julianne White as Sandra]
The five second version Australian-born Agnes Steele (1881-1949) and her older sister Minnie (1878-1949) performed as the Steele Sisters for more than twenty-five years – between 1895 and 1922. They were born into humble family circumstances in the poorest and most chaotic part of inner Melbourne, known as “Little Lon.” Their dancing, singing and quick-change act was eventually taken through India, China, Japan, South Africa, the UK and the US, punctuated with repeated trips back home to perform around Australia and New Zealand. After 1911 their act was performed in partnership with Minnie’s second husband Ernest Brinkman (1871-1938). Sydney’s Theatre magazine acknowledged their international success this way; “For consistent vaudeville work abroad there are few from the Southern Hemisphere who have, to their credit, the equal of the Brinkman-Steele record.”
After 1922 the sisters made their home permanently in California, where they took some cinema roles – although only in the minor and often eccentric character parts given to older women. Minnie appeared in the early Baby Peggy film The Darling of New York(1923) while Agnes appeared in the first of many roles as landladies and servants – starting with Minnie the housekeeper in Rose of the World (1925) and as Mrs Ludd in My Old Dutch (1926). Many of their film roles appear to have been undocumented.
Minnie died suddenly at home, following a stroke in January 1949. Tragically, Agnes died only a few weeks later.
The Steele Sisters Act
In April 1919, London’s The Stage gave this account of the Brinkman & Steele Sisters turn at London’s Metropolitan Theatre. The piece was entitled All in the same Boat, but was based on the successful act they had already toured through North America, Three of a Kind. It was about to be taken to South Africa and then on to Australia and New Zealand.
The piece has been constructed upon original lines, and affords an admirable example of what can be done by the musically and humorously inclined. The title is realised by the introduction of three characters – a widow, who learns that her recently deceased husband has left her a fortune of 10,000 dollars; a divorced woman in receipt of alimony. and a grass widower, who has married three times. The dialogue is intersected with several tuneful musical numbers, and concludes with a capitally tendered trio, called Three of a Kind, in which the characters emphasise their reasons for remaining in the unmarried state.[2]The Stage (London) 17 April 1919, p11
Growing up in Melbourne
Born in inner Melbourne in 1879 and 1881 respectively, Minnie and Agnes Steele were the first and second children of Richard Mayhew Steele and Cecilia, nee Furlong. Richard was described as a tailor, and later a presser,[3]He worked at Bourke Street’s Beehive Clothing store and the family homes – as shown on the marriage and children’s birth certificates – were all in the nearby Little Lonsdale Street area – in Bennett’s Lane and Jones Lane. This part of the city was notoriously crowded and the section only a few yards east of their homes had a reputation for vice and petty crime. This was “Little Lon.”
While the birth certificates for Minnie and two younger siblings can be found, Agnes’s cannot. Such oversights were not uncommon in the Australian colonies.[4]Both her younger brothers’ certificates make reference to Agnes as a living older sister, and Cecilia Steele’s death certificate lists all her four adult children Adding to the confusion was the family’s practice of changing or adopting new first names. For example Minnie was named Elizabeth Mary on her birth certificate but she appears to have rarely used that name. Younger brother John sometimes called himself Frederick, Richard (Junior) sometimes called himself Joseph and the surname Steele was spelled with and without the third “e.”[5]See for example the death notice for Cecilia, which lists her children as “Minnie, Agnes, Fred and Joe.” The Age (Melb) 14 May 1935, p1
The last remaining 19th century streetscape of Little Lonsdale Street in 2025 – coincidentally also near the Steele family homes. Bennett’s Lane is on the left, Jones Lane out of sight on the right. Author’s collection.
Few clues exist to inform us of Minnie or Agnes’s upbringing. Newspaper reports indicate Richard Steele had abandoned his family by mid-1883 [6]The Herald (Melb) 12 July 1883, p3 and although he was apprehended and charged with desertion, it seems this was the end of his connection with them.[7]The Age (Melb) 22 May 1884, p7Also See Note 1 below. This absence of a parent figure is common in the stories of working class children of the era, yet a number still made spectacular successes of their lives – including Florrie Forde (1875-1940) and Saharet (1878-1964) – the latter also living in the Little Lon area as a child. In the absence of a father, to support the family, by 1900 Cecilia Steele had turned to running a grocery store in Swanston Street, Carlton (then called Madeline Street).[8]Sands Directory, 1900, p1412 By then the family home was at nearby 168 Queensberry Street.[9]Electoral roll, Division of Melbourne, 1909, p40 Both Minnie and Agnes attended State School No 2030, the closest school to their home in Little Lon, which in 1882 managed to squeeze over 300 children onto its tiny site at 275-285 Exhibition Street.[10]1883 Education Report, pps15 & 62. For memories of growing up in Little Lon at this time see The Age (Melb) 19 March, 1938, p30
Duvallis advertising in Melbourne in 1890[11]The Age (Melb)18 Apr 1890 p8
Mr Allen was the school’s singing teacher, but it was also Cecilia who would have encouraged her daughters to pursue a stage career, and there were numerous elocution, dancing and music teachers working nearby, keen for business. For working class children who showed talent as singers or dancers, a career on stage was an exciting alternative to the drudgery of factory work or an apprenticeship.[12]It is notable that in April 1875, Richard Steele had been listed in a Police Gazette for deserting his apprenticeship with a Fitzroy tailor
Some years later, Minnie and Agnes named a “Madame Du Valli” as their dancing teacher.[13]The Times (Louisiana) 26 June 1913, p3 One could dismiss this as a typical creative story told while on tour, however it is quite likely to be true. There really was a Duvalli academy in Melbourne. Before settling down in Melbourne in 1880, the Duvalli sisters had once performed a vaudeville program on a world-wide tour.[14]Annear(2021) p10-11. They were also known as Coutts-Duvalli “Sister acts” were always plentiful in vaudeville, as Cullen notes.[15]Cullen (2007) p1032-3. There appear to be a number of reasons for this, not just the shortage of male acts during the war
The Steele Sisters onstage1895
The Steele Sisters, billed as “charming young song and dance artists,” made their first professional appearance in November 1895 at Harry Rickard’s Opera House in Bourke Street, Melbourne.[16]The Herald (Melb) 30 Nov 1895, p2 A few days later, the Argus newspaper reported that “Miss Florrie Forde, the sisters Steel, and the other members of the company, all met with a most encouraging reception.”[17]The Argus (Melb) 2 Dec 1895, p6
The Steele sisters in 1905. [18]Saturday Observer (Bris) 14 Jan 1905, p.13
Personal circumstances meant their act was slow to develop. In June 1900 in South Australia, Minnie [19]now sometimes using the name Mimi married Leonard Yeend, a waiter. A child was born of the union in 1902, but following the birth Minnie was in such poor health she could barely get out of bed. The marriage soon failed, and within a few years her child had died. The sisters returned to the stage again, and by late 1903 they were earning a name for themselves in vaudeville, as song and dance specialists in clever short acts. Table Talk reviewed their act at Melbourne’s Opera House in this modest and restrained report:
Built on somewhat liberal lines, and possessed of pleasing voices, with a fair share of good looks, these two young ladies contribute two acceptable items of song and dance.[20]Table Talk (Melb)15 Sep 1904, p15
On stage with Ernest Brinkman after 1905
In late 1905 and again in late 1906, Minnie and Aggie Steele joined tours of India. Australian performers found the colonial audiences of the British India very receptive to touring musical comedy and variety acts – these being sentimental reminders of home. Travelling with the Steele Sisters was popular baritone Ernest Brinkman (1871-1938).[21]See The Australian Star (Syd) 23 Feb 1906, p2, Truth (Perth) 24 Nov 1906, p8 and Music Hall & Theatre Review (London)19 April 1907, p8. On their return to Australia in March 1907, Minnie and Aggie Steele again appeared on the same bill (but not yet in the same act) as Brinkman, in a variety lineup at Broken Hill’s grand-sounding venue, the Hippodrome. Here, the sisters presented a humorous boxing sketch which “purported to be the settlement of a dispute between East and West London girls.”[22]The Barrier Miner (Broken Hill) 9 March 1907, p4
In September 1908, Ernest Brinkman and the Steele Sisters departed for an extended performance tour – that took in Manila, Hong Kong and Shanghai. In the meantime, and after endless litigation, Minnie had finally divorced Leonard Yeend [23]See The Age (Melb)14 June 1905 p4 and The Herald (Melb)14 Aug 1907 p3. Sadly, her child had died in the meantime and a relationship with Ernest Brinkman had developed.[24]On his 1909 US immigration documents Brinkman listed a cousin in Sydney as a contact, not his own wife Ruby. In 1915 Minnie and Ernest listed themselves on shipping manifests as Mr and Mrs Brinkman, … Continue reading
The trio in Shanghai in July 1909.[25]Punch (Melbourne) 22 July 1909, p20
Brinkman left some interesting observations about the challenges of presenting vaudeville in “the east.” The expat and local audiences in Chinese coastal towns the trio found very responsive, but not so in Japan. “Money made in China – is lost in Japan” reported Brinkman.[26]The Mail (Adelaide) 19 Sept 1914, p12
Travelling on to North America in August 1909, it is clear from immigration documents that the trio already had contracts with the Sullivan-Considine Circuit, but it took some time for Brinkman and the Steele Sisters to be established in the US.[27]Brinkman had previously performed with his wife Ruby, one of the Clare Sisters In fact, their act together did not begin until the start of 1911, while they were on the US East Coast. However, there is no doubt they saw their future as being in the US almost as soon as they arrived. In December 1909 Billboard magazine reported that Brinkman had purchased land; “a fine corner block,” at Ocean Beach, San Diego.[28]Billboard, Dec 11 1909, p48 In 1913, Brinkman and the Steeles purchased more land – an orange orchard of 20 acres.[29]The Mail (Adelaide)21 Sept 1914, p3 Although we cannot be certain of their financial affairs, it is likely that in time, real estate purchases such as these proved to be wise investments.
Ernest Brinkman with Agnes and Minnie Steele, c1913 [30]Evening Vanguard (Venice, California) Sept 23, 1913, p8
In character in Australia again, 1914.[31]Sun (Sydney) 16 August 1914, p14
By 1913, their act now well established, Brinkman and the Steele Sisters were enjoying great success, as “undisputedly clever singers, dancers and character change artists.”[32]Morning Tribune (Los Angeles) 14 Sept, 1913, p48 They were usually the headline attraction wherever they appeared. A typically enthusiastic Missouri reviewer reported that the trio demonstrated “a keen appreciation of humor in the delivery of songs and an intelligent and winsome rendition of lines… Miss Agnes Steele can lay claim to be one of the best dancers Australia has sent to America. Her movements are the very poetry of motion, so finished is her training that even in the mad whirl of exquisite pirouetting, her graceful feet are over arched in perfect attitude, showing her consummate skill. She has a sweet voice, a soprano, which blends with her sister’s alto with very pretty effect.”[33]Springfield Leader & Press(Springfield, Missouri) June 12, 1913, p2
Determined to convince their mother Cecilia to leave the family home in Queensberry Street and move to California, in mid 1914, Minnie, Agnes and Ernest returned to Australia. They had no difficulty gaining employment in local vaudeville while they were in Australia. But Cecilia declined to join her daughters in the US.[34]The Sunday Times (Sydney) 9 August 1914, p15
1915 in Australia.[35]The Theatre Magazine (Sydney) 1 March 1915, p39
The act toured major Australian and New Zealand vaudeville theatres with the Brennan – Fuller’s circuit. At the time, Australian journalists celebrated the fact the trio were internationally a success – reflecting well “on all colonials.” The Adelaide Mail reported they were “about as good an advertisement as any the Australasian States have ever received in America…They are headlined at the principal [US] vaudeville houses, and their turn deserve[s] the honour, for it is hard to conceive a more brilliant, clean, and healthy performance than their novelty character entertainment.“[36]The Mail (Adelaide) 1 Oct 1914 Page 4
Travelling back to the US in May 1915, the trio spent the next four years as part of vaudeville lineups in North America, with an act that typically went for 15 minutes, alongside comedians, magicians, female impersonators, and Concertina wizards.
