Author: Heathcote Pursuit

Desiree Duchene (Gwen Nelson) – an Extra’s story

Gwen Nelson from Sydney, styling herself as Desiree Duchene on the cover of The Theatre Magazine in January 1922. [1]The Theatre Magazine (Syd) in January 1922. Via State Library of Victoria
The 5 second version
In his 1965 book, screen and stage historian Hal Porter listed Gwen Nelson as one of the early group of Australians in Hollywood – a list which included Enid Bennett and Mona Barrie – who reached “film stardom,” although he did not expand on her success or name any of her films.[2]Hal Porter (1965) P169 In truth, the evidence is overwhelming that Gwen Nelson was active, but not particularly successful.
For many actors, the experience of “trying your luck” in the US film industry in the early twentieth century ended up being unremarkable, and often, very disappointing. Talent and looks play a part in any actor’s success, but often luck played a part too. This was obviously the experience for 22 year old Sydney-born Gwendolyn Nelson, despite ambition that “seethed in [her] heart like a flood.”[3]See her mother’s poem below Gwen went to the US in 1917 and again in 1919, but despite the advantages of positive press in Australia, her family’s significant social capital and their numerous theatrical connections; for a decade she found only uncredited roles on the US stage and screen. In the end, she was also one of a number of Australian actors who met a miserable death from tuberculosis, far from home. Gwen Nelson died in San Francisco in early 1930, aged only 35.
The exotic stage name Desiree Duchene did not last. It was so exotic that Australian readers had to be reminded it was really Gwen. [4]The Theatre Magazine (Syd) in January 1922. Via State Library of Victoria

Gwen’s Family

Gwendolyn Bourke, later Nelson, was born in Sydney in January 1895 to Patrick Bourke and Constance nee Shaw.[5]A birth certificate has yet to be identified, but the event was celebrated in The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 Jan 1895, P1 via National Library of Australia’s Trove Unfortunately lawyer Patrick Bourke proved to be a poor father. His drinking, intemperate behaviour and the resulting domestic violence he inflicted on Constance led to a divorce in 1899.[6]See Evening News, (Syd) 1 Sept 1899, P6 via National Library of Australia’s Trove and NSW State Archives, Divorce papers Constance Madeline Bourke – Patrick Benedict Bourke Happily for the little family though, Sydney accountant Herbert Nelson proposed and married Constance the following year. Sharing Constance’s interests in performance, he seems to have embraced Gwen as his own daughter and celebrated her successes as a good parent should. Living very comfortably in Sydney’s Elizabeth Bay, the family were associated with numerous fundraising and charity causes, and were well connected members of the Sydney social set. In the early 1910s, Gwen also appears to have attended actor Walter Bentley’s school of elocution and dramatic art, and was a contemporary or perhaps even a friend of Vera Pearce.[7]The Sun (Syd) 13 Aug 1913, P6 National Library of Australia’s Trove

Constance Nelson 1919 [8]The Theatre Magazine, 1 Nov 1919, P34, via State Library of Victoria

If there was a hero in Gwen Nelson’s story, it must be her mother Constance, who supported her daughter through numerous challenges and was with her at the end. Born Constance Shaw in New South Wales in 1874, she was a voice and elocution teacher. In 1928, a US newspaper reported that Constance was on her 17th visit across the Pacific to San Francisco, to see her daughter Gwen.[9]This is almost certainly an exaggeration, although she did travel from Australia to the US numerous times. The San Francisco Examiner, 20 Apr 1928, P25 via Newspapers.com

In 1919, Constance told Sydney’s Theatre Magazine that at a lunch while visiting California, she had convinced hostess Mary Pickford to call her home “Dreamholme.”[10]The Theatre Magazine, 1 Nov 1919, P34, via State Library of Victoria However like so much of Gwen Nelson’s story, this claim is impossible to reconcile with the known historical record.

Gwen performing on the same program as Constance and step-father Herbert while on holidays in Katoomba in 1903.[11] The Mountaineer (Katoomba NSW) 20 Nov 1903, P3 via National Library of Australia’s Trove

In the early 1910s, newspaper society pages listed young Gwen’s stylish appearances at patriotic concerts, balls and other good works around Sydney. After the outbreak of war in 1914, she danced and sang to raise funds for the Red Cross. When the first wounded men arrived home from fighting at Gallipoli, the Nelsons were on hand to help provide a concert.[12]Sunday Times (Syd)17 Oct 1915, P6 via National Library of Australia’s Trove There was a (short lived) engagement announced in February 1914.[13]The Sun (Syd)1 Feb 1914 P19 via National Library of Australia’s Trove

There is no evidence that Gwen found much work on the professional stage in Australia, although her impending departure to take up “moving picture work” in the US was announced with some fanfare in early 1917, seemingly with great confidence.[14]see for example Sunday Times (Syd) 28 Jan 1917, P25 and The Globe and Sunday Times War Pictorial (Syd)19 Mar 1917, P6 via National Library of Australia’s Trove This lack of Australian professional experience contrasts with the stage (and occasional screen) experience of many of her contemporaries who travelled to the US at about the same time – Enid Bennett, Louise Lovely, Dorothy Cumming and Judith Anderson.

Off to the US in 1917

Gwen Nelson in an advert for Heenzo colds and flu treatments. c1921.[15]The Triad, Jan 10, 1921, via National Library of Australia’s Trove

Gwen arrived in San Francisco on April 9, 1917. She was a “professional actress” according to her landing card. The manifest for SS Sierra reveals she was to stay with Australian actor-director Arthur Shirley and his wife. Shirley had been working in Hollywood for several years, and had already appeared in credited roles in a number of films. Unfortunately, young Gwen Nelson appears to have experienced much less success than Arthur Shirley, and what little we know of her activity was via reports in Australian newspapers, illustrated by one or two grainy photos. There were, it seems, a few minor roles in 1917 – probably as an extra, in films for Fox and Triangle. Only one film outing by Gwen is known by title – For Liberty (1917), where she had a small uncredited role as the maid, playing opposite leading actor Gladys Brockwell. We know this because the film was screened especially for her parents and friends in Sydney, several years later. [16]Newcastle Morning Herald & Miners Advocate (NSW) 8 Aug 1919, P7, via National Library of Australia’s Trove

She also reputedly doubled for Theda Bara in the Fox film Salome (1918),[17]The Theatre Magazine (Syd) December 1919, via State Library of Victoria in the film’s dances.[18]This is a lost film and therefore it is impossible to verify the claim. A few minutes of the film survives here.

In November 1917, Melbourne’s Punch magazine was able to report that Gwen now drove her own car, and “as there is no reckless driving allowed in Los Angeles, she is not afraid of the traffic.”[19]Yes, they really wrote that. It is impossible to tell now whether it was a dry Australian joke or meant literally. See Punch (Melb) 15 Nov 1917, P41 via National Library of Australia’s Trove She was feeling so confident that she said she would motor through San Francisco to meet her mother, who was planning to arrive in the US in January 1918.

Gwen in a Fox film in 1917. But which one? [20]The Mirror (Syd) 29 Sept 1917, P9 via National Library of Australia’s Trove

Notably, it was while Gwen was in the US in 1917, that the following poem by Constance Nelson appeared in syndicated Australian newspapers. The obvious anxiety expressed here by Constance explains the many voyages she took across the Pacific, but must also be typical of how many parents of hopeful starlets felt.

MY GWEN.
I’m sitting alone in the twilight,
At the end of a long, long day.
I am dreaming of you, my Gwen dear,
Who is ever so far away.

I see your eyes like sapphires,
Intermingled with rare pearl;
I fancy I see your smile, dear;
I can almost feel a curl.

I know ’twas ambition that sent you
It seethed in your heart like a flood;
But, ah, my Gwen, how I miss you
It sure is the call of the blood.