As part of vaudeville lineups. Left at the Strong theatre, Burlington, Vermont,1916. [37]Burlington Daily News Apr 21, 1916 p10 Right at The Bijou, Benton Harbour, Michigan, 1915. [38]The Herald-Palladium Sept 18, 1915 p2
During a season in Boston, in February 1917, the trio were involved in industrial action taken by the White Rats- the union of vaudeville players. Brinkman and the Steele sisters was one act that obeyed the union call and refused to perform, in protest at exploitation by management. However, no theatres closed or “went dark” – management had such control they just arranged new acts to replace those who had walked out. The White Rats’ strike failed, and as participants Brinkman and the Steele sisters may even have been blacklisted for a time.[39]Seagrove (2008) p128-9 However, by early 1918 they were back on the US circuits, with a refined act – a satire on marriage called Three of a Kind. Reviews were very good – the Steele sisters’ were noted to be good looking and graceful and their dancing excellent. Ernest Brinkman was acknowledged as a popular comedian and singer.[40]See for example Tacoma Daily Ledger (Washington) 4 Aug 1918, p11 They also appear to have had an alternative act that could be performed – The Mailman and pretty girls.
In February 1919, the trio arrived in Liverpool England. The act now toured British cities with a new title – All in the Same Boat, although apparently with the same content. How well the act transplanted is no longer clear, although The Stage review (see above) from April 1919 suggests it was a success. Then, nine months later, the trio embarked for a performance tour for the South African Theatres Trust.[41]The Era (London) 17 Dec 1919, p14 By April 1920, they were back in Australia.
The final tour of Australasia – 1920-22
Minnie and Agnes back home in Australia in 1920. [42]The Sun (Syd) 15 Aug, 1920
A new act had been developed by the time they were in Australia – entitled While the Missus is away. But there was another reason the trio were back. Ernest Brinkman began the arduous process of divorcing his long-estranged Australian wife Ruby.[43]Ruby nee Woodgate was from a theatrical family and performed as one of the “Clare Sisters” – another Sister singing and dancing act Almost certainly having heard of the divorce court saga Minnie had endured years before, he was well prepared for the court. Claiming that he lived at 168 Queensberry St, Carlton – really the home of Cecilia Steele – he also enlisted witness statements to the effect it was he who had been abandoned! Agnes was one of the witnesses. Brinkman also told the court he was tired of the theatrical business and its travel, and he thought he might settle down and run a hotel in Melbourne. A divorce was granted.[44]The Ballarat Star 31 May 1921, p1 Extraordinarily, he did then run a hotel – the Royal Derby in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy – although only for five months.[45]See The Argus (Melb) 24 Sept 1921, p26 and The Argus (Melb) 11 Feb 1922, p13 Minnie and Ernest also finally married at this time.
And then, in April 1922 Ernest, Minnie and Agnes were onboard the SS Ventura, on their way back to the US again.
On tour again in the US in 1922. [46]Left – The Independent (Richmond, CA) May 20, 1922, p2. Right – Visalia Daily Times (Visalia, CA) June 3, 1922, p5
Modest careers in Hollywood
The trio returned to touring the US vaudeville circuits again in 1922, but the end of the year brought an end to the act. Perhaps, as Ernest had indicated in the divorce hearing, they really were tired of touring. Anyway, there were new opportunities available. Sometime in 1923, Minnie landed a supporting role as Mrs Levinsky, in The Darling of New York a Universal film starring Baby Peggy (1918-2020).[47]Known as an adult as Diana Serra Cary, she left a number of memoirs of the silent film era Today’s freely editable websites like Wikipedia and the IMDB credit the person playing Mrs Levinsky as an “Emma Steele”, but as original reports show, it was Minnie playing the part.[48]See below and Screen Opinions, 15 March, 1924, p18
Minnie Steele appeared in The Darling of New York, a Baby Peggy film of 1923.[49]Moving Picture World, 24 Nov, 1923, p351
A five minute fragment of this film survives, and a low-res copy can be seen [here]. Unfortunately this writer is unable to confirm whether Minnie Steele appears in the surviving fragment. However, over the next ten years Minnie, Ernest and especially Agnes all appeared in Hollywood films, in bit parts. As these were often uncredited and some of the films are lost it is difficult to be certain how busy they really were. However, as Agnes and Minnie are listed as character women in casting directories of the 1920s, it seems clear this had become their priority, rather than vaudeville.[50]See the 1925 Standard casting directory hereTempe Pigott, another Australian woman who had arrived in the US at about the same time as the Steeles, recalled why actors were attracted to Hollywood as opposed to the stage – even if it was just “character work”: “More money may be made in a day in pictures than in a week on the stage; so, naturally, everyone is attracted to film work.”[51]The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 Aug 1936, P8 The IMDB currently lists Agnes with fifteen, mostly uncredited film roles, Minnie with three and Ernest with just one.
Agnes Steele as the landlady in the Laurel and Hardy short, You’re Darn Tootin (1928)
Agnes Steele (second from the right) as the Cook in Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936)
While their credits in film are difficult to verify today, it seems Minnie and Agnes, and Ernest, thought of themselves as “actors” to the end of their days, and their obituaries acknowledged this. There is also independent evidence of financial security in turbulent economic times – they all returned to Australia three times in the 1930s, and they also paid for brother John to travel to visit them. All of this suggests a healthy income stream, perhaps from the property investments mentioned, in spite of the Depression.
Ernest Brinkman died at the family home at 729 Robinson St, Los Angeles, in late December 1938. Eleven years later, Minnie died quite suddenly at the home she then shared with Agnes at 3404 Bellevue Ave.[52]Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, January 5,1949, p2 Less than two weeks later, Agnes was overcome by carbon-monoxide from a faulty gas heater. She lingered for some weeks in hospital before dying in March 1949.[53]Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, March 9, 1949 p18 Their passing was acknowledged in US newspapers – but Australian newspapers overlooked both of their deaths.
The sisters left no immediate family. In Australia in 1920, Agnes Steele had once been asked about marriage. She explained that she was still single because “the only man I ever loved dropped dead!” But who this was, she did not say.[54]The Theatre (Syd) 1 Sept 1920, p9
Agnes Steele, on her (March 1935) US Declaration of Intention for citizenship. But Minnie and Ernest seem not to have applied for citizenship.
Note 1: Two sisters hunt 30 years for missing father!
Sometime after they returned to the US in 1922, Minnie and Agnes felt a need to address the matter of their missing father. In a preposterous story for Californian papers, they told how Richard Mayhew Steele had once been “instructor of Military Science” at the University of Melbourne, but he had gone missing in 1892. The sisters had been thrice around the world looking for him and now planned to make “a thorough canvas of the bay district.”[55]See The Oakland Post Enquirer (Oakland CA) May 30 1922, p13 and The San Francisco Examiner May 30, 1922, p6 The story was entirely nonsense of course, he had long since abandoned his family and had almost certainly changed his name.[56]See Weekly Times (Melb) 24 May 1884 p11 and The Age (Melb) 23 Mar 1886, p5 It is however, a reminder of the efforts performers went to, to maintain public interest. Perhaps, also, we see something of a cheeky sense of humour at play here too.
Nick Murphy August 2025
Thanks
David Lord Heath’s very thorough Another Nice Mess website alerted me to Agnes Steele.
References
Robyn Annear (2021) Adrift in Melbourne. Text Publishing
Frank Cullen (2007) Vaudeville, Old and New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers. Routledge
Education Report (1882-1883) Report of the Minister of Public Instruction, Victoria, Government Printer 1883.
Jenny Seagrove (2008) Actors Organise: A history of Union formation efforts in America 1880-1919. McFarland & Co
Anthony Slide (1994) The Encyclopedia of Vaudeville. Greenwood Press.
Both her younger brothers’ certificates make reference to Agnes as a living older sister, and Cecilia Steele’s death certificate lists all her four adult children
On his 1909 US immigration documents Brinkman listed a cousin in Sydney as a contact, not his own wife Ruby. In 1915 Minnie and Ernest listed themselves on shipping manifests as Mr and Mrs Brinkman, although Ernest was still married to someone else.
Above: Gil Perkins in a minor role as a policeman with (left) Tyler McVey [1912-2003] and (right) Chuck Courtney [1930-2000] in Teenage Thunder 1957. Author’s Collection.
The Five Second version
Gil (Gilbert) Perkins must have been amongst the busiest Australians working in Hollywood’s golden era, even if the nature of his work – usually as a stuntman – meant he was less well known than his contemporaries. Interviewed late in life by Tom Weaver, he claimed that he may have worked on 1500 features and in several thousand television episodes.[1]Weaver (1996) p210 The more realistic estimates from the IMDB – 220 acting roles and over 150 appearances as a stuntman – are still impressive.[2]In Nicolas Barker’s 1999 obituary for Gil, he was named “the Stuntman’s stuntman”- able to do anything
Perkins was born in inner-city Melbourne in 1907.[3]and not in “Northern Australia” or Queensland as is often claimed By 1928 he had followed his dream to act in movies, and without any significant Australian acting experience, he had gone to California to try his luck. At the end of a long career, he died there in 1999. Apart from the volume of his work, he stands out as a unique figure for other reasons. He returned to Australia at least six times for extended visits to see his family – possibly a record for an Australian working in Hollywood at the time. He became active in the Screen Actor’s Guild and the smaller Hollywood Stuntmen’s Association – industry associations designed to protect and advance conditions for workers in the film industry.[4]Perhaps coincidentally, two other expat Australian actors Snub Pollard [1889-1962] and William H O’Brien[1891-1981], were active in the Screen Extras Guild at this time, later absorbed into SAG
Perkins is also notable for his willingness to provide commentary on what it was like working in film in Hollywood’s “golden era”. He was interviewed numerous times later in life, and spoke with a candour often missing from popular actor biographies of the era.
The photo at left shows Gil in about 1962 [5]and wearing a toupee. Daily Mirror(London) 24 Nov 1962, p9
Stunt artists Gil Perkins and Cherie May [1905-1966], doubling for Bruce Cabot [1904-1972] and Fay Wray [1907-2004] scramble down a vine to escape King Kong (1933).[6]See Weaver (1996) p215.[7]Source of screengrab – Author’s copy
Born at the family home in Fergie Street in the inner Melbourne suburb of North Fitzroy in August 1907, Gilbert Vincent Perkins was the second son of Frederick and Emily nee Buck. Frederick Perkins worked for the shipping agency Mullaly & Byrne at the time.[8]Victoria, Birth Certificate: Gilbert Vincent Perkins 26646/1907 Within a few years the family moved to one of Melbourne’s seaside suburbs, settling down at 101 Park Street, Saint Kilda West, only one street from the beach.[9]Australian Electoral roll, 1921
Left: Gil Perkins birthplace – the cottage at 38 Fergie St, in the inner Melbourne suburb of North Fitzroy. Right: the Perkins family home at 101 Park St, near West Saint Kilda beach. (the slate roofed home on the left). [Click to enlarge][10]Author’s collection
Although famous for giving frank interviews about the movie business in later life, Gil Perkins was noticeably vague about his own childhood – where he lived and went to school. There is, for example, no evidence that he ever lived in “northern Australia” as he once claimed. There has also never been a “Malvern Technical School”- a school that he said he attended – instead it is more likely he completed his schooling at South Melbourne Technical School, not far from Park Street, quite possibly in some aspect of engineering. He acknowledged his father did not approve of his emerging interest in the theatrical business, and had hopes he would work in the motor business or be an engineer.[11]Barker, 1999
The 1932 US naturalisation photo of Perkins remains the earliest available.[12]Ancestry.com
Much has been made of Gil Perkin’s 4 months as a deck hand on a freighter plying the South Seas at the age of 18 (1925) – in fact he told this story himself as as early as 1933.[13]The Herald (Melb)13 Dec 1933, p12 However this experience appears unrelated to his decision to emigrate to the US several years later, and might instead be evidence of his father using his shipping connections to get his son some worthwhile life experiences. If he really did run away to sea in 1925, it did not dramatically undermine his relationship with his parents or siblings, as he returned to Australia to see them repeatedly, over the rest of his life.
This writer has the sense that Gil Perkins loved “a bit of a yarn” – in the best Australian tradition.[14]meaning – he was a story teller He found a ready audience for Hollywood stories on visits home, for example in early 1934, Melbourne radio station 3UZ interviewed him repeatedly, in what seems to have become a popular segment that stretched out over three months. Thus, perhaps, some of his claims may need to be viewed with a degree of caution.
Gil Perkins farewell interview on Melbourne radio 3UZ in late April 1934.[15]The Argus (Melb), 23 Apr 1934 p14
The stories of Gil’s physical prowess growing up in Australia are many – and owe much to Hollywood based, Australian journalist/publicist Lon Jones [c1904-1989]. Amongst the various claims is one that is easily verified. Gil really was a champion swimmer and had trained as a lifesaver at West Saint Kilda lifesaving club – impressive achievements for a 21 year old.[16]See for example, The Argus,(Melb) 29 Oct 1927, p22 and The Herald (Melb) 9 Feb 1928, p10 He also played Australian Rules Football[17]The Herald (Melb) 8 June 1927, p3 at least at amateur level. He claimed this famously rough contact sport taught him protective skills he could use in later life – such as how to “fall and tumble.”[18]Rosenberg &Silverstein (1970) p283 Perhaps. He also said he had learned to box and ride horses – and bikes – in his Australian childhood,[19]Sporting Globe (Melb) 25 Jan, 1939, p8 but fencing he learned in Hollywood from sword master Fred Cavens.[20]Rosenberg & Silverstein (1970) p296
Gil’s beachside stomping ground today. Looking towards West St Kilda Beach in winter 2025. It remains a very popular summer destination. [Click to enlarge][21]author’s collection
In many of his interviews, Gil made it clear that as a young man he was passionate about the movies. He was not alone. By the 1920s, Hollywood’s studio system had become a dominant force in feeding Australian cinemas, and the phenomenon of the movie actor as a celebrity was well established. As Kirsten Mckenzie notes, in 1920 alone, Australia’s population of 5 million attended cinemas 68 million times.[22]McKenzie (2010)
Six foot tall,[23]182 cms in height physically strong, blond and blue-eyed, Gil Perkins arrived in San Francisco on July 7, 1928, as a passenger on the SS Maunganui, in company with Saint Kilda friend William Wedmore.[24]The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 June 1928, p15 On arrival, Gil gave his profession as auto salesman, while Wedmore described himself as a motor mechanic. They both gave the same US contact – a Mr R. Ireland of 750 Pine St, San Francisco. In time, their US careers went in different directions, although they remained close friends.[25]Gil was best man at Wedore’s wedding in July 1934, while Wedmore returned the favour when Gil married in 1939. Wedmore’s Automotive Service ran at 1100 Mission … Continue reading
Gil arrived in the US with no Australian stage or film experiences of his own. However he had the advantage of being a confident – or forceful – personality, something he acknowledged when he described himself as “a very determined young man.”[26]Rosenberg & Silverstein (1970) p278 For a short time, while he established himself in the US, he sold cars.[27]The Herald (Melb)13 Dec 1933, p12
Breaking into film
The sheer volume and variety of Gil Perkins’ work in Hollywood – spanning more than 50 years – means it does not lend itself to a succinct summary, and the most accurate list appears to be the Internet Movie Data Base(IMDB). Gil’s own estimate was that he appeared in 1500 films, and even more television programs.[28]Weaver (1996) p210 David Inman’s three volume directory, prepared in 2001, made a sterling effort to document the appearances of all TV performers[29]Inman (2001) Vol 3, p2221 however this does not seem to provide a definitive list of Gil’s work. In part, the issue is the nature of Gil’s work as a stuntman, a double or a featured extra – roles that so often went uncredited.
This may be Gil, in Journey’s End (1930)[30]3 years later, he described himself in this scene to The Herald (Melb)13 Dec 1933, p12[31]screen grab from author’s copy
Gil’s first film part was as an extra in The Divine Lady (1928) – a sound film – in so far as it had an accompanying musical soundtrack, and then in The Delightful Rogue, also as an extra, contributing to background “atmosphere.”[32]The Herald (Melb)13 Dec 1933, p12 He then took an acting part in James Whale’s[1889-1957] Journey’s End, in 1930.[33]Rosenberg & Silverstein (1970) p278 A talkie, based on a dramatic stage play and set mostly in an officers dug-out in World War 1 France, it resonated with post-war audiences and was a great success. Unfortunately Gil’s brief role – as Sergeant Cox – is difficult to positively identify in the grainy, low-res copy available today. Fellow Australian, Billie Bevan, played an officer.
On being a stuntman
Gil Perkin’s transition into stunt work was apparently related to the downturn in work caused by the Depression – it was driven by necessity.[34]Weaver (1996) p233 In 1975, he told an Australian paper that he had actually been down to his last $5 when he got stunt work on Moby Dick (1930) with John Barrymore [1882-1942].[35]Australasian Post, 22 May 1975 Tall story or not, by the time of his first visit home in late 1933, he was already an established stuntman. Stunt work was good money, he said, perhaps even “easy money.” Years later he told interviewers Rosenberg & Silverstein that in the Depression he sometimes earned as much as $150-$200 a day as a stuntman.[36]Rosenberg & Silverstein(1970) p282 But one had to be fit, he explained. Although he said he enjoyed a glass of Australian beer, he didn’t smoke, or drink hard liquor.[37]Herald (Melb) 13 Dec 1933, p12 He remained in robust health for most of his life.
Another image from King Kong(1933). When Kong tries to pull the vine back up, Jack Driscoll and Ann Darrow (played here by Gil and Cherie May) let go and fall into the sea.[38]Weaver (1996) p215-6.[39]Source of screengrab – author’s copy
In 1996, Gil was interviewed at length by Tom Weaver about his stunt work in King Kong (1933), when he doubled for leading actor Bruce Cabot in some scenes, including the one shown above, where the two key characters are escaping from Kong. With a characteristic modesty, Gil described this as “no great stunt.”[40]Weaver (1996) p215-6
Rosenberg and Silverstein’s 1970 book The Real Tinsel includes several studio photos of Gil doing impressive stunts in other films – for example; hanging out a porthole and being suspended from high wires for Eddie Albert in The Fuller Brush Girl (1950). It is quite clear from interviews with Gil that stunt work in Hollywood’s golden era was self taught – learned by observation and practice – there was no stunt school to attend. It could also be risky, and Gil was scathing of directors who had lost stunt men in actions gone wrong. Carelessness meant Raoul Walsh [1888-1980] lost several stunt men in They Died with Their Boots on (1941), while Gil told Tom Weaver that director Ralph Ceder [1897-1951] would “kill you if you didn’t watch yourself.“[41]Weaver (1996 p221 There were also limits to what stunts he would do – by the time Rosenberg & Silverstein interviewed him, he had long since refused motorcycle and airplane stunts. A friend, stunt pilot Paul Mantz [1903-1965], had been killed in a plane crash on the set of The Flight of the Phoenix in 1965.[42]Rosenberg & Silverstein (1970) p288
Very bald but very fit, as boxer Bob Fitzsimmons in the Western The City of Bad Men (1953), but again an uncredited role.[43]Screengrab from DailyMotion
But much of the stunt work Gil did, appears to have been more mundane; fights and jumps, falls from horses, even dressing up in monster costumes. It was his stamina, wide range of physical skills – and a robust physique – that kept him employed and eventually gave him the reputation of being one of Hollywood’s leading stuntmen.
We see examples of this in much of his later work, where Gil was often a featured extra, sometimes with a few lines as well as having stunts to perform. In the 15-part Republic serial Captain America (1944), he appeared as a thug, who ends up fighting Captain America. Apparently audiences were not expected to remember minor players – and thus Gil appeared as a similar (but different) thug over several episodes – in exciting fight scenes. He explained to Tom Weaver that fight scenes in serials were generally done in one long “master shot” – with leading actors cut in later. By contrast, feature film fights were usually done in separate takes.[44]Weaver (1996) p224
Gil as the waiter-thug in the serial Captain America(1944). In the centre photo he has been sent flying over a chair during a fight. Click image to enlarge. [45]Source of screengrabs – Youtube
Stanley Kubrick’s[1928-1999] big budget “sand and sandals” epic, Spartacus (1960) used numerous stunt artists, including Gil. At 3 hours in length and with a large cast and many action scenes, Gil appears repeatedly as a featured extra – including in a couple of stunt sequences. Two stunt sequences are illustrated here. Below left, the fence on the gladiator’s cage is pushed over by escaping gladiators. Gil, as a gladiator, is climbing the left of the fence – hard to make out in this photo, but easily identifiable in still photos taken at the same time by LIFE photographer J.R. Eyerman. Below right, also during the gladiator’s revolt, Gil arrives with sword – soon to fight a Roman, who is about to appear from the left.
Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960) Left- Gil on the collapsing railing (climbing at left). Right – Gil in the background and about to fight during the gladiator’s revolt. Click to enlarge.[46]Screen grabs from author’s copy
In other scenes from the film, Gil appears prominently in the background. Below left, Gil can be seen centre right, as Spartacus (Kirk Douglas [1916-2020] at left) leads gladiators past the body of Draba (out of sight, at right). Below right, Spartacus and Antoninus (Tony Curtis [1925-2010] ) discuss plans with other rebel gladiators. Gil Perkins can be seen at extreme left. He has no dialogue in the film. Yakima Canutt [1895-1986] was credited as being the stunt coordinator on Spartacus. Gil graciously acknowledged “Yak” Canutt’s ability as a stuntman.[47]See Rosenberg & Silverstein(1970) p288 Gil also served as a stunt coordinator on feature films.[48]Barker (1999)
Gil Perkins as a featured extra in Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960). Click to enlarge.[49]Screen grabs author’s copy
While Gil provided no comments about Stanley Kubrick or producer-star Kirk Douglas, over time he did make many comments about other directors and actors he had worked with. He admired Alfred Hitchcock [1899-1980] and George Stevens [1904-1975] as directors and had long associations with actors Red Skelton [1913-1997] and William Boyd [1895-1972], both of whom he doubled for.
While comfortable in the company of actor John Wayne [1907-1979], Gil did not like director John Ford [1894-1973]. “I didn’t like the way he picked out a patsy on a picture and gave him a hard time. I thought he was a despot and a professional Catholic. I was a stuntman and got fired every night, so he didn’t scare me.”[50]Eyman (1999) p155 He recalled that on Fort Apache (1948), Ford took a particular dislike to John Agar(1921-2002). Ford “ate him alive. There was nothing this poor kid could do that was right.”[51]Eyman (1999) p336 Gil also did not like Eric Von Stroheim [1885-1957], whose bullying of Boots Mallory [1913-1958] on the set of Walking Down Broadway/Hello Sister (1933) he recalled vividly. “He was a pain in the ass.”[52]Weaver (1996) p219
Gil Perkins as the Policeman in Teenage Thunder (1957), produced by Joy N Houck. [53]Author’s collection
B-picture producer Joy Newton Houck [1900-1999] and his company Howco Gil could not recall fondly either – largely because of their financial dealings.[54]Weaver (1996) p227 Perhaps Hollywood at this time really was an era of brutal relationships, so at odds with the romantic and sentimental atmosphere modern writers sometimes give it.