I am sitting alone in the twilight,
And to God I offer a prayer,
That He will watch o’er my Gwen dear,
And Keep her in His care.
CONSTANCE NELSON. [21]There was no further comment accompanying the poem, and it could conceivably be people with the same names, at the same time. The Muswellbrook Chronicle (NSW) 23 June 1917, P6 via National Library of … Continue reading

Gwen in 1919 [22]The Theatre Magazine (Syd) Dec 1919, P23, State Library of Victoria


Gwen returned to Australia, with Constance, in April 1918. There were, again, vague accounts of what she had done in the US. For example, The Bulletin magazine reported “For over a year Gwen Nelson climbed ladders, dived into space, crossed into Mexico, and had a revolution for breakfast, all for Fox Films. Now she’s resting… with Mum and Dad.”[23]The Bulletin (Syd) 30 May 1918, P18 via National Library of Australia’s Trove


During 1918, she was again often mentioned in society news from Sydney. Being wartime there were more patriotic balls, and finally, Victory balls, and when US actress Fayette Perry toured Australia in 1917-1918, Gwen and her parents entertained. In December 1918, Gwen danced in a short run of the Australian musical revue The Girl from USA.[24]The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 3 Dec 1918, P6 via National Library of Australia’s Trove

The 18 months spent at home was never publicly explained or contextualised. But in advertising, Heans Pty Ltd began to profile her as a user of their products and in a 1924 advertisement, claimed their “Nerve Nuts” had cured her after a nervous breakdown. Perhaps the time spent back in Australia really was needed for a recovery from the struggles she had faced in the US film industry.

Gwen as Desiree Duchene in 1919.[25]The Theatre Magazine (Syd) Dec 1, 1919, P 55, Via State Library of Victoria

A second try in the US – 1919

In August 1919, Gwen boarded the SS Ventura, bound for San Francisco again. Her destination this time was New York, while Australian papers assured readers that she had a contract with Fox Films, and it was at this time she briefly used the stage name Desiree Duchene.[26]Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate, 8 Aug 1919, P7 via National Library of Australia’s Trove She confidently gave her profession as “Movie Actress” on her US landing card. Constance travelled to the US to visit her again in July 1920.

Of her stage and picture work, we again have only patchy information and there is nothing to be found credited to the new stage name. There were reports back in Australia about “film work” being done, but very little detail. In 1921 The Bulletin listed Gwen as having minor roles in Heliotrope (1920) and Why Girls Leaves Home (1921) but these films do not survive.[27]The Bulletin Vol. 42 No. 2152,12 May 1921, P50 via National Library of Australia’s Trove A lengthy interview conducted with Gwen in 1924 for Truth seemed to infer she worked with or studied with Florenz Ziegfeld’s choreographer Ned Wayburn in New York and perhaps even appeared in some of the Ziegfeld Follies.[28]Table Talk (Melb) 29 Nov 1923, P10 via National Library of Australia’s Trove The best documented claim indicates she subbed for Gloria Swanson in the dance scenes for the film Zaza (1923).[29]Truth (Syd) 13 Jan 1924, P16 via National Library of Australia’s Trove This film survives, but picking Gwen out with confidence is extremely difficult, and like most stand-ins she was not listed in the film’s credits.

Gwen Nelson c1923. [30]The Theatre Magazine, 1 Nov 1923, P19. Via State Library of Victoria

It seems all of these film roles were cameos – and none of them were credited. Her stage appearances are even harder to find, but from the little we know is seems she was a speciality dancer in ensembles and again, usually not credited. She returned to Australia again in November 1923, and provided some more commentary on working in the US. In one newspaper interview she explained that she had found the screen too exacting, and that she much preferred the stage, the lights and the audience reactions.[31]Sunday Times (Syd) 23 Nov 1923 P3 via National Library of Australia’s Trove

Gwen performing in Australia again in early 1924. [32]The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 11 Mar 1924, P12 via newspapers.com

In May 1924, Gwen was back in the US once more. She was dancing by August,[33]The Sacramento Bee (Cal) Aug 2, 1924, P26 via newspapers.com while her newly arrived mother mixed with Hollywood’s expat Australians, like Snowy Baker and Enid Bennett.[34]Evening News (Syd)16 August 1924, P8 via National Library of Australia’s Trove Rather ominously however, once back in Australia again, her mother developed a keen interest in supporting TB (tuberculosis) charities. [35]Evening News (Syd) 31 Aug 1925, P12 via National Library of Australia’s Trove There were more visits by Constance to the US over the next few years, and finally in April 1928, reports that Gwen was seriously unwell.[36]The Bulletin, 25 April 1928, P46 via National Library of Australia’s Trove Unfortunately we do not know what performance work Gwen did in the later 1920s, although an engagement to William Loftus, a US lawyer, was cheerfully announced in early 1929.[37]The Bulletin, 16 Jan, 1929, P42, via National Library of Australia’s Trove

In 1928 Gwen was still appearing in advertisements for makeup, alongside others well known to Australian audiences.[38]The Home, 1 Aug 1928, P69, via National Library of Australia’s Trove

So if Gwen was not the raging success contemporary Australian publicity suggested, where did it all come from? The answer is that these stories of Gwen’s stage success and film stardom easily captured the mood of 1920s Australia. In her groundbreaking work on women in Australian cinema, Andrée Wright has written “at the time, [these film success] stories convinced readers that ‘with very few exceptions, every Australian who ha[d] ever gone to America ha[d] succeeded beyond expectations.’ “[39]Andree Wright (1986) Pps18-19. The inserted quote is from Picture Show, 2 August 1919. Perhaps that nationalist-tinged view also obscured another simple fact – Gwen was a Sydney society girl who had the resources to pursue her interests, but did not have the great talent that some suggested.[40]Admittedly, without reviews or any surviving films, this is conjecture

Gwen Nelson succumbed to tuberculosis on January 5, 1930. Her mother Constance was with her when she died. She was buried at Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in San Francisco.

Despite the disappointing reality of her US experience, Gwen Nelson remained firmly in the minds of Australians for some time. Pharmacist G W Hean produced an array of medicines (Heenzo, Hean’s “Nerve Nuts”, Hean’s “headache wafers” etc) and often made use of home grown actors and celebrities to advertise these in the press. Amongst the well known actors were Gladys Moncrieff and Cyril Richard, and Australians less well-known working overseas – including Nina Speight and Gwen Nelson.[41]See Clay Djubal’s short history of G.W. HEAN PTY LTD at the Australian Variety Theatre Archive

Gwen has her health restored by use of Hean’s Nerve Nuts.[42]The Herald (Melb) 10 December 1924, P5 via National Library of Australia’s Trove

References

Possible surviving films

Primary Sources

  • National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, Papers Past.
  • National Library of Australia, Trove
  • New South Wales State Archives
  • State Library of Victoria
  • Ancestry.com
  • ProQuest Historical Newspapers

Text and Web


Nick Murphy
August 2023

This site has been selected for archiving and preservation in the National Library of Australia’s Pandora archive

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1, ↑4 The Theatre Magazine (Syd) in January 1922. Via State Library of Victoria
↑2 Hal Porter (1965) P169
↑3 See her mother’s poem below
↑5 A birth certificate has yet to be identified, but the event was celebrated in The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 Jan 1895, P1 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑6 See Evening News, (Syd) 1 Sept 1899, P6 via National Library of Australia’s Trove and NSW State Archives, Divorce papers Constance Madeline Bourke – Patrick Benedict Bourke
↑7 The Sun (Syd) 13 Aug 1913, P6 National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑8, ↑10 The Theatre Magazine, 1 Nov 1919, P34, via State Library of Victoria
↑9 This is almost certainly an exaggeration, although she did travel from Australia to the US numerous times. The San Francisco Examiner, 20 Apr 1928, P25 via Newspapers.com
↑11 The Mountaineer (Katoomba NSW) 20 Nov 1903, P3 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑12 Sunday Times (Syd)17 Oct 1915, P6 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑13 The Sun (Syd)1 Feb 1914 P19 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑14 see for example Sunday Times (Syd) 28 Jan 1917, P25 and The Globe and Sunday Times War Pictorial (Syd)19 Mar 1917, P6 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑15 The Triad, Jan 10, 1921, via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑16 Newcastle Morning Herald & Miners Advocate (NSW) 8 Aug 1919, P7, via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑17 The Theatre Magazine (Syd) December 1919, via State Library of Victoria
↑18 This is a lost film and therefore it is impossible to verify the claim. A few minutes of the film survives here.
↑19 Yes, they really wrote that. It is impossible to tell now whether it was a dry Australian joke or meant literally. See Punch (Melb) 15 Nov 1917, P41 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑20 The Mirror (Syd) 29 Sept 1917, P9 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑21 There was no further comment accompanying the poem, and it could conceivably be people with the same names, at the same time. The Muswellbrook Chronicle (NSW) 23 June 1917, P6 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑22 The Theatre Magazine (Syd) Dec 1919, P23, State Library of Victoria
↑23 The Bulletin (Syd) 30 May 1918, P18 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑24 The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 3 Dec 1918, P6 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑25 The Theatre Magazine (Syd) Dec 1, 1919, P 55, Via State Library of Victoria
↑26 Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate, 8 Aug 1919, P7 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑27 The Bulletin Vol. 42 No. 2152,12 May 1921, P50 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑28 Table Talk (Melb) 29 Nov 1923, P10 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑29 Truth (Syd) 13 Jan 1924, P16 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑30 The Theatre Magazine, 1 Nov 1923, P19. Via State Library of Victoria
↑31 Sunday Times (Syd) 23 Nov 1923 P3 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑32 The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 11 Mar 1924, P12 via newspapers.com
↑33 The Sacramento Bee (Cal) Aug 2, 1924, P26 via newspapers.com
↑34 Evening News (Syd)16 August 1924, P8 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑35 Evening News (Syd) 31 Aug 1925, P12 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑36 The Bulletin, 25 April 1928, P46 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑37 The Bulletin, 16 Jan, 1929, P42, via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑38 The Home, 1 Aug 1928, P69, via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑39 Andree Wright (1986) Pps18-19. The inserted quote is from Picture Show, 2 August 1919.
↑40 Admittedly, without reviews or any surviving films, this is conjecture
↑41 See Clay Djubal’s short history of G.W. HEAN PTY LTD at the Australian Variety Theatre Archive
↑42 The Herald (Melb) 10 December 1924, P5 via National Library of Australia’s Trove

Bevan Harris becomes Billy Bevan (1887-1957)

Above: Billy Bevan without makeup, in 1923.[1]The Blue Book of the Screen, 1924, P19. Via Lantern Digital Media History
Bevan in his usual makeup, in Sennett’s Wandering Willies, 1926

The 5 second version

Born in Orange in New South Wales in 1887, Billy Bevan (William Bevan Harris) is hardly a forgotten Australian actor. He has been credited with over 260 appearances in Hollywood movies made between about 1916 and 1952, and his success there has been very well documented.
He was 25 years old when he arrived in North America in 1912, with a good reputation as an amateur in Australia. His arrival in the US was courtesy a contract with Nellie Chester‘s Pollard’s Juvenile Opera Company. This, and his subsequent experience as a vaudevillian in the US refined his skills. He first appeared in films in 1915 or 1916, but really made a name for himself working for the Mack Sennett studio after 1919. With the advent of sound he took supporting and bit character roles – often playing a cockney.

He moved to Escondido in San Diego County in the early 1930s, and increasingly took an interest in farming and conservation. He died there in 1957.
(This article does not list all of his many films, but links to some that are online can be found in the references)

Accounts regarding the birth of William Bevan Harris are sometimes inconsistent, although we know he was born in Orange, New South Wales, a provincial city about 250 kilometres west of Sydney in 1887.[2]For inconsistencies – compare his biography at Central NSW Museums with Orange City Council’s wiki However, further confusing matters – he did not settle on the stage name of Billy Bevan until late 1914. In the meantime, he had used the stage names Bevan Harris in Australia and later Willie Bevan while with Pollards.[3]This writer has used the name Bevan throughout, as it was the one consistent part of his name and the surname he chose to use in Hollywood See also Note 1 below.

Not withstanding his later success in Hollywood, his early life was firmly rooted in regional New South Wales. At the time of his birth, his father was Robert Harris, a manager at Lindsay’s Brewery Co in Orange. His mother was a local Orange girl – Marion Jane Torpy, the oldest daughter of local politician James Torpy.[4]See James Torpy (1832-1903) at the Orange City Council wiki Robert and Marion Harris can be traced living in Orange as late as 1904.

Various sources suggest Bevan attended the University of Sydney, but if he did, he failed to complete any study, as his name (or any combination of it) does not appear in its database of graduates. Rather, it appears he had been bitten by the performance bug and was appearing on stage even before he moved to Sydney.[5]See for example, Leader (Orange, NSW) 30 Jun 1900, P4

Bevan Harris on stage in Australia

From mid 1909, Bevan Harris appeared in musical comedies with the Petersham Choral Society, a Sydney amateur group. These included Ermine and San Toy. Dated and offensive though readers today might find San Toy, (a “Chinese musical” of English origins), Bevan was a hit as Li, one of the central characters, and his “grotesque antics” kept the audience “convulsed with laughter.”[6]The Sydney Morning Herald, 23 Jul 1910, P14

Bevan Harris, the up and coming amateur,1910.[7]The Theatre (Syd), 1 Oct 1910, P9. Via State Library of Victoria

By early 1911 Bevan was working in Melbourne, while appearing with the Melbourne Comic Opera Society[8]or was it Company? at the Princess Theatre, in the musical comedies Olivette, and then Miss Hook of Holland. Judging by the very short runs and wide variety of appearances, it would seem he was not yet a professional, although he was developing an enviable reputation as a comic. [9]For example, in December 1911 he was singing humorous songs for the Geelong Scottish Thistle Club, while in March 1912 he was performing at an Irish National Concert in Kyabram, a country town He may well be the same William Bevan Harris who was listed in Melbourne electoral roles of the time – working as a clerk by day and living in a boarding house in Powlett Street, East Melbourne.

Bevan Harris as “Schnapps” in Miss Hook of Holland, in 1911.[10] Table Talk (Melb) 27 July 1911, P23
National Library of Australia

In July 1912, Bevan Harris signed a contract with Nellie Chester to perform with a reconstituted Pollard’s Opera Company tour of Canada and the United States.[11]Table Talk (Melb) 11 July 1912, P21 Nellie Chester had previous experience running Pollard’s Lilliputian Opera Company tours of North America with her older brother Charles Pollard, until 1909. This tour, it would be the last, was designed to address new Australian labour laws restricting the age children could leave to perform overseas, which was in turn a direct result of Arthur Pollard’s disastrous 1909 Tour of India.

Willie Bevan with Pollard’s Juveniles in North America

The SS Makura arrived in Vancouver in late August 1912, with Bevan and about 25 Australian performers on board. Newspaper reviews show that this new company followed Pollard’s well-travelled performance route – east across Canada and sometimes into the northern states of the US, and then back to Vancouver again. The repertoire included familiar, popular musicals – The Mikado, The Belle of New York, Sergeant Brue, The Toy Maker and La Belle Butterfly. Not surprisingly, the cities the troupe visited welcomed a return of a Pollard’s company, even if they all seemed a little older. There were complicated explanations provided to newspapers regarding how the troupe had “grown up.”[12]See for example, The Victoria Daily Times, 31 August 1912, P17 The truth was it was now illegal for girls under 18 or boys under 16 to leave Australia to perform in such troupes. Teddy McNamara was nineteen years old, while Bevan was the oldest of the troupe, aged twenty-five – although he claimed to be 22.[13]Leading performer Queenie Williams was still 16. By comparison, Daphne Pollard had been only 9 when she departed with a Pollards tour of North America in 1900

Some of the young Australians who travelled with Willie Bevan on the 1912 Pollards Opera Company tour included- Left to Right: Eva “Pollard” (or Thompson, aged 17) Pattie Hill (aged 17), Ted McNamara (aged 19) Queenie Williams (aged 16). Photos from the J. Willis Sayre Collection, at The University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections: JWS 22108, JWS 18904, JWS141185, JWS 22586 [14]Eva Pollard married a Canadian, and the couple returned to Australia soon after. Pattie and Ted married each other in Canada, but divorced a few years later. Ted died in Hollywood in 1928, Pattie … Continue reading

The new troupe comprised a mix of experienced Pollard performers – Teddy McNamara and Eva Pollard  – while newcomers included “Queenie” Williams and Bevan. But significantly, they were all no longer pre-teens, or “Lilliputians.” Although all Australians, and mostly from Melbourne, they were now all older, experienced but still juvenile performers. The choice of Willie Bevan as a stage name at this time might relate to a need to sound like a younger performer. Reviews of the Pollards performances were generally positive, and Bevan was noted as a clever comedian, but the focus of publicity was on Queenie and Teddy McNamara.