The post war period was an era of significant change in the US – reflecting new priorities for the urban middle classes and changes in cinema audience habits. The changes associated with the rise of television were many. In Hollywood a decline of the studio system saw increasing job insecurity – there were fewer and fewer actors and writers with ongoing studio contracts. Peter Lev notes that while there were 804 actors under contract to major studios in 1945, ten years later there were only 209.[55]Lev (2006) p26 It was in this uncertain environment that Gil was appointed to the board of the Screen Actors Guild – in April 1954,[56]Daily News (Los Angeles) Apr 12, 1954, p6 – although he had been a member of this labour union since the mid-1930s.[57]Gil was still serving the Screen Actors Guild in 1975, according to Australasian Post, 22 May 1975
A 1953 cartoon by Gordon Currie, another US-based Australian journalist, shows 3 contemporary stuntmen – Left to Right: Gil, Saul Gorss and Dale Van Sickle. [58]Los Angeles Mirror, June 11, 1953, p41
In 1954, Gil was also instrumental in setting up the Hollywood Stuntmen’s Association – a fraternal organisation comprising, at first, only 35 members.[59]Daily Telegraph(Qld) 19 Aug, 1954, p25. This was another report by Lon Jones
Of course, television soon provided another source of work for stuntmen – and Gil can be found in numerous programs from the 1950s. As a spokesman for stuntmen, Gil was less than impressed by the efforts to reduce violence on TV and he dismissed such scenes as merely “rough and tumble brawls.” He felt the work was down by 50% for some stuntmen in 1962,[60]Lodi News-Sentinel (California) 8 Oct 1962, p14 however Gil seems not to have suffered this problem so much himself. He was still regularly a featured, but uncredited extra – and was now often consigned to playing menacing heavies – Kaos agents in Get Smart, henchmen in Batman and endless bad guys in westerns such as The Virginian, The Life & Legend of Wyatt Earp,Bonanza and Wagon Train.
In the following example from a 1963 episode of The Beverley Hillbillies, Granny fires a shotgun and Gil, as the pool maintenance man, leaps over the veranda to escape her. This appearance also showcased Gil’s natural accent – the same accent found among many Australians from the urban middle class of his era. As Nicolas Barker noted in his 1999 obituary, to American ears he simply passed for English.[61]Barker 1999
The Beverley Hillbillies, Season 2, Episode 8, 1963, “The Clampetts are overdrawn”. Click to enlarge [62]Screengrabs from youtubeAudio of Gil Perkins as the Pool Maintenance man, with Granny played by Irene Ryan [1902-1973]
In only one film appearance did Gil actually play an Australian. This was Lost Flight (1970) a made for TV film – a pilot for a TV series that did not eventuate. In this, he was credited as “the Australian”, while Playboy model Connie Kreski [1946-1995] played his wife. (She had no lines, so perhaps no one noticed she was also 40 years his junior!!) Gil had one line, where presumably to emphasize his Australian-ness, the line included the words “bloody” and “mate.”
Gil and Connie Kreski in Lost Flight (1970) [63]Screen grab from copy on DailyMotion
Audio of Gil Perkins as “the Australian”, in Lost Flight (1970)
Gil’s final film was a small part in Martin Scorsese Raging Bull (1980), which also appears to have been the year of his final visit home to Australia.[64]The Age (Melb) 1 April 1980, p2 But no matter how many films he appeared in, Gil Perkins was apparently never really satisfied with just being a good stuntman. In 1970, he told Rosenberg and Silverstein that he really wished he had been a 2nd Unit director.[65]Rosenberg & Silverstein (1970) p287 On a return home in 1975 he told an Australian journalist that he had only ever wanted to be an actor.[66]Australasian Post, 22 May 1975 In one of his final interviews – with Tom Weaver in 1996, he said he wished he had been a cameraman.[67]Weaver (1996) p233 The problem was that it was “hard to graduate from stuntman to anything else.”[68]Rosenberg & Silverstein(1970) p296
Back in Australia again, in 1975. Radio announcer Norman Banks (left) with Gil, and a producer (right).[69]Australasian Post, 22 May 1975
Gil Perkins died at the Motion Picture & Television Hospital on Mulholland Drive, Woodland Hills, in late March 1999. He had become a US citizen in the early 1930s, and had married in 1939. He was survived by his daughter Susan, and by his extended family still living in Australia.
Gil’s daughter Susan Perkins (1941-2023) was a long time employee of 20th Century Fox.
Nick Murphy August 2025
References
Victoria, Births Deaths & Marriages, Birth Certificate 26646/1907 Gilbert Vincent Perkins, 24 August 1907.
Oral History
Gil Perkins interviewed by Ronald L Davis, 21 August 1986. Oral History collection, De Golyer Library, Southern Methodist University.
Text
Barker, Nicolas (1999) Gil Perkins obituary. The Independent (London UK) 29 April 1999, p6
Eyman, Scott, (1999) Print the legend : the life and times of John Ford. Simon & Schuster
Inman, David M (2001) Performers’ Television Credits, Vol 3: N-Z, McFarland & Co
Freese, Gene Scott (2014) Hollywood Stunt Performers, 1910s-1970s: A Biographical Dictionary. 2nd Edition. McFarland & Co.
Lev, Peter (2006) The Fifties: Transforming the Screen, 1950-1959. Vol 7 in History of the American Cinema. University of California Press.
McKenzie, Kirsten. Journal of Women’s History; Baltimore Vol. 22, Iss. 4, (Winter 2010): “Being Modern on a slender income: ‘Picture Show’ and ‘Photoplayer’ in early 1920s Sydney”. 114-136, 329.
Rosenberg, Bernard & Silverstein, Harry (1970) The Real Tinsel. MacMillan Company
Weaver, Tom (1996) It came from Horrorwood. Interviews with moviemakers in the science fiction and horror tradition. McFarland Books
Perhaps coincidentally, two other expat Australian actors Snub Pollard [1889-1962] and William H O’Brien[1891-1981], were active in the Screen Extras Guild at this time, later absorbed into SAG
Gil was best man at Wedore’s wedding in July 1934, while Wedmore returned the favour when Gil married in 1939. Wedmore’s Automotive Service ran at 1100 Mission St, South Pasadena for many years.
The Five second version Born in Italy and Australia respectively, Mario and Giorgio Majeroni [1]listed as George Carlo John Majeroni on his Australian birth certificate, his name was also spelled Giorgio and Georgio during his lifetime. The author has used the more common Italian spelling of … Continue reading were the children of celebrated Italian actors Eduardo and Giulia Majeroni. Mario was born in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy on 23 September 1870. Giorgio in Melbourne Australia on 11 January 1877. The brothers performed on stage for over a decade in Australia and New Zealand before departing for the United States in late 1905. With their friend Paul Scardon, they were amongst the first wave of actors to arrive in the US from the new Australian Commonwealth. By the time of the Great War, they had drifted into the booming and lucrative US film industry, as versatile character actors, although their preference seems to have remained the stage. Tall, (they both stood about 182 cms, or 6 feet) good-looking, well-travelled, multi-lingual, and able to step across cultural boundaries with ease, they had plenty of stage experience when they arrived in the US, as well as carrying their family’s notable theatrical heritage.
Mario Majeroni as Larrabee in Sherlock Holmes, 1916 Internet Archive.
There are various competing claims made regarding who was the first Australian to appear in or to make a career in US films in the early Twentieth Century. Was it adventurer J.P. McGowan? Or vaudevillian Clyde Cook? Swimmer Annette Kellerman has a strong claim. Perhaps it was former Sydney hairdresser Marc McDermott – who arrived in New York in 1902. So much early cinema history has been lost and the cultural identity of being an ‘Australian’ as distinct from ‘British’ had yet to emerge. In addition, in the first decade of the new century, the money to be made from movie making was not yet appreciated, and the concept of the film actor or star who was a celebrity icon was still emerging. However, we can still identify many of these pioneer Australian performers, whose first intention–as late as the First World War–was usually to try their luck on the US stage, not necessarily to dive into the new, revolutionary world of moving pictures. Brothers Mario and Giorgio Majeroni were amongst the earliest Australians to travel to the US to try their luck in the new century.
The Majeroni brothers professional record suggests that by the time they were settled in the US, they were having no difficulty finding work. By way of example, the Internet Broadway database (IBDB) lists more than a dozen Broadway productions each, while the Internet Movie database (IMDB) lists more than thirty film appearances each. Unfortunately, we are dependent on a narrow range of sources – newspapers, trade and fan magazines to verify their careers, while details of short films and provincial touring records are often lost.
In a lengthy interview for Table Talk in 1902, Giulia Majeroni said that her sons had “true artistic instinct, developed by artistic associations.”[2]Table Talk (Melb) 3 April 1902, P14 It is quite likely they learned their stagecraft through family mentoring and close observation of their parents – no evidence exists of any other training, although in Australia they consistently performed with leading actors of the day. The presence of strong family traditions is also suggested by the fact the brothers sometimes worked together during their careers and remained close personally throughout their lives. A survey of the Australian career of the Majeroni parents possibly goes some way to explaining Mario and Giorgio’s later success.
26 year old Mario and 19 year old Giorgio with their mother Giulia in Melbourne in 1896. Talma Photographers, Melbourne, 1 Jan 1896. State Library of Victoria
The Majeroni family arrive in Australia
In July 1875, Adelaide Ristori and her Italian Dramatic Company arrived in Australia–at the tail end of a long and grandly named “farewell tour of the World.” With Signora Ristori were Eduardo and Giulia Majeroni and their five-year-old son Mario. The Ristori troupe had performed in New York, then travelled across the US, before moving on to Australia. Eduardo took many of the male leading roles for the company, while Giulia, a niece of Adelaide Ristori, also played leading roles.[3]Eduardo Majeroni’s interesting life experiences are recounted in numerous sources including W.H. Leavitt’s Australian Representative Men. However, it is difficult to verify all of the claims made.
The Australian leg of the tour took in Sydney, Bendigo, Ballarat, Melbourne, Geelong and Adelaide. The company performed a repertoire of plays that included some especially written for Ristori – such as Elizabeth, Queen of England (written by Paolo Giacometti). The tour was a critical success, despite the fact the plays were performed in Italian, to overwhelmingly English-speakers, and seats were relatively expensive.[4]See Tony Mitchell’s two-part account of the 1875 Ristori tour of Australia in Australasian Drama Studies, 1995
Program from Adelaide Ristori’s farewell world tour in 1875, performing Lucretia Borgia in New York. The program was written in English and Italian. Author’s Collection
Adelaide Ristori c1876 as Mary Stuart. National Library of Australia.
A review given by Melbourne’s Argus in August 1875 provides a taste of the enthusiastic reception given to the Italians in Australia.[5]The Argus (Melb) 30 August 1875, P6 The paper reported at length on Madame Ristori’s “superior energy” and “emotional power on stage”. A correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald went further, describing Ristori as “the greatest tragic actress of the age, the first great artist of world renown who has visited this far off country.”[6]The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 August 1875, P5 In December 1875 Ristori’s troupe went home, but Eduardo and Giulia chose to stay on in Australia. Years later, Giulia explained that this was to give the couple a chance to learn English. By mid-1876, Eduardo had learned enough to perform The Old Corporal in English, again to enthusiastic Australian audiences. Giulia found the new language easier to learn – to such an extent that in 1893 she wrote a novel in English, based on one of their plays.[7]A Living Statue, 1893. State Library of New South Wales Meanwhile, the couple’s second son, Giorgio, was born in Melbourne in January 1877. Only a few months after the birth, Giulia was back on stage, touring Jealousy and A Living Statue with Eduardo.
(Left) Signora Giulia Majeroni, from her novel The Living Statue, 1893, State Library of NSW. (Right) Lithograph of Eduardo Majeroni, attributed to Herbert J Woodhouse from Australian Representative Men, 1887. Author’s Collection
In 1878, and now more confident about performing in English, Eduardo and Giulia moved back to the United States with their sons. Over the next five years they toured new and favourite plays, while the 1880 US census showed the family living in New York. Despite making the US their new home, the Majeronis were not always happy with their treatment by managers, and their seasons met with mixed success. Finally, ongoing illness saw Eduardo step back from the stage into theatre management, after losing his voice, and, according to one 1882 newspaper report, suffering “malarial fever” in New York’s “severe changeable weather”.[8]Buffalo Morning Express, 27 March 1882, P4 A decision to return to Australia was apparently made based on Eduardo’s health.
Eduardo Majeroni & W J Wilson’s production of La Fille De Madame Angot. Theatre Royal Adelaide, March 1885. Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne
By April 1883, the Majeroni family were again in Australia, with every indication this was now to be their home. However, in the 1902 interview for TableTalk, Giulia recalled that Eduardo’s change to theatre management was a mistake – she felt he did not have the business sense to succeed.[9]Table Talk, (Melb) 3 April 1902, P14.
The couple’s performance tour to India and China in 1889-91 was also not a success.[10]See Geoff Barker (2012) and contemporary reports such as The Argus (Melb) Fri 23 Oct 1891 P10 In July 1891 a grand benefit performance was given in Sydney to support the couple – which Mario also performed in. Sadly, Eduardo succumbed to tuberculosis (TB) in Sydney later that year, while Giulia was so ill with chronic influenza, she could not attend his funeral.[11]Phillip Parsons (1995) P338
Mario and Giorgio on the Australian stage
During his education at Sydney’s Royston College [12]Mario was apparently an outstanding athlete at Royston, Mario had at least one documented appearance on stage in 1884, while his parents toured, however his definitive pathway to the stage can be traced through amateur theatre in Sydney in the early 1890s. Perhaps the death of his father and the crippling 1890s depression encouraged young Mario to search for secure employment – because records show he sought steady work as a clerk in the Post Office at the age of twenty-one. Soon after, he applied for a New South Wales Certificate of Naturalization – suggesting his intention was to live in an Australian colony for the foreseeable future. At the same time, he was also a regular in amateur dramatics in Darlinghurst. However, within a few years he had left the Post Office and was appearing professionally. In 1893, Shakespearean actor Walter Bentley employed him for a six-month tour of Australia, in a program of Shakespeare and comedies.[13]Bentley had previously been associated with the Majeroni seniors Following this he appeared in a tour of New Zealand with the Myra Kemble Dramatic Company. Mario reportedly also first wrote for the stage at this time. Contemporary newspapers referred to his newly authored play A Rebel Flag in May.[14]The Lorgnette (Melb) 2 May 1894 P2. Some accounts claim this play was written by Giulia Majeroni. It was a melodrama set in the future, but further records of this play do not exist He appeared with Bentley again in New Zealand in 1894.
Giorgio’s professional acting career began in Sydney in May 1893, in a supporting role in George Rignold’s production of the melodrama East Lynne. He had spent some of his schooling as a boarder at Queen’s College (a now defunct school in St Kilda, Melbourne) and at sixteen, his youthful inexperience on the stage was noted. But later that year he was in the cast of George Darrell’s Australian play The Double Event, a tale of the Melbourne Cup. By 1894 he was a regular in the Charles Holloway Dramatic Company – in My Jack, A King of Crime and The Ring of Iron. He stayed with this company until early 1896. In 1898 Giorgio attracted attention in the role of the mute servant Clon in Under the Red Robe, played with “dramatic vigour and intelligence.”[15]The Sportsman 27 Sept 1898, P6 The cast at Her Majesty’s Sydney included leading actors of the time – Julius Knight, W F Hawtrey and Gaston Mervale. Possessed of a fine baritone voice, in 1900 newspapers reported JC Williamson’s were training him for opera roles. It transpired that he did not have an important singing role until he was in the US.
Up and coming Australian performers. Giorgio and Mario as featured in The Bulletin, Oct 16, 1897, P10. National Library of Australia.
Giulia’s stated desire was that she might act one day with her boys. She did appear at least once on the same bill with them at another benefit concert (for her) in Melbourne in December 1895 –when she recreated the sleep – walking scene from MacBeth. The strength of her bond with her two sons and her anxiety about their future was indicated in the preface to her 1893 novel and the long 1902 Table Talk interview. In both, she worried that by living in Australia she was keeping her sons from pursuing careers overseas. “I would like my boys to go to England or America, but I fear I have been the means of keeping them in Australia … I have always said what will become of me if you go, and they have stayed for my sake.” What the boys thought about this, we do not know, but they did not leave Australia until well after her death.
Mario’s success in Australia from the mid-1890s was undoubtedly in part because of his close association with another acting family – that of actor-manager Robert Brough (1857-1906) and his wife Florence. Mario first joined the Brough – Boucicault company in 1894, and over the next seven years, regularly appeared in supporting roles with Brough.[16]Dion Boucicault left the partnership in 1896 In the words of his ADB biographer, Brough was a “champion of refined and legitimate drama” in Australasia.[17]Helen M. Van Der Poorten, ‘Brough, Lionel Robert (1857–1906)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography Hal Porter described the contribution of the Brough-Boucicault company to Australian theatre as “greater than that of any other company” of the era, their casts being “meticulously schooled.”[18]Hal Porter (1965) P92 For a young and ambitious actor like Mario, it was the right theatrical company to be part of.
In 1896, Table Talk noted that Mario had “impressed theatregoers very favourably of late, by the vitality of his acting in subsidiary characters”.[19]Table Talk (Melb) 15 May 1896, P13 Both the Majeroni brothers joined Robert Brough’s Comedy Company tour of India and the far east, departing Australia in September 1897. Indian and Shanghai newspapers welcomed the visiting company with enthusiasm. Their repertoire included comedies and farces–such as Darnley’s The Solicitor, Grundy’s Sowing the Wind and Pinero’s The Amazons; the productions being turned over every few days for expat audiences – who longed for culturally familiar productions from home. The Broughs always took first billing and leading roles, while the ever-reliable Majeronis took supporting parts.[20]The North China Herald and Supreme Court & Consular Gazette (Shanghai) April 18, 1898, P670
The relationship between the Broughs and Mario in particular, was not merely professional. When Mario married Nellie Harbin in Sydney in September 1899, Brough and his wife Florence were in attendance, together with other company members. Another performing member of the Brough family – Percy Brough – was groomsman, while brother Giorgio Majeroni was best man.
Mario featuring in the cast of Brough company plays in 1899 and 1900. Australian Performing Arts Collection.
Mario and Nellie Harbin married in September 1899. Melbourne Punch, 5 Oct 1899. State Library of Victoria
In late 1902, Mario and Giorgio established their own Majeroni Dramatic Company, to tour Australia and New Zealand with a repertoire of “tip-top sensational melodramas” including Brother Against Brother, The Banker’s Daughter, My Jack, Judge Not and Wages of Sin.[21]Otago Witness,(New Zealand) 22 October, 1902 P57 Mario more often than not took roles as villains in these – notably Stephen Flint the merciless wicked landlord in The Shamrock and the Rose and as callous villains in The Flight for Life and Enlisted. Also in their repertoire was a version, probably Mario’s, of the convict story For the Term of His Natural Life. He also wrote his own version of the very popular Kelly Gang story, the troupe performing this for the first time in Brisbane in July 1904.[22]Fotheringham (2006) P558
Giorgio Majeroni (At rear, centre), as Brother Paul in The Christian, by Wilson Barrett and Bernard Espinasse. Photographed by A. J. Perier, c.1901. State Library of New South Wales.
One member of the Majeroni troupe, Lionel Walshe, left a vivid and entertaining memoir of the tour. It was exhausting he recalled and struggled to make a profit. Interviewed ten years later he still thought it the “most exciting time of his stage life”.[23]Northam Courier (Western Australia) 11 March 1913, P4 The Majeroni troupe was in New Zealand in August 1903, when Giulia Majeroni finally succumbed to her chronic influenza (back in Melbourne). Performance commitments meant they could not return for the funeral.[24]She died in Melbourne but was interned next to her husband in Sydney
Mario and Giorgio in the US
In late 1905, Nance O’Neil offered both Mario and Giorgio work on her return tour of North America. They took this opportunity to try their luck in the US, as did their friend Paul Scardon, who had most recently been touring Australia with Minnie Tittel Brune. The O’Neil company arrived in San Francisco in December 1905. Mario’s wife Nellie did not join them. She was possibly unwell when the boys left, as she died in a Sydney hospital nine months later. Possibly–like Paul Scardon’s Australian fiancée Elizabeth, the couple were waiting to see whether a US career would take off.[25]Elizabeth Hamilton travelled to New York and married Paul Scardon. Sadly she died in the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic The six-month tour with Nance O’Neil – performing works by Ibsen and Shakespeare – wrapped in Boston in May 1906. The Majeronis then made their base in New York. Following the Nance O’Neil tour, Mario and Giorgio had success in finding work–more readily than others, probably given their theatre antecedents. Over the next few years, both established themselves as reliable supporting actors on the New York stage.
Like many actors of this era, Mario and Giorgio apparently had no desire – or saw no need – to publicise their acting credentials or to provide any ongoing narrative on their career, even after they began to appear in the US, when one might expect more commentary to appear.
We owe their contemporary Paul Scardon an acknowledgement, as unlike the Majeronis, he had no qualms about maintaining his public profile by feeding Australian newspapers with reports of what was happening to him and his network of friends. About 12 months after they had arrived in the US, Scardon wrote to Melbourne Punch from New York, to recount the following: “There was quite a bunch of us here during the summer, chasing the nimble engagement, but they’re considerably scattered now. George Majeroni and my self being the only two in town at this moment – (the) balance being out on the road…”
Scardon went on to describe what had occurred to Mario and Giorgio in late 1906. His description of their experiences provides an insight of what was probably typical for many jobbing actors of the era. He wrote “Mario had rotten luck – gave a trial rehearsal of the Prince of India and satisfied them, and signed at a big salary; however after rehearsing a fortnight [he] contracted a bad cold …[Producers] Klaw and Erlanger…[said] he wasn’t physically strong enough for the part; then came the news of his wife’s death two days later… Giorgio had a landed a leading role in The Kreutzer Sonata, but the whole production had been laid up because leading lady Bertha Kalich had appendicitis.“[26]Punch (Melb) 20 December 1906, P38. Scardon, or someone closely associated with him, kept up the stream of reports from New York over the next few years, sometimes these featured the activities of … Continue reading
A very young looking Mario in the pages of The Theatre (New York) in 1906. The Theatre, Vol 6, No 67, Sept 1906. Hathitrust.
Despite Mario’s bad luck with Prince of India, New York Producer Charles Frohman was impressed with him. He was given supporting roles in three of his New York productions between mid 1907 and December 1910 – My Wife based on a French comedy by Robert Charvay and Paul Gavault, Jack Straw – a comedy of ‘good quality’ by W Somerset Maugham, and Israel, a study of race prejudice by French playwright Henri Bernstein.
Giorgio also had good fortune despite the difficulties with The Kreutzer Sonata in September 1906.[27]Perhaps producer-director Stephen Fiske had offered Giorgio a role because he had worked with Eduardo and Giulia in the late 1870s In January 1907, Lee and JJ Shubert picked Giorgio up for a supporting role in the musical The Belle of London Town, but a more successful experience followed in the musicals The Top o’th’ World, which opened at New York’s Majestic Theatre in October 1907, and The Motor Girl, which opened at New York’s Lyric Theatre in mid-1909. In 1910 he also took the role of Sugar in a staged version of the fairy tale The Blue Bell. In the same year Mario took a role in the popular farce Why Smith Left Home. There was also good news personally for Mario at this time. In November 1910 he married fellow actor Gwendolyn Lowrey, touring with her through cities of the US east coast for a time.