Bevan illustrating the “fine art of falling” while working with Sennett in 1926. It is quite likely he learned skills like this while with Pollards.[15]Hal K Wells. “Fine Art of Falling” Motion Picture Classic magazine. Oct 1926. P40-41. Via Lantern Digital Media Project

Bevan stayed with the company for fourteen months, making his departure after a tour of Alaska in late 1913. The Pollards tour of North America was, to that time, his most intensive experience on stage. He then joined a series of stock companies – reportedly the Isabelle Fletcher Company in Vancouver, then Lewis and Wolf in Arizona and the Trimble Players in California. And briefly in mid 1914, he joined forces with other Australian expats Daphne Pollard and Alf Goulding for A Knight for a Day at the Morosco Theatre in Los Angeles.

Bevan whilst with the Trimble Players in California in 1915 – bearing a close resemblance to contemporaries Stan Laurel and Bobby Ray. [16]The Santa Barbara Daily News and the Independent
21 Apr 1915, P2

Billy Bevan making Movies

Sometime in late 1915, Billy Bevan drifted from vaudeville to working in films. It is quite likely Henry Lehrman, the head of L-KO Studios (standing for Lehrman Knock Out) had seen him and was the one who offered him work. His earliest films[17]with typical L-KO titles heavy on alliteration include Dad’s Dollars and Dirty Doings, Lizzie’s Shattered Dreams, Lizzie’s Lingering Love, A Bold Bad Breeze, Phoney Friends and False Teeth and Gertie’s Gasoline Glide.[18]Brent Walker suggests his earliest films were with the Norbig Studio in Edenvale in 1915 His appearances in these early films appear to be in bit and supporting roles – such as a brief appearance as the Minister in Gertie’s Gasoline Glide. Historians Kalton C Lahue and Sam Gill describe these L-KO films as “rapid-fire slapstick,” but they were also highly derivative – of established vaudeville stage acts – and of other films.[19]For example see Dave Glass’s Keystone Kops…Not series on his Youtube Channel Lehrman himself was typical of the “colourful” showmen who inhabited the early world of comedy cinema.

One of his earliest surviving films. A very young looking Billy Bevan as the Minister in Gertie’s (or Gaby’s) Gasoline Glide, (1915 or 1916) [20]via the Eye Museum on Youtube

After films at other studios, Bevan began working for Mack Sennett in mid 1919. Brent Walker’s 2010 survey of the Mack Sennett studios lists Bevan’s known films, and also explains that he took “short term contracts… by choice.”[21]Walker (2010) P488 This allowed him to maintain control of his career – he could freelance when feature films took his fancy. It is beyond the scope of this article to review Bevan’s significant output of films for Sennett, however it would seem Steve Massa’s summary of his work is apt. Most often he was either a “comic everyman that everything happened to… [or] a roguish, practical joker who caused misfortunes to befall others.”[22]Steve Massa (2022) P381 Some of the Bevan’s Sennett classics are now easily accessible online (many are listed below) and include Butter Fingers (1925), Super-Hooper-Dyne-Lizzies (1925) and Wandering Willies (1926). The walrus moustache and perpetually raised eyebrows were a trademark.

Sennett advertising in trade and fan magazines regularly featured Bevan as one of the studio’s stable of stars. Note Daphne Pollard also featured by 1928.[23]Exhibitor’s Herald April 1922, The Moving Picture World Jan 1926, Exhibitor’s Herald Oct 1927 via Lantern Digital Media History

Bevan’s shift to character work in feature films appears to have been incremental, and coincided with the arrival of sound. In part, this must have been because he was financially secure and no longer needed as much work. Most importantly though, he was also pursuing other interests. (See below) However, studios still had a need for solid reliable character actors, and this became his speciality – as butlers, policemen, bus and train conductors, porters, taxi-drivers and doormen. And when interviewed by the Australian press in 1939, Bevan explained “This is the highest paying business in the world… 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.”[24]The Mail (Adelaide) 22 Apr 1939, P4

Left: Bevan in Journey’s End (1930) and Right: The Lost Patrol (1934) [25]Source – Pizzaflix channel on Youtube and Author’s collection

As an Australian-born actor he was sometimes called upon to morph himself into a cockney role in Hollywood’s sentimental British films of the 1930s and 40s. The list of Hollywood films about Britain or the British Empire that featured Bevan includes Journey’s End (1930), Cavalcade (1933), The Lost Patrol (1934) Last Outpost (1939) and Another Dawn (1939), in addition to several of Universal’s Sherlock Holmes films – Pearl of Death (1944) and Terror by Night (1946). Interestingly, he also appeared in small roles in two of Hollywood’s awful Australian “Bushranger films” of the 1930s – Stingaree (1934) and Hal Roach’s Captain Fury (1939). His final screen appearances were in 1952.

Billy Bevan’s voice in The Lost Patrol, 1934. Although intended to be a working class English accent, it sounds suspiciously like an Australian accent to this writer.
Billy Bevan in 1931. [26]The Sydney Mail, 25 Feb 1931, P11

Billy Bevan on the land.

Billy Bevan in 1950, about the time he retired from films, checking a Quail water “guzzler” near Escondido. [27]Soil Conservation Vol 16-18, P111, 1950. US Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service, Department of Information

Bevan’s interest in farming and the land is quite well documented by Brent Walker and others. He had purchased land at Escondido in California in the mid 1920s, and established a citrus and avocado farm, eventually moving there permanently and only returning to Hollywood (about 160 kms to the North west) to work on films.[28]Brent Walker P489 He was very active in the local community, taking a leading role in the Escondido soil conservation district,[29]Southworth (1950) P110-112 and the local fish and game association. In these, his interests paralleled those of his father Robert Harris, back in Australia. For most of his later life, Robert Harris had worked for Goldsbrough, Mort & Co, a large Australian agricultural firm, which through various amalgamations exists today as Elders Limited. Even if estranged or just separated by distance, when Harris died in North Sydney in June 1927, his headstone at Macquarie Park cemetery noted it had been “erected by his son William Bevan Harris, Hollywood USA.”[30]Headstone for Robert Harris, died 19 June 1927. Macquarie Park Cemetery, Sydney, Congregational section B, Row 3 Bevan’s mother Marion moved to the US in 1916 and appears to have stayed. She died at Bevan’s home in 1945.

Bevan married his first wife Leona Roberts (Kohn) in 1917. Two daughters were born of the union. Coincidentally, Leona’s actress sister, Edith Roberts, travelled to Fiji and Australia in 1928 to appear in Norman Dawn’s The Adorable Outcast, aka Black Cargos of the South Seas [31]Pike & Cooper (1980) P189

William Bevan Harris without makeup, with his wife Leona and mother Marion, daughter Edith and new baby Joan in his arms in 1922. [32]Exhibitors Herald, May 13, 1922. P39 via Lantern

Billy Bevan died quite suddenly at his Escondido home, Rancho La Lomita, in November 1957.[33]Times-Advocate (Escondido) 27 Nov 1957, P1 He was survived by his second wife Betty and his two daughters by Leona, who had predeceased him in 1952.

Note 1 – Billy Bevan’s name

The birth certificate for William Bevan Harris states the child is listed as not named, presumably because his parents had yet to agree on a name.[34]NSW BDM Certificate of Birth 33062/1887 However, the name William Bevan does appear – in a different script and fainter handwriting – on his birth record, while later documents also confirm this was his name. In addition to the varying stage names already noted, and causing more confusion to historians today, on his 1918 US naturalisation declaration [35]declaration of intention document he seems to indicate he was using the name William Bevan – without Harris.

Part of Bevan’s NSW Certificate of Birth 33062/1887

Nick Murphy
29 June 2023

References

Text

  • Kalton C Lahue & Sam Gill (1970) Clown Princes and Court Jesters. Some Comic Greats of the Silent Screen. A.S. Barnes & Co.
  • Steve Massa (2022) Lame Brains and Lunatics 2: More Good, Bad and Forgotten of Silent Comedy. Bear Manor Media.
  • Andrew Pike & Ross Cooper (1980) Australian Films 1900-1977. Oxford University Press/AFI
  • William L Southworth (1950) “Quail population booms because there is water to drink,” in Soil Conservation Vol 16-18, P110-112, 1950. US Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service, Department of Information.
  • Brent Walker (2010) Mack Sennett’s fun factory : a history and filmography of his studio and his Keystone and Mack Sennett comedies, with biographies of players and personnel. McFarland and Co.

Web

Federal Register of Legislation (Australia)

Films available online

This site has been selected for preservation in the National Library of Australia’s Pandora archive

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 The Blue Book of the Screen, 1924, P19. Via Lantern Digital Media History
↑2 For inconsistencies – compare his biography at Central NSW Museums with Orange City Council’s wiki
↑3 This writer has used the name Bevan throughout, as it was the one consistent part of his name and the surname he chose to use in Hollywood
↑4 See James Torpy (1832-1903) at the Orange City Council wiki
↑5 See for example, Leader (Orange, NSW) 30 Jun 1900, P4
↑6 The Sydney Morning Herald, 23 Jul 1910, P14
↑7 The Theatre (Syd), 1 Oct 1910, P9. Via State Library of Victoria
↑8 or was it Company?
↑9 For example, in December 1911 he was singing humorous songs for the Geelong Scottish Thistle Club, while in March 1912 he was performing at an Irish National Concert in Kyabram, a country town
↑10 Table Talk (Melb) 27 July 1911, P23
National Library of Australia
↑11 Table Talk (Melb) 11 July 1912, P21
↑12 See for example, The Victoria Daily Times, 31 August 1912, P17
↑13 Leading performer Queenie Williams was still 16. By comparison, Daphne Pollard had been only 9 when she departed with a Pollards tour of North America in 1900
↑14 Eva Pollard married a Canadian, and the couple returned to Australia soon after. Pattie and Ted married each other in Canada, but divorced a few years later. Ted died in Hollywood in 1928, Pattie continued her career in Australia. Queenie retired from the US stage in the early 1930s
↑15 Hal K Wells. “Fine Art of Falling” Motion Picture Classic magazine. Oct 1926. P40-41. Via Lantern Digital Media Project
↑16 The Santa Barbara Daily News and the Independent
21 Apr 1915, P2
↑17 with typical L-KO titles heavy on alliteration
↑18 Brent Walker suggests his earliest films were with the Norbig Studio in Edenvale in 1915
↑19 For example see Dave Glass’s Keystone Kops…Not series on his Youtube Channel
↑20 via the Eye Museum on Youtube
↑21 Walker (2010) P488
↑22 Steve Massa (2022) P381
↑23 Exhibitor’s Herald April 1922, The Moving Picture World Jan 1926, Exhibitor’s Herald Oct 1927 via Lantern Digital Media History
↑24 The Mail (Adelaide) 22 Apr 1939, P4
↑25 Source – Pizzaflix channel on Youtube and Author’s collection
↑26 The Sydney Mail, 25 Feb 1931, P11
↑27 Soil Conservation Vol 16-18, P111, 1950. US Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service, Department of Information
↑28 Brent Walker P489
↑29 Southworth (1950) P110-112
↑30 Headstone for Robert Harris, died 19 June 1927. Macquarie Park Cemetery, Sydney, Congregational section B, Row 3
↑31 Pike & Cooper (1980) P189
↑32 Exhibitors Herald, May 13, 1922. P39 via Lantern
↑33 Times-Advocate (Escondido) 27 Nov 1957, P1
↑34 NSW BDM Certificate of Birth 33062/1887
↑35 declaration of intention document

Enid Hollins (1904-1980) Actress, playwright & publicist

Above and below: Enid Hollins during a tour of New Zealand. Courtesy Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne.

The Five Second Version

Late in life and living in London, former actor and playwright Enid Hollins became an occasional correspondent with English papers – making suggestions about writing for the stage and correcting details of the past – including the fact that she had been the first actress to play the lead role in a production of GB Shaw’s The Millionairess in the English language.

Few Australians or New Zealanders have made the transition from actor to playwright in their own country, let alone another country, as Enid Hollins did. Notable for some great successes acting on the Australian and New Zealand stage in the mid 1930s – she travelled to London in 1939. After war work and appearing in rep in the UK, she turned to writing for the stage and radio in the early 1950s. The tragic death of her husband in 1956 changed her circumstances and brought her career to a sudden end, although she wrote again for radio in the mid 1960s. She managed a publicity agency in London and died there in 1980.

Enid Naumai Hollins was born in Christchurch, New Zealand in June 1904.[1]New Zealand BD&M, Birth Certificate 1904/11141. Her middle name is of Māori origin, a celebratory word approximating Welcome Her parents were George Frederick Hollins, a public accountant, and Jean nee Annan. Sometime in her first few years, the family relocated to Melbourne Australia. Previously associated with the Salvation Army, George and Jean moved address in Melbourne regularly. During Enid’s schooling they lived at the very grand Queen’s Coffee Palace (a residential temperance hotel) at 1 Rathdowne Street Carlton.

Enid dedicated this copy of her play Mother is a Darling to her own mother Jean [2]HFW Deane & Sons script, 1954, State Library of Victoria

Enid completed her schooling at Methodist Ladies College in Kew, Melbourne in 1921 and on leaving, threw herself into amateur theatre.[3]The Age (Melb) 16 June 1926, P14 She directed several productions for the MLC Old Collegian’s Drama club, including Alfred Sutro’s The Desperate Lovers in 1928, apparently the comedy’s first Australian outing.[4]The Herald (Melb) 11 Jul 1928, P10

On stage in Australia

A very young Enid – 1926. [5]Table Talk (Melb) 2 Dec 1926, P54 via State Library of Victoria

By late 1928 she had found work as a professional, a supporting role in the cast of the “clean and wholesome” comedy When Knights Were Bold at the Palace Theatre in Melbourne. If she ever had any doubts, this experience probably convinced her the stage was the place she wanted to be. Leading the company were English players working in Australia – including Compton Coutts(1886-1935) and Campbell Copelin(1901-1988), alongside Australians Nancye Stewart(1893-1973) and Agnes Dobson(1904-1987). And in May 1929, she landed a role as “a Movie Vamp” in Frank Neil’s(1886-1940) production of the farce Ladies Night in a Turkish Bath. A short engagement to visiting English musician Harold Lyons meant she briefly considered plans to travel to London to marry.[6]Harold was part of Syd and Harry Roy’s visiting band in 1929. Harry Lyons played Sax. See here for photos But she did not marry Lyons.

Census and voter rolls show she turned to clerical work to get through the worst of the Depression, which is not so surprising, given how dire the economic situation was in Australia. Over the next few years she appeared in amateur theatre again – and can be found in cast lists for productions at Kelvin Hall.[7]Kelvin Hall was at 53-55 Exhibition Street and later known as the Playbox theatre She was also closely associated with producer-director Brett Randall(1884-1963) and the Little Theatre (at St Chad’s, in Martin Street, South Yarra). In April 1935 she married fellow actor Jack Wiltshire at the Little Theatre, with considerable publicity.[8]Victoria, Births Deaths & Marriages, Marriage Certificate 1935/7418

Enid Hollins in 1928 [9]Table Talk 12 July 1928, via State Library of Victoria

In 1935, seven years after her first appearances on the professional stage, she emerged again as an actor to be noticed. Through her membership of the Power House Dramatic Club, which performed at the Garrick Theatre, she appeared in Sorry You’ve been troubled, and London Wall, and received good reviews.[10]See Table Talk (Melb) 28 Feb 1935 P15 and The Herald (Melb) 25 Mar 1935, P18 In early 1936, she had a major breakthrough when Producer-Director Gregan McMahon(1874-1941) chose her for the leading role in George Bernard Shaw‘s The Millionairess.[11]The Herald (Melb) 8 Feb 1936, P30 Shaw had given the rights to Greghan McMahon, in recognition of his long standing support and this was the play’s first English-language performance.