Mario while touring in the ‘hilarious farce’ Why Smith left Home. Pittsburgh Daily Post. 1910. Newspapers.com
Although there is convincing evidence that while the Majeronis performed in a diverse range of characters in their first years in the US, it seems clear that within a relatively short time, both were consigned to a narrower range of character roles–distant authority figures or sinister villains. When Giorgio appeared as the white slaver and gang leader Enrico Savelli in Charles Frohman’s stage production of The Conspiracy in 1913, audiences were treated to his satisfying demise in the finale. In late 1913, when Mario appeared in At Bay, reviewers commented on Mario’s established reputation for playing society villains. His portrayal was reportedly so good that when his character–the ‘despicable blackmailing lawyer’ Judson Flagg suffered a heart attack in the second act, audiences invariably welcomed the death.
Second from the left–Giorgio Majeroni as the white slaver Enrico Savelli in the popular play The Conspiracy. Charles Frohman also produced a film version of the play–without Giorgio. The Green Book Magazine V9, 1913. P380. Hathitrust.
Mario Majeroni as the blackmailing lawyer Judson Flagg, with Chrystal Herne, in the play At Bay. The Theatre Magazine,(New York) Nov 1913.Hathitrust.
The Majeronis in film
At the same time the Majeronis were becoming well known figures on the stages of New York and the east coast, the US film industry was rapidly emerging. By the end of the First World War it was the country’s fifth largest industry. Voracious for material and talent, it was yet to become the organised studio system we associate with Hollywood’s golden age. And at this time, the industry was still based in New York and New Jersey, on the US east coast–near the established centres of finance, population and creativity. It was not until after the First World War that Hollywood California became the dominant centre of film production. What better place to find actors for film parts than the New York stage.
For established stage actors, work in the new medium of film was financially too attractive to ignore, even if they preferred the stage or had misgivings about the transitory and populist appeal of the ‘moving pictures.’ Unfortunately, the Majeroni brothers left no commentary about this themselves, but some of their contemporaries did. Queensland actor and elocutionist Tempe Pigott, who arrived in the US about ten years after the Majeronis at the late age of 49, yet who went on to forge her own remarkable US acting career, recalled the attraction of film work. Interviewed years later she said; “More money may be made in a day in pictures than in a week on the stage; so, naturally, everyone is attracted to film work.”[28]The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 Aug 1936, P8 Bevan Harris, a vaudevillian from Orange NSW, who went into US movies as Billy Bevan in 1915, similarly observed; “this is the highest paying business in the world…” He was astute enough to add however, “Of course, one fine morning, like every other actor, I’ll wake up and though I may not know it, I’ll have done my last day’s work in pictures.” [29]The Mail (Adelaide) 22 Apr 1939, P4
The timing of the Majeronis entry into film was therefore not accidental and matches the experiences of many others. Melbourne born Paul Scardon first appeared as an extra on screen in about 1909, and then in featured parts several years later, when he left the stage for good. He turned to directing in 1913. Sydney – born Marc McDermott also left the New York stage for good in 1909. J P McGowan from Adelaide first appeared for the New York based Kalem company in about 1910. Another young adventurer, Sidney Bracey, also from Melbourne, first appeared on screen in 1909. Annette Kellerman arrived in New York in 1908 with the brightest reputation of all and found her way from variety theatre and into filmed shorts soon after.
Thelma, made in 1912 by the Reliance Film Company at their studio in Brooklyn, appears to be Giorgio’s first.[30]Motion Picture News, P16, August 24, 1912 Not surprisingly, given the speed at which the industry worked to fulfil the demand, it was based on a popular novel by Marie Corelli–and a version had been filmed only a few years before. Yet another movie version was an easy option for a company looking for material to film quickly. Unfortunately, details of this film are sketchy and it appears to be a lost film.
Mario Majeroni and Ethel Barrymore in the film The Nightingale, 1914. The Moving Picture World Oct 1914, P192 Lantern Digital Library & the Internet Archive
Mario’s first film venture was in the Ethel Barrymore melodrama The Nightingale, made in New York in 1914. This was also Ethel Barrymore’s first film and it was written especially for her. A member of the famous acting family and well established on the stage, the 35-year old Barrymore specialised in playing young female roles. Mario had a supporting role as the vocal teacher Mantz, who helps to discover Isola (Barrymore) and her beautiful voice. This is also a lost film.
In an era when films lacked dialogue, early cinema often depended on forms of expression that are foreign to us today. At the same time, familiar stage types helped audiences identify a character quickly. In 1916, Giorgio appeared in a technical treatise on motion picture acting, a still from the film My Lady Incog being chosen to illustrate ‘watchfulness, suspicion, and sharpness’. In this film, Giorgio had given a strong performance as the thief and ’polished imposter’ Rene Lidal.
A page featuring Hazel Dawn and Giorgio demonstrating expressions. Motion Picture Acting for Professionals and amateurs. A Technical Treatise on Make-up, Costumes and Expression (1916)by Jean Bernique, P119. Lantern Digital Library & the Internet Archive
Veronica Kelly’s 2011 survey of the work of Gaston Mervale, another actor who worked in film and on stage in Australia and the US[31]Mervale was born in Devon, England in 1866 as Gaston Mistowski also throws light on the roles the Majeronis took. Mervale (who was known to the Majeronis from the Australian stage) also specialised in character work – often “vividly realised and sinister personalities with intimations of… dark gothic powers.”[32]Veronica Kelly (2011) P109 In the course of his career, Mervale portrayed Svengali, the wicked piano player with mystic powers, in the play Trilby, over 800 times. Giorgio Majeroni played an identical malevolent type with similar but ill-defined mystical or hypnotic powers, in the film The Stolen Voice,(1915). The film script closely parallels the play Trilby – again a feature of films of this era, when scripts stole shamelessly from books and popular plays. Mario also went on to play hypnotist/mystics in several films in 1917.
As noted, in time, both the Majeroni brothers found themselves regularly cast as pointy-moustached villains in films. One must conclude that their age, height and their dark and swarthy appearances contributed to the roles they were given. We should also note the long tradition of foreign ‘types’ who so often appeared as villains in theatre and film in the Western world. In its review ofthe Charles Frohman revival of Diplomacy at New York’s Empire Theatre in late 1914, Life magazine [33]Life. Vol.64, number.1671 November 5, 1914 reported that Giorgio, with his ‘pronouncedly Hebraic features’ was therefore suitable for the role of the Russian, Count Orloff. He reprised this role for a filmed version of the play in 1916.
Screengrab of Mary Pickford with Mario Majeroni as Ramlan the Indian sword maker in Less than the Dust (1916). He also played Ali Bey, an Indian servant, in the film Children Not wanted (1920) Youtube.
Leslie Faber, William Gillette and Giorgio Majeroni in Charles Frohman’s play Diplomacy. The Theatre (New York) V 20, 1914, P266. Hathitrust.
In 1917, following the release of the William Randolph Hearst funded serial Patria, Giorgio made a rare public commentary about being typecast. “I have been on the stage full twenty years and have been trying for the greater part of that time to quit being a villain, but it seems without success… Throughout my stage career I have plotted crimes and murders without end and have killed and slain until this hand is redder than that of any Borgia. When there was no one else to kill, I have had to kill myself a score of times…” In Patria, Giorgio played the wicked Senor de Lima of Mexico, who, in league with Japanese Baron Huroki (Warner Oland) plots to overthrow the US. “Here I am again in villainy up to my neck” he said. [34]Interview found in several US newspapers at the time including The Nashville Globe, 11 May 1917 Some greater controversy surrounded this serial. During World War One Japan was an ally, and in a rare case of concern about the reception a US film might have overseas, the administration of President Woodrow Wilson requested changes.[35]Geoff Mayer (2017) P.225
Tempe Pigott accepted that she had become well and truly type-cast as a perpetual ‘land-lady’. On a return to Australia in 1936 she told reporters: “Immediately you score a success in Hollywood they type you, and you play that sort of role for ever… “[36]The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 18 Sep 1936 P14 But after her visit she happily returned to Hollywood and to more typecast roles. At 84, her last role in a Douglas Sirk film was as an ‘old crone,’ in 1951.
Giorgio Majeroni in a supporting role as the traitor Bolo Pasha in the film The Caillaux Case (1918) The real Bolo Pasha had been executed in France only a month before. Moving Picture World May 11 1918, P800. Lantern Digital Library & the Internet Archive
By 1913 the Majeronis old friend from Australia, Paul Scardon, had moved from acting into directing films – first for New York’s Majestic Pictures and several years later for Vitagraph. Most likely as a result of their friendship, Giorgio Majeroni appeared in a string of Scardon’s films –eleven in all – for Vitagraph Pictures, between 1918 and 1920. Scardon’s films were really designed as vehicles for Harry T Morey, and usually featured Betty Blythe as the love interest. (Scardon married Betty Blythe in 1920) Unfortunately, Paul Scardon and Giorgio Majeroni’s friendship did not lead to any change in casting practices for Giorgio. All of his appearances were as secondary characters – again, usually as dubious foreigners or society villains. In Tangled Lives (1918) he played an unsympathetic millionaire killed by lightning, in The King of Diamonds (1918) he played the poisoner Dr Torrano, while in Beauty Proof (1919) he played Hodge the criminal. Each time, thwarted by Harry T Morey’s character.
Despite Paul Scardon’s considerable output as a director (he is credited as a director on more than 50 films between 1913 and 1924) not all of his efforts were well received, even at the time. In another Harry Morey vehicle – a story of high finance based on a play, The Gamblers (1919), Giorgio played the villain George Cowper. The Film Daily panned Scardon’s direction as stagey and posey.
Mario also appeared in three of Scardon’s films–playing a marquis in The Hawk (1917), the leader of a family of crooks in Partners of the Night (1920) and the Hindu servant Ali Bey in Children Not Wanted (1920) He had previously appeared as an Indian sword maker in the film Less than the Dust (1916) with Mary Pickford and a mystic Hindu Yogi in the play Eyes of Youth (1918)
Giorgio Majeroni as the wicked Oliver Landis in the Sidney Olcott film Marriage for Convenience (1919). His expression says it all. Motion Picture News March–April 1919, P154. Lantern Digital Library & the Internet Archive
Later Careers
Despite the easy attractiveness of acting for film, both the Majeronis remained strongly committed to the theatre, and their narrow range of roles in films may be a reason why. In 1918, Giorgio was elected to the board of the Green Room Club, one of several New York thespian clubs. Opened in 1902 for young aspiring (male) actors, by the time Giorgio had joined it producers and managers dominated – including the Schubert brothers and George M Cohan. Mario also became a member, as did fellow Australian vaudevillian Bert Levy, who once described himself as a life-long pal of the Majeronis.
Following the release of the Paul Scardon film The Darkest Hour in early 1920, Giorgio appeared only twice more (as foreign villains), in films made in 1921. Apart from a passing role as a singer in a Betty Blythe film in 1922, it seems his interest in film had come to an end. Giorgio had married In June 1915, and settled in Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania, later moving to Skillman, New Jersey. He took up farming–apparently commuting to New York for acting work when he needed to. Unfortunately, at about the same time, Mario’s second marriage had come to an end in divorce.
Giorgio appeared on stage in New York again – as Signor Diranda in J Huntley Manner’s drama One Night in Rome, opening in late 1919, followed a year later in the mystery play The Claw, with Lionel Barrymore. In April 1920, Mario took over his brother’s role in a One Night in Rome, when it opened at London’s Garrick Theatre. The play had a notably rocky start in London, newspapers reporting that an organised gang of ‘play wreckers’ disrupted the opening night,[37]Daily News (London) 30 April 1920, P1 but it soon settled into a good run.[38]J.P. Wearing (2014) P24
Giorgio Majeroni played the mesmerist Mr Morrison, in this comedy-ghost play. The Boston Globe 18 Feb 1923, P39. Newspapers.com
In May 1924, newspapers announced Giorgio had tuberculosis, and was dropping out of David Belasco’s play Laugh, Clown, Laugh! and heading off to Saranac Lake in New York state. At this time, rest cure was the only solution for the usually deadly disease, and Saranac Lake provided the ideal fresh air climate, with numerous privately run cure cottages available for the ailing. Broadway magazine wished him well, adding that he was a “fine fellow and a splendid actor.”