The Millionairess, Table Talk, 12 March 1936

While the play was not regarded as Shaw’s best, Enid’s strong performance was well received. Table Talk reported

“The acting was dominated … by the magnificent performance of Enid Hollins as the disappointed heiress whose father has only left her a beggarly 30 millions instead of the 200 millions he promised her. This young actress, who has been recruited from the amateur ranks, handled her exceedingly difficult role with ease and confidence, and despite the fact that she was on the stage, and the central figure in it, practically from curtain rise to curtain fall, never once did she show the slightest sign of strain, or reveal herself as anything but perfectly at home in the part.“[12]Table Talk (Melb) 12 Mar 1936, P27

By the end of March 1936, she was appearing in a production of an Emlyn Williams mystery thriller – Night Must Fall, which toured through east coast Australian theatres, and then through New Zealand. In the leading role as “baby-faced Dan” the murderer, was Lloyd Lamble(1914-2008), who recalled his affair with Enid in a rather unkind anecdote, in his memoirs.[13]Lloyd Lamble (1994) Hi Diddle Dee Dee, An Actor’s Life for Me. P103 Unpublished Memoir. Australian Performing Arts Collection. It is one of many passing anecdotes he gives, but worthy of note … Continue reading Another New Zealand tour followed, with comedies like Fresh Fields added to the repertoire. Enid’s JC Williamson’s contract notes her modest weekly salary in March 1936 as £7 10 shillings.[14]Enid Hollins contract 13 March 1936, JC Williamsons Collection, Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne

Enid was now established as a regular on the Australian and New Zealand stage – performing for Brett Randall in “pleasant comedies” such as Ivor Novello‘s Full House, and appearing in full blown JC Williamson musicals like Over She Goes – and touring again. She began divorce proceedings against Jack Wiltshire in early 1939.[15]Supreme Court Divorce cases. Wiltshire v Wiltshire 1939/72 Public Record Office Victoria. She claimed Jack had become infatuated with an actress she called “Judy Godfrey.” However, this … Continue reading Then, with a great deal of fanfare, she departed Australia in April 1939, bound for London on the SS Monterey and via the US. She arrived in London in June.

The very thorough US manifest for the Monterey records Enid’s above average height of 5’9″ (175 cms). She had brown eyes and brown hair, and an “olive” complexion.

Enid in 1935 [16]The Bulletin, 10 April, 1935, P43

Working in Britain

If the Depression delayed Enid’s career on the Australian stage, the outbreak of the Second World War did the same to her in Britain. Like so many who had arrived from around the Empire before the war, Enid felt duty bound to contribute to the British war effort. In 1941 she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service,[17]usually known by its initials – ATS the women’s branch of the British Army, working in Signals. In the same year she married Neil Smith, an officer in the Royal Army Ordinance Corps.

After demobilisation, she returned to the stage again to perform in repertory, but only a few years later she outlined the challenge for Australian actors seeking work in Britain – a challenge that she herself had faced. In a short and very pointed article carried by Melbourne’s Herald newspaper, headed “warning to young actors”, she wrote

“There isn’t an Australian actor or actress who doesn’t want to come to England. Yet how many of them have the least idea of what they are coming to? In Great Britain the theatrical profession is very overcrowded. During the war many new people entered it to entertain troops and workers in industry.” Work in repertory companies was vital she explained: “The Australian who comes here — and they come in droves—rarely gets a London engagement… Agents simply will not look at you without repertory experience and this you must find for yourself.”[18]The Herald (Melb) 10 August, 1950, P15

It would seem her antipodean successes counted for little.

Enid performing in Rep in 1949.[19]Richmond Herald (England), 26 March 1949, P7

Enid was not the only Australian actor to find post-war Britain hard going and it is not surprising that she turned to writing. Dorothy Alison(1925-1992), who had arrived in London in 1949, did three years of office work in London while waiting for stage work, while Betty McDowall(1924-1993), who arrived in 1951, described working as an actor in London as “tough as hell”. Enid must have been pleased that her play Consented Together, won a £100 prize in a playwrights competition in August 1950.[20]Although she would not have been so pleased with the judge’s comments. Ronald Jeans felt all the plays submitted were of a poor standard. He chose Enid’s because it had “an original … Continue reading The play centred around a contemporary theme, an aspect of British marriage laws – that prohibited a woman from marrying her divorced husband’s brother.

It is worthy of note that in early 1950 Enid thanked two production companies for feedback on her work. Perhaps it was intended to attract attention, but as she named them publicly – Linnit & Dunfree and Laurence Olivier Productions, it is quite likely to be true.[21]The Stage, 16 March 1950, P5 Writing experience in Australia had already been hinted at before she departed. She had written short stories under a nom de plume according to one report, although further details of this remain elusive.[22]Table Talk (Melb) 27 April 1939, P5

Consented Together at the Gateway in March 1952 featured fellow Australian Vincent Ball [23]The Stage. 20 March 1952, P9

Over the early 1950s, Enid’s plays were often performed at the Gateway Theatre at 103 Westbourne Grove W2 (in the Notting Hill district) and sometimes she also directed these. One of London’s small club theatres, it survived on subscriptions and very low overheads. It was also sometimes responsible for original or avant-garde plays being staged, and seems to have been one of the locations where female writers could get their work performed.[24]The best memoir of working at the Gateway seems have been left by English actor Frank Williams who started there as an “Assistant Stage Manager”, or as he recalled, “general … Continue reading Enid’s final appearance as an actor at the Gateway seems to date to 1952, when she appeared in the new play Worm I’ the Bud, giving “an excellent cameo-study of a not very wise but kind and deservedly privileged servant.”[25]The Stage, 17 July 1952, P10

The cast of Mother is a Darling at the New Theatre, Bromley. Deane’s Series of Plays. [26]HFW Deane & Sons script, 1954, State Library of Victoria

Mother is a Darling, the play Enid was best known for, first appeared in March 1951 at the New Theatre in Bromley, south of London. Former silent actress Bessie Love took the leading role of the mother – Mrs Lander – in the three act family or “drawing room” comedy. The humour revolved around her three young daughters “tackling the business of running a home and [managing] their scatterbrained mother.”[27]Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer 14 July P3 A year later – in January 1952, Frenchie and the Lily, “a modern love story about two young delinquents” ran at the Gateway. In the cast of these productions were a mix of up and coming actors, including a few Australians – like Vincent Ball, fresh from his RADA course and looking for opportunities.[28]Argus (Melb) 9 Jan 1952. P5

Mother is a Darling premiering in Bromley in 1951.[29]Sevenoaks Chronicle, (Sevenoaks, Kent) 9 Mar 1951, P3

Enid also wrote for radio. Her 60 minute play The Huntress appeared on BBC radio in December 1951, The Brother in February 1952. Her radio play Passport to Yesterday, a thriller, was performed in 1954 – in Britain, South Africa and Australia.[30]The ABC Weekly, 1 May 1954 The tale of an English girl who wakes up on a beach but does not know who she is or how she got there, it was filmed for television in 1959, under the title Girl on the Beach, with a young Maggie Smith taking the lead role.[31]An earlier television version appears to have been made in 1957, with Ann Morrish and Patrick Macnee

The tragic drowning of her husband while holidaying in Spain in 1956 wrought a great change in her life.[32]A good swimmer, he was drowned in heavy surf at Tossa De Mar. See Marylebone Mercury, 22 June 1956 P1 Enid turned to managing his publicity agency – Portman Services Ltd. Under her management the business was a success, although how she felt about leaving her theatrical career we do not know. In 1966-7 she returned to writing for radio – a series of dramatizations with the title Scandal! for the BBC, in collaboration with British writer Fiona McConnell.[33]The Stage, 7 July 1966, P14

Except for her one published script, we have little surviving today to help inform us of the nature of her written work. The newspaper reviews were mixed, and none of her plays were produced in major West End theatres. One 1952 writer noted a lack of consistency in her writing in its review of Frenchy and the Lily. It described the play as excellent at times, “but at other [times] it descended to the depths of the very poor.”[34]Kensington News & West London Times, 18 January 1952 P3 Yet her best known piece – Mother is a Darling – toured widely in British rep and was generally well received, later being performed in Australia. HFW Deane and Sons published it in their Deane’s Series of Plays in 1954. We also know her writing was deemed good enough for radio and television productions and yet we know that at the time these media were desperate for content.[35]Variety described the script of the 1959 TV production of Girl on the Beach as “indifferent”, despite Maggie Smith’s skills. See Variety June 24, 1959, P80

Through the 1950s and 60s, Enid maintained occasional correspondence on theatre matters with newspapers. In a letter to The Stage in 1964 regarding complaints of a lack of industry support made by fellow female scriptwriter Jean Rennie, she dismissed the complaint and remarked that “When a script comes back to me I know I have only myself to blame.”[36]The Stage 23 July 1964, P11

Enid maintained membership of Actor’s Equity and the Writer’s Guild all her life.[37]The Stage, 22 Feb 1979, P25 She also took to styling herself Enid Neil-Smith, perhaps in remembrance of her husband. Her politics were firmly of the left, as were Neil’s, both were active members of the Labour Party – determined to improve life in post-war Britain.