Sadly, he declined rapidly.[39]He was not the only Australian actor to face a battle with tuberculosis in the US. A few years later, 45 year old vaudevillian Nellie Quealy was admitted to a Saranac Lake sanatorium. She spent six … Continue reading Bert Levy warned Australian readers of The Bulletin that he had been told there was no hope for Giorgio. He succumbed in early August 1924. Mario was the informant on his brother’s death certificate, indicating he had travelled to be with his younger brother at the end. Giorgio left behind his wife Ethel and two sons, an eight year old and a five month old.
Mario as the criminal Capriano(seated) with George Walsh, (brother of director Raoul Walsh), in From Now On (1920) Wikimedia Commons
It is possible to discern a different professional experience for Mario in his post First World War career. His roles were, like Giorgio’s, often of a type – familiar villains as in From Now On (1920) and The Snow Bride (1923) and suspicious foreigners – such as Dr Dejonge in The Substitute Wife (1925) and Count Krenko in The King on Main Street (1925). Mario was most closely associated with film productions from Famous Players-Lasky at this time, but unlike Giorgio at Vitagraph, was apparently not contracted to them, allowing him to work for others. He also worked with some notable figures in cinema–actors Gloria Swanson and Lionel Barrymore, and emerging directors including Raoul Walsh, Allan Dwan and Frank Borzage. Films that were well received included The Valley of Silent Men (1922), Enemies of Women (1923), two films from 1924 with Gloria Swanson – The Humming Bird and Her Love Story and the 1925 comedy The King on Main Street. His last film role was as Prince Zibatchefsky in the Famous Players-Lasky comedy Rubber Heels in 1927, released just before the arrival of sound. By then, film production had largely moved to California.
Adolphe Menjou and Greta Nissen with Mario Majeroni in the film The King on Main Street (1925) The Richmond Item (Indiana) 1 May 1927, P18 Newspapers.com
On stage in the later 1920s, Mario also took a range of character roles. In mid 1926 he appeared in Kongo, a melodrama set in an African trading post, inspired no doubt by the recent success of Leon Gordon’s play White Cargo. Mario donned blackface for 135 performances to play the voodoo priest Zoombie. In Broadway, a comedy -drama set behind the scenes of the night club world, he was back to playing a heavy role–the Greek owner of the Paradise Night Club.
A cartoon of some of the cast of Kongo–Betty Bruce Henry, Richard Stevenson, Clarence Redd (a real African-American actor who usually went uncredited) and Mario Majeroni in makeup. Times Union (New York) 2 May 1926, P24. Newspapers.com
In November 1931, while performing in a run of the play Cynara at New York’s Morosco Theatre, Mario died, quite suddenly. His death was put down to an unspecified stomach ailment, for which he had previously had treatment. [40]The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 Dec 1931, P4 Many Australian newspapers carried news of his death, a reminder that although he had lived in the US for 25 years, he still had many friends there.
In this era of heightened national consciousness, can we really celebrate the Majeroni family as distinctively Australian performers? Perhaps not. Both brothers had started the process of becoming US citizens – Giorgio in 1918 and Mario in 1923, and neither returned to Australia. This was also a time when Betty Blythe remembered her Melbourne – born husband Paul Scardon as a “gentlemanly Englishman.”[41]Kevin Brownlow (1968) P378 The Commonwealth was only a few years old when the Majeroni brothers left and although they were sometimes described as Australians while living in the US, they were more often described as Italians. However a fitting reminder of this remarkable family still exists in Carlton, Melbourne near the heart of the Italian restaurant precinct of Lygon Street. Guilia Majeroni, was living at 99 Drummond Street when she died in 1903. Number 99 is the centre building of a large terrace block – crowned with the pediment at the top, and although now used for offices, it remains one of Melbourne’s finest Victorian-era terraces.
99 Drummond Street, Carlton in 2023. Giulia Majeroni’s last residence was the central terrace, with the pointed pediment. Author’s Collection. As at May 2025, the property is for sale
Geoff Barker (2012) ‘Collodian photographic negative of Eduardo Majeroni in The Old Corporal by Freeman Brothers Studio.’ Powerhouse Museum (Curator’s Notes)
Jean Bernique (1916) Motion Picture Acting for Professionals and Amateurs. A Technical Treatise on Make-up, Costumes and Expression. Producers Service Company, Chicago
Katherine Brisbane (Ed)(1991) Entertaining Australia, an Illustrated History. Currency Press, Sydney.
Kevin Brownlow (1968) The Parade’s Gone By. University of California Press.
Clay Djubal (2001) ‘That men may rise on stepping stones’: Walter Bentley and the Australasian stage, 1891‐1927, Journal of Australian Studies, 25:67, 152-161.
Richard Fotheringham (2006) Australian Plays for the Colonial Stage, 1834-1899. University of Queensland Press
Veronica Kelly (2011) ’Australia’s Svengali: Gaston Mervale in Theatre and Film.’ Australasian Drama Studies, April 2011, P107-125
Ralph Marsden, Theatre Heritage Australia On Stage Vol 9 No 4, Spring 2008 ‘Melbourne Stage by Stage’ P41-44
Geoff Mayer (2017) Encyclopedia of American Film Serials. McFarland
Tony Mitchell (1995) Australasian Drama Studies, Number 26 1995 ‘Adelaide Ristori tours Australia 22 July–4 December 1875’ Part 1, P179 -199
Tony Mitchell (1995) Australasian Drama Studies, Number 26 1995 ‘High Art and Low Purse. Adelaide Ristori tours Australia 22 July–4 December 1875’ Part 2, P123
Phillip Parsons and Victoria Chance (Eds)(1995) Companion to Theatre in Australia. Currency Press/Cambridge University Press.
Hal Porter (1965) Stars of Australian Stage and Screen. Rigby
listed as George Carlo John Majeroni on his Australian birth certificate, his name was also spelled Giorgio and Georgio during his lifetime. The author has used the more common Italian spelling of his name
Eduardo Majeroni’s interesting life experiences are recounted in numerous sources including W.H. Leavitt’s Australian Representative Men. However, it is difficult to verify all of the claims made.
The Lorgnette (Melb) 2 May 1894 P2. Some accounts claim this play was written by Giulia Majeroni. It was a melodrama set in the future, but further records of this play do not exist
Punch (Melb) 20 December 1906, P38. Scardon, or someone closely associated with him, kept up the stream of reports from New York over the next few years, sometimes these featured the activities of the Majeronis
He was not the only Australian actor to face a battle with tuberculosis in the US. A few years later, 45 year old vaudevillian Nellie Quealy was admitted to a Saranac Lake sanatorium. She spent six years fighting the disease until she too, succumbed.
Adrienne Brune at the time she was appearing in The Three Musketeers at Drury Lane in 1930. Photo credited to Frank Davis. [1]Theatre World, June 1930, p5. Author’s collection
The Five second version
Delightful, charming and tuneful! She was a dashing Australian beauty and a popular and successful West End star in the 1920s and 1930s. Yet Adrienne Brune’s identity was always something of a mystery. Was she Phyllis Caroline Brune?[2]John Parker (1947) p344 or was it Adrienne Sordini?[3]The Football Post (Nottingham), Dec 1, 1917, p10 In fact, in Australia she had used a much simpler stage name – Phyllis Warner – which made sense as it was a contraction of her real name. Reviews of her performances were typically thus: “This charming actress, besides possessing a voice of unusually good quality, has a most attractive personality. She acts and sings gracefully whenever she is on the stage.”[4]The Era, 29 August 1925 p1 In the late 1940s she took to teaching singing and elocution. She died in London in 1973.
Actor Gabrielle Brune (1912-2005) was her daughter.
At left, Adrienne Brune at the height of her popularity, playing Resi, with George Vollarie (c1894-1971) in a long run of Waltzes from Vienna at the Alhambra theatre in 1932. Vollarie played Johan Strauss Jnr.[5]Daily Mirror (London) Feb 29, 1932 p7
Carrie Phyllis Warner was born in Herbert St, South Melbourne on 27 October 1891. The spelling of her first name Carrie – not Caroline – is quite clear on the birth document.[6]An initial misspelling of “Carry” was corrected and initialled Her father was John William Guy Warner, a chief engineer for the Australian shipping company Huddart Parker, while her mother was the popular Melbourne soprano Ada Clements.[7]See Victoria Births Deaths & Marriages documents – 1] Carrie Phyllis Warner birth certificate 29129/1891 and 2] John William Guy Warner & Ada Isabel Clements marriage certificate … Continue reading Sadly, Guy Warner was drowned at sea in July 1904. His ship Nemesis founded in a storm off the New South Wales coast – and all hands were lost.[8]The Advertiser (Adel) 13 Jul 1904, p5 It was all the more tragic because Guy Warner was only temporarily filling in for another engineer who had been too ill to travel.[9]The Argus (Melb)14 Jul 1904, p5
Ada Warner with daughter Phyllis and son Guy. Undated, Private collection.
Even today we can imagine how traumatic the sudden loss of a parent and the family’s main breadwinner would be. At the time there was no formal system of compensation – instead Ada Warner joined others in putting on a benefit concert, and shared in the very modest sums of money raised. Ada Warner supported her daughter and a young son by taking boarders into their house in East Melbourne. It is hardly surprising in these circumstances, that Phyllis was encouraged to pursue a career on stage, with all the exciting possibilities for travel and financial freedom that might result. However, what training she had we do not know, although well known Australian dance teacher and producer Minnie Everett (1874-1956) must be considered a possibility.[10]Years later she claimed to have studied at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music
Phyllis Warner on the cover of Melbourne’s Table Talk, 1910. Within a year she was in London. [11]Table Talk (Melb) July 7, 1910, p1
Eric Porter suggests that after a convent education, Phyllis Warner played “Mustard Seed” in the 1903 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.[12]Porter (1965) p172 Perhaps this is so. Phyllis Warner first appears in newspaper advertising as part of the New All-Star Company, a variety troupe performing at Adelaide’s Tivoli in 1907, when she was still aged 16.[13]The Gadfly (Adel) 18 Sep 1907, p9 A few years later, she is found in the Melbourne cast of Mrs Lee’s Lodgers, a French musical farce directed by and starring English actor Florence Baines.
Theatre Program – The Bijou Theatre presents, Miss Florence Baines in Mrs Lee’s Lodgers, 29th August, 1908.[14]State Library of Victoria
By 1909 she was under contract to JC Williamsons, being cast in the Sydney runs of the new musicals King of CadoniaandOur Miss Gibbs. In the latter, she was on stage with other talented and aspirational Australian actors, singers and dancers – including Ivy Schilling, Vera Pearce, Nellie Wilson and Fred Leslie, all of whom would try their luck overseas.[15]The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) 24 Sep 1910, p2
It was an impressive achievement for an 18 year old. And then, in February 1910 she became engaged to Thomas Habgood Hudson, variously described as an actor and an automobile engineer. He was the son of very well known actor-manager “Tommy” Thomas Pedder Hudson (1852-1909).[16]T.P. Hudson lived for some time in Adelaide and had managed Nellie Melba’s successful Australasian tour of 1902-3. He died in Bournemouth, England in 1909 The couple married in Sydney in August 1910, and a few months later, they departed for England.[17]This was Phyllis Warner’s second voyage to England. Her father had been able to arrange a trip for the family – presumably to see relatives – in 1902
Adrienne Sordini becomes Billie Browne
In 1915, an Adrienne Sordini appeared as a player in several London revues, including Follow the Frill at the Poplar Hippodrome in August.[18]The Stage, 26 Aug 1915, p18 As it transpires, this was our heroine’s first attempt at a British stage name. It is safe to assume this was inspired by the names of other popular actors of the time. Her husband’s World War One military record confirms that she was working in variety at the time he enlisted in the British Army in 1915.[19]Thomas Habgood Hudson’s British military records are available on Ancestry
Billie Browne “of Australian musical comedy fame” on the Page 1 directory of The Era, March 29, 1916.
However, it was under a new stage name – “Billie Browne” – that she first earned a reputation. Newspapers record her appearing in pantomime in 1916, when she was reported as principal girl in a Dick Whittington pantomime,[20]See Cardiff’s Western Mail, 12 Dec 1916, p2 but her real breakthrough appears to have been touring the English provinces in the popular musical comedy Betty for the George Edwardes Company. When Alfred Butt (1878-1962) toured the new musical Irene in late 1920, it was Billie Browne who again took the leading role – to some acclaim.[21]Birmingham Daily Gazette, 23 December 1920, p8
Billie Browne on tour in George Edwardes’ production of the musical comedy Betty in early 1918.[22]The Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent), Mar 30, 1918, p1 and The Coventry Graphic, 5 April 1918. NB Edwardes himself had died by this time.
In late 1917, in a convoluted account for a Nottingham newspaper, “Billie Browne” provided a fanciful explanation regarding her choices of name. She said her name really was Adrienne Sordini, and although born in Melbourne Australia, she was of Italian parentage.[23]She continued the fantasy of an Italian mother for much of her life. See for example Daily Mirror Dec 20, 1929, p11 She said an English agent had suggested the plainer name “Billie Browne.” She again explained that she had started out as the fairy Mustard Seed in an Australian production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and she had subsequently travelled all over Australasia.[24]The Football Post (Nottingham), Dec 1, 1917, p10
It seems likely that much of the subterfuge relating to her name was connected to an increasingly unhappy marriage. Although a daughter – Gabrielle May Hudson – was born of the union in early 1912, in August Hudson had started to display some strange behaviour – which would become a feature of his later life. He went missing after a swim at Southbourne’s River Stour and it was assumed he had drowned – he had left his car and clothes behind on the river bank. However, several days later he rang Phyllis from London and the search for his body was dropped.[25]See for example Evening Express(London) 13 Aug, 1912, p4 and Huddersfield Daily Examiner(Yorkshire), 14 Aug 1912, p4 Although he later served through World War One, in July 1918 he received a conviction for petty theft – stealing a wallet. Then in June 1921 he was declared bankrupt, and he was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment for fraud.[26]See accounts of Hudson’s troubles in The Daily Telegraph(London), June 13, 1921, p1 and The Citizen (London) 20 Jan 1932, p1 By this time Phyllis Carrie Hudson had had enough, and she successfully divorced him on the grounds of adultery.[27]National Archives [UK]. Divorce Court File: 6799. Appellant: Phyllis Carrie Hudson. Respondent: Thomas Habgood Hudson. Type: Wife’s petition for divorce
Adrienne Brune appearson the London stage
Theatre historians Parker [28]John Parker (1947) p344 and Wearing [29]J P Wearing (2014)The London Stage 1920-1929 p206 date the first appearance of Adrienne Brune on the London stage to the opera Polly, in December 1922, when she took the leading role of Jenny Diver. Except to note that she had previously called herself Billie Browne, her latest stage name was adopted without much public comment. In fact, the name remained with her for the rest of her career, to the extent many thought it was her real name. Polly, a sequel to The Beggar’s Opera, ran for 325 performances over ten months, first at London’s Kingsway Theatre and then at the Savoy.
And with her “triple qualifications – of being able to act, sing and dance,” she was a brilliant success.[30]Evening News (London) 13 Oct 1923, p6The Sketch waxed lyrically about Polly: “It is likely to run a thousand and one nights, and it will live when all the musical comedies of the century… will be dead and forgotten… ” And of Adrienne they reported: “Miss Adrienne Brune as Jenny – piquante in French style, a glad eye, a vixen, an irresistible little courtesan, a figure as espiègle [playful] and as dainty as a bit of sevres [fine porcelain].”[31]The Sketch (London)Wednesday 17 January 1923, p32 The career of 32 year old Adrienne Brune was well and truly launched.
Adrienne Brune (centre) in Polly, 1923. [32]The Sphere, 6 Jan 1923, P8b. Photo – Illustrated London News Group
Her work in the 1920s included Ethel in Tonight’s the Night at the Winter Garden in 1924, Sonia in The Merry Widow at the Lyceum in late 1924, Pamela in Dear Little Billie at the Shaftesbury Theatre in 1925, Marian in The Apache at the Palladium in 1926 and Stella in The Girl from Cook’s in 1927. Revues and musical fantasies also featured – including roles in Noel Coward’s This year of Grace! in 1928.
In 1924 she married fellow actor Arthur Pusey (1896-1965). Pusey was performing on the screen as well as stage by this time, and he had made several films in Germany in the later 1920s.[33]Picturegoer’s Who’s Who, 1933, p216 At various times, Adrienne also claimed to have been in films [34]Daily Mirror, Dec 20, 1929, p11 – infers she was in German films; West Australian 28 June 1935, p10 – said film work did not appeal to her and later described in some detail a test she had taken for a talkie.[35]Football Post (Nottingham), Feb 1, 1930, p12 Unfortunately, there is no surviving evidence of her work in film today, but her voice was being recorded at this time. For example, some of her solos and duets in Polly were made being available by HMV as early as 1925.[36]Opera At Home (1925) The Gramophone Company, London. Via the Hathi Trust
Pusey and Adrienne Brune at the time of their marriage, 1924.[37]Daily Mirror (London) Sept 20, 1924, p1
Unfortunately, Pusey abandoned Adrienne in 1929, reportedly only leaving her with a note on the mantlepiece to say he was leaving. A divorce was granted in 1934.[38]The Daily Telegraph(London) Jan 12, 1934 ·p9. Also National Archives [UK] Divorce Court File: 8269. Appellant: Phyllis Carrie Pusey. Respondent: Arthur Watson Pusey. Type: Wife’s petition … Continue reading
Return to Australia in 1935
In his pioneering series of biographies for the theatre, historian John Parker documented Adrienne Brune’s ongoing career through the early years of the depression – which included leading roles in stage versions of Thackeray’s The Rose and the Ring (as Princess Angelica) and Waltzes from Vienna (as Resi).
Above: Adrienne Brune photographed in Western Australia, enroute to Melbourne for “a rest,… after spending practically all her life abroad.”[39]Sunday Times (Perth) 30 June 1935, p1
However in early July 1935 there was another change, when she travelled to Melbourne, Australia via the Orsova. There was no advance publicity heralding her return – in fact it was only when the ship arrived in Western Australia that newspapers picked up she was on board. On the shipping manifest, she gave an intended address that was her younger brother Guy’s business address in High Street, Thornbury, a suburb of Melbourne. But Guy, a motor mechanic, had died a year before, leaving a widow with three very young children. Adrienne also had no contract to perform in Australia, and only vague plans for the future were indicated. In Melbourne, in early July, she settled into the Victoria Hotel in Little Collins St. Six weeks later, on 16 August 1935, she signed a J.C. Williamson’s contract to perform in the operetta Ball at the Savoy, at a rate of £25 per week, when it opened in Brisbane.[40]J.C. Williamson’s Contract Adrienne Brune, courtesy Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne It was a good – but not exceptional salary for an experienced London performer.[41]About $AU2,800 in 2023 values Her contract shows no agent had been involved and there was no indication that the voyage to Australia had been paid for, as was the case when J.C. Williamson’s imported Hungarian actor-singerOskar Denes (1894-1950) for the cast.[42]Also spelled Oszkár Dénes
Oskar Denes and Nellie Barnes were moving on to Melbourne, not leaving Australia as this Brisbane advert suggests. [43]Brisbane Telegraph, Sept 11,1935, p22
As it turned out, Ball at the Savoy [44]also known as Ball at Savoy ran for less than two weeks in Brisbane, closing on 11 September. Oskar Denes had also headlined the cast for its Sydney and Melbourne runs and returned to Melbourne for another season in October. Adrienne also made her way back to Melbourne but for reasons unknown, did not repeat the role – although it was an option written into her contract. Instead, some time in late October 1935, she joined a small group of first class passengers on the passenger-cargo ship Imperial Starand returned to England. She had spent four months in Australia, but had been on stage for barely two weeks. Whatever she did over that time, she somehow managed to avoid all the publicity a returned Australian actor might normally receive. Perhaps she was preoccupied helping her late brother’s family, or possibly her mother Ada Isabel Warner was still alive and needed her support.[45]A woman of the same name was repeatedly arrested for vagrancy after 1916. This woman insisted her daughter in England supported her financially. And on 12 July 1945, a woman of the same name died at … Continue reading
Her later British career
Adrienne Brune’s later career followed a path we might predict. She was no longer young enough to take the same leading West End roles, but still had a beautiful voice and a recognisable “name” that provided her with provincial work. For example, over Christmas 1937, she appeared as Principal boy (Prince Charming) in a Cinderella pantomime tour, with popular singer-comedian Billy Merson (1879-1947). Over the summer seasons she also appeared on tour, in cheerfully titled variety lineups, with titles such as Musical Memories – where her West End musical comedy credentials were celebrated – because these gave her “the ability to effortlessly play a leading role in many of the sketches and comedy interludes.”[46]Bexhill-on-Sea Observer (UK) 30 July 1938, p5
Left: Adrienne Brune advertising Phosferine all-purpose tonic in The Tatler, 2 July 1930. At right, her daughter Gabrielle Brune, as featured in The Tatler 25 Sept, 1940.
Unfortunately, in April 1940 what might have been a happy return to a major London theatre ended disastrously for Adrienne, with the revue Let’s Mix It. Joan Byford (daughter of actor Roy Byford) and her husband Harold Brewer leased the London Playhouse theatre and financed and wrote this, their own show – dubiously titled a “musical cocktail.” But it closed after just one night – The Times noting that “when the finale was announced from the stage there were cries of relief from the gallery”.[47]The Times 20 April 1940, cited in Wearing p16 One unnamed cast member acknowledged that they were completely unrehearsed. “The finale …was only given to us a few hours before the curtain was due to rise.”[48]Weekly Dispatch (London) 21 April 1940, p7
Radio performances and soon after, membership of a wartime ENSA unit, gave her some more exposure. She was well reviewed by the Stage for a character role as an operatic Viennese cook in the ENSA production of J B Priestley’s comedy How Are they at Home in late 1944.[49]The Stage (London) 21 Sept 1944, p4
Adrienne Brune advertising as a teacher in 1949. [50]The Kensington News & West London Times, Jan 28, 1949
By the end of the Second World War, Adrienne had turned to teaching elocution and singing. She died of heart failure in Queen Mary’s Hospital, Roehampton, London in January 1973. Sadly there were no obituaries to mark her passing in England or Australia.
In 1930, Adrienne’s daughter made her first appearances as a singer and dancer, using the stage name Gabrielle Brune.[51]John Parker (1947) p345 She enjoyed a long career on stage and in supporting roles on the screen. She died in England in 2005.
See Victoria Births Deaths & Marriages documents – 1] Carrie Phyllis Warner birth certificate 29129/1891 and 2] John William Guy Warner & Ada Isabel Clements marriage certificate 7138/1890
T.P. Hudson lived for some time in Adelaide and had managed Nellie Melba’s successful Australasian tour of 1902-3. He died in Bournemouth, England in 1909
The Daily Telegraph(London) Jan 12, 1934 ·p9. Also National Archives [UK] Divorce Court File: 8269. Appellant: Phyllis Carrie Pusey. Respondent: Arthur Watson Pusey. Type: Wife’s petition for divorce
A woman of the same name was repeatedly arrested for vagrancy after 1916. This woman insisted her daughter in England supported her financially. And on 12 July 1945, a woman of the same name died at Beechworth’s mental hospital. However so few details appear on her death certificate there is no certainty the person is Adrienne’s mother
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