Enid Hollins died at her London home in 1980. She had no children. Her older brother Stanley had also appeared on the stage in Australia in the 1930s, but had long since turned to other interests. Enid returned to Australia at least once, for a long and anonymous holiday, in early 1964.

Nick Murphy
May 2023

Special Thanks

  • Claudia Funder at the Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre, Melbourne, Australia.
  • Stacey Coenders, Archivist at MLC, Kew, Victoria, Australia.

References

Primary Sources

  • Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre, Melbourne
  • National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, Papers Past.
  • National Library of Australia, Trove
  • State Library of Victoria
  • British Newspaper Archive
  • Ancestry.com
  • Victoria, Births Deaths & Marriages
  • New Zealand, Births Deaths & Marriages
  • ProQuest Historical Newspapers

Text

  • Stephen Alomes (1999) When London Calls. The expatriation of Australian creative artists to Britain. Cambridge University Press.
  • Enid Hollins (1954) Mother is a darling : a comedy in three acts. London : H.F.W. Deane
  • Lloyd Lamble (1994) Hi diddle dee dee, An Actor’s Life for Me. Unpublished autobiography. Australian Performing Arts collection. Also at National Library of Australia.
  • Richard Lane (1994) The Golden Age of Australian Radio Drama. Melbourne University Press.
  • Eric Porter (1965) Stars of Australian Stage and Screen. Rigby Ltd
  • Frank Van Straten (2023) “Frank Neil – He lived Showbusiness.” Theatre Heritage Australia On Stage March 2023
  • Frank Van Straten (2003) Tivoli. Thomas C Lothian
  • Frank Williams with Chris Gidney (2002 )Vicar to Dad’s Army: The Frank Williams Story. Canterbury Press, Norwich.

Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University

This site has been selected for preservation in the National Library of Australia’s Pandora archive

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 New Zealand BD&M, Birth Certificate 1904/11141. Her middle name is of Māori origin, a celebratory word approximating Welcome
↑2, ↑26 HFW Deane & Sons script, 1954, State Library of Victoria
↑3 The Age (Melb) 16 June 1926, P14
↑4 The Herald (Melb) 11 Jul 1928, P10
↑5 Table Talk (Melb) 2 Dec 1926, P54 via State Library of Victoria
↑6 Harold was part of Syd and Harry Roy’s visiting band in 1929. Harry Lyons played Sax. See here for photos
↑7 Kelvin Hall was at 53-55 Exhibition Street and later known as the Playbox theatre
↑8 Victoria, Births Deaths & Marriages, Marriage Certificate 1935/7418
↑9 Table Talk 12 July 1928, via State Library of Victoria
↑10 See Table Talk (Melb) 28 Feb 1935 P15 and The Herald (Melb) 25 Mar 1935, P18
↑11 The Herald (Melb) 8 Feb 1936, P30
↑12 Table Talk (Melb) 12 Mar 1936, P27
↑13 Lloyd Lamble (1994) Hi Diddle Dee Dee, An Actor’s Life for Me. P103 Unpublished Memoir. Australian Performing Arts Collection. It is one of many passing anecdotes he gives, but worthy of note because Lamble partly blamed the unsteadiness of his first marriage on Enid
↑14 Enid Hollins contract 13 March 1936, JC Williamsons Collection, Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne
↑15 Supreme Court Divorce cases. Wiltshire v Wiltshire 1939/72 Public Record Office Victoria. She claimed Jack had become infatuated with an actress she called “Judy Godfrey.” However, this writer can find no evidence of such a person
↑16 The Bulletin, 10 April, 1935, P43
↑17 usually known by its initials – ATS
↑18 The Herald (Melb) 10 August, 1950, P15
↑19 Richmond Herald (England), 26 March 1949, P7
↑20 Although she would not have been so pleased with the judge’s comments. Ronald Jeans felt all the plays submitted were of a poor standard. He chose Enid’s because it had “an original idea and contained fewer technical faults.” See The Irish Times Aug 26, 1950, P5
↑21 The Stage, 16 March 1950, P5
↑22 Table Talk (Melb) 27 April 1939, P5
↑23 The Stage. 20 March 1952, P9
↑24 The best memoir of working at the Gateway seems have been left by English actor Frank Williams who started there as an “Assistant Stage Manager”, or as he recalled, “general dog’s body.” In time his own plays also appeared there
↑25 The Stage, 17 July 1952, P10
↑27 Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer 14 July P3
↑28 Argus (Melb) 9 Jan 1952. P5
↑29 Sevenoaks Chronicle, (Sevenoaks, Kent) 9 Mar 1951, P3
↑30 The ABC Weekly, 1 May 1954
↑31 An earlier television version appears to have been made in 1957, with Ann Morrish and Patrick Macnee
↑32 A good swimmer, he was drowned in heavy surf at Tossa De Mar. See Marylebone Mercury, 22 June 1956 P1
↑33 The Stage, 7 July 1966, P14
↑34 Kensington News & West London Times, 18 January 1952 P3
↑35 Variety described the script of the 1959 TV production of Girl on the Beach as “indifferent”, despite Maggie Smith’s skills. See Variety June 24, 1959, P80
↑36 The Stage 23 July 1964, P11
↑37 The Stage, 22 Feb 1979, P25

Virginia Barton (1911-1979) & the value of elocution

Virginia Barton in 1937, from University of Washington’s J.Willis Sayre Collection.[1] J. Willis Sayre Collection of Theatrical Photographs, JWS17981, University of Washington Special Collections

Finis in Vancouver in 1931.[2]The Vancouver Sun, 15 Oct 1931, P15 via newspapers.com

The Five second version
Born in Western Australia in 1911, part of Finis Barton’s story was not unusual. She was one of a string of young Australian women from middle class backgrounds, who made their way to the new world of international theatre and film production, armed with serious training in elocution and the dramatic arts. She arrived in the US in late 1928, and performed on stage in Canada and in the US, before appearing in her first credited film role in 1932. Following more stage and radio performances in the US and wartime service as an entertainer, she returned to Australia in the late 1940s to perform on tour and to see her father and sister.
Finis notably avoided the publicity usually associated with actors of the era, despite her long career on the US stage and having appeared in (at least) a dozen Hollywood films. She disappeared completely from public life soon after her return to the US from Australia. She died in New York in February 1979, aged 68.

Born in Western Australia in January 1911, Finis Ernestine Barton was the second daughter of Ernest William Barton, a ship’s officer working for the Melbourne Steamship Company, and Minnie Mary Barton nee Leitch.[3]Western Australia, Department of Justice, Birth Certificate Finis Ernestine Barton 1911/21. The actual place of her birth was the wheat belt town of Beverley Some time during the First World War, the family moved across the Australian continent to Sydney.[4]The Sydney Morning Herald 16 Oct, 1946, P6 via National Library of Australia’s Trove At least some of Finis’ activities as a teenager are recorded by contemporary documents, including that the family lived in McMahon’s Point on Sydney’s north shore, and that she attended North Sydney Girls’ High School.[5]Years later, alumnus Catherine Martin would win four Academy Awards for work in film production and costume design. Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts also attended this school By late 1923, she was also featuring as a star student at Grace Stafford’s school of elocution and dramatic arts in Sydney.[6]The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 14 Nov 1923,P7, The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 19 May 1924, P3 via National Library of Australia’s Trove Reportedly, she was also a capable horse rider.

As Desley Deacon has written, in the early part of the twentieth century, elocution in Australia was not “just a private accomplishment for girls and young women. Instead it legitimized public performance and encouraged ambition…it inculcated discipline and taught colonial girls marketable skills.”[7]Desley Deacon (2013) Enid Bennett, Judith Anderson, Sylvia Bremer and Dorothy Cumming had all arrived in the US during the First World War with well honed elocution skills thanks to a thriving tutoring industry in Australia.[8]Desley Deacon (2013) To this list could be added others, like Marcia Ralston, who had also gained training in Australian radio in the mid 1920s. Radio experience was also the case with Finis Barton, who had appeared on Sydney radio station 2BL with the very popular children’s host, “Uncle” George Saunders.[9]The Sydney Morning Herald 16 Oct, 1946, P6 and The Wireless Weekly Vol. 6 No. 26 (23 October 1925) P19, via National Library of Australia’s Trove

Sydney elocution teachers advertising in the pages of Theatre Magazine, 1913.[10]The Theatre Magazine, 1 March 1913, P 25, via State Library of Victoria

There was however, a sudden and unexplained change to Finis’ circumstances when her mother Minnie packed up and left for San Francisco, in September 1927. About a year later, in November 1928, 17 year old Finis sailed to San Francisco on the SS Makura to visit her, on a temporary visa “for pleasure.”[11]but also giving her occupation as “Theatrical,” at a time when most young women travelling did not give an occupation Not surprisingly, Finis stayed on in Los Angeles with her mother, who was a tall, blue eyed Australian with a scar over her left eye, and who by 1929 had become assistant manager at the newly built Chalfonte Apartment Hotel at 720 South Normandie.[12]Minnie’s own story was unusual for the era – to this writer’s knowledge, no other Australian mothers preceded their children in a move to the US. Minnie’s naturalisation … Continue reading

Finis Barton in Canada in 1931.[13]The Vancouver Sun (Vancouver, BC) 22 Aug 1931, P7, via newspapers.com

The 1930 US census listed Finis as a “dancer in movies.” What these movies were is now unknown – presumably she was appearing in film chorus-lines, as her IMDB entry states. However, in 1931 she made a breakthrough – first in performances with the “Hollywood Playmakers” in Los Angeles, and then professionally with the British Theatre Guild in Vancouver – performing in comedies based on works by the likes of PG Wodehouse and AA Milne.[14]The Vancouver Sun, 26 Sept 1931, P17 via newspapers.com With her in this company for a time was fellow West Australian Marjorie Bennett. By May 1932, Finis was back in Hollywood having been cast in a supporting role in the Tom Mix film My Pal, the King. Universal Studio’s publicity department went into the usual overdrive with creative stories – reporting she “was a find,”[15]Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 25 June 1932, P9, via newspapers.com had been elected a “Miss Australia” in 1931,[16]The Los Angeles Times, 18 May 1932, P11 via newspapers.com and Hollywood Filmograph, 29 May 1932, P171 via Internet Archive and they almost certainly arranged for popular artist Willy Pogany to paint her portrait at the same time.[17]Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, 12 Oct 1932, P7 via newspapers.com The “Australian Motion Picture Guild” reportedly welcomed her at one of their monthly meetings at the Biltmore hotel.[18]I can find no further information at all about this group and wonder if it too, was a studio story. Los Angeles Evening Citizen News 5 Oct 1932, P10 via newspapers.com

Finis Barton whilst appearing on stage in Hedda Gabler in 1933.[19]The Los Angeles Times 30 Apr 1933, P30 via newspapers.com

By mid 1932 and with the advent of sound films, Finis was noted for her “captivating voice and manner”[20]Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, 5 Jul 1932, P7 via newspapers.com and she was now usually introduced to newspaper and magazine readers as a “beautiful new ingenue.”[21]The Vancouver Sun, 26 Sept, 1931, P17 via newspapers.com This flattering label was regularly applied to young women who had just arrived in Hollywood, amongst them other Australians like Jocelyn Howarth (aka Constance Worth) and Mary Maguire. One could argue the films she made over the next four years were a typical underwhelming mix of secondary and uncredited roles in B (secondary film) productions, that were so often the lot of these young women. There is a sense, however, that Finis was selective with her work. Most notably, she kept up appearances on stage during the period 1932-1936, at the same time she appeared in films. The plays she appeared in during the 1930s reflect the typical popular fare of the era – farces and comedies, like Ian Hay’s The Middle Watch, performed at the Music Box (now Fonda) Theatre in May 1934. But there were also roles in dramas, like Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, performed in March 1933, also at the Music Box.

Finis moved to Vancouver again for the first five months of 1934, appearing for the “International Players,” in a string of light comedies such as Scrambled Wives and Believe Me Xantippe. Doubtless also thanks to her speech training, she began to appear on radio in the mid 1930s. She had married William J Ryan in Hollywood in June 1933,[22]California County Marriages June 1933, 1153/236, via familysearch.com but in 1934 in Canada she met actor Blair Davies, who became her second husband in mid 1936.[23]Los Angeles Evening Citizen, 22 July 1936, P18 via newspapers.com

Finis as Miss Grayson, with her brother Hal Grayson (Harold Minjir) in Sensation Hunters (1933) It is set on a passenger boat, hence Finis’ jaunty swimming outfit in the screengrab at left. [24]Screengrabs from copy at the Internet Archive

Typical of her film roles of this era is Sensation Hunters (1933). In this, Finis played the very minor role of sister to the cad Hal Grayson, who briefly takes an interest in the leading character, Dale Jordan. The Grayson family would have been quickly recognised by cinema audiences as self absorbed snobs – suitable foils for the down-to-earth, hard working Dale, who triumphs in the end.

Above: Finis (as Miss Grayson) teases her brother Hal while dancing with him in Sensation Hunters – in the scene shown at right above. [25]Source, copy of the film at the Internet Archive
Above: Finis Barton with Australian born J.P McGowan in Stampede (1936). Two Australians doing their best to sound like they belong in the Wild West. [26]Source, copy of the film at the Internet Archive

Finis’s last films were made in 1936, two of these being with Australian born J.P McGowan. McGowan had already been in the US for thirty years and had enjoyed a long career as an actor and director. But Australian readers should avoid the temptation of thinking the experienced McGowan might have been lending the 25 year old Finis “a helping hand” in getting leading roles. There is really no evidence this happened at all during Hollywood’s golden years – and it only occasionally happens in the 21st century.

Above: Finis (as Dale) tricks the wicked Matt Stevens (J.P McGowan) in Stampede (1936) in the scene shown at right above. [27]Source, copy of the film at the Internet Archive

The two films with McGowan were her last. Her loss of interest in film work may have been because she was disappointed in some of the reviews she received. For example, in 1936 Variety recorded that she made “no impression” as the heroine of Secret Patrol. [28]Variety, 24 June, 1936. P45. Via Internet Archive However, this writer tends to the view that after giving it a try, she probably made a conscious effort not to pursue film work in Hollywood – because it was famously so frustrating and ultimately unrewarding. Janet Johnson, Margaret Vyner, Carol Coombe and Gwen Munro had all walked away from Hollywood in the mid 1930s for this reason. But there was no public commentary about this – as with so much of her life, we are forced to rely on a handful of official documents and newspaper accounts.

Finis now threw herself back into stage and radio work. The featured photo at the top of this article dates from 1937, when she became a featured star of the Columbia radio workshop. [29]The Evening News (Harrisburg, PA) Apr 21, 1937, P14 via newspapers.com

Finis as “Australia’s gift to the radio” in 1937. [30]The Cincinnati Post, May 7, 1937, P 28 via newspapers.com

It is also from this time that Finis began to use the stage name Virginia Barton. Yet again, the change was accompanied by none of the awkward publicity that might be expected. No explanation was provided, she just started appearing under her new stage name – touring the US east coast and Canada in popular comedies like Bachelor Born, Mr and Mrs North and Meet the Wife, sometimes in the company of Blair Davies. The 1940 US census recorded the couple living at the King Edward Hotel in Manhattan. However, in October 1944 US newspapers reported she was to be part of a USO troupe taking comedies to US forces overseas.[31]In company with Peggy Wood, Clair Luce and New Zealand born Doreen Lang The United Service Organisation provided a huge program of entertainment for US forces in World War Two, and still exists today.

Virginia Barton on stage in the comedy Bachelor Born, Washington DC,1939 [32]The Evening Star (Washington DC) 20 Jan 1939 via Library of Congress

Virginia Barton was one of a number of actors enticed back home to take leading roles on stage tours in post-war Australia. As with Mercia Swinburne, Molly Fisher and Fred Conyngham, the return home meant a chance to see family as well as enjoy as an attractive contract. On her return to Australia in late 1946 to perform in the comedy Life with Father, the enthusiasm of local press was such that she was finally forced to provide greater details of her life. She spoke with great modesty about her performances with the USO that had taken her to entertain US forces around the world – England, Europe, Africa and South America. The thought of any actor performing Blithe Spirit and Bachelor Born on Ascension Island in the South Atlantic in wartime is extraordinary, and yet it appears she did this too.[33]The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 October 1946, P6, via National Library of Australia’s Trove

A starstruck Australian journalist for The Australian Women’s Weekly could not help but comment on her beauty, her voice and her endearing personality: “Virginia Barton, a honey-blonde… has a delicate, winning grace and charmingly modulated voice that should make her an ideal… always triumphant mother of Life With Father. You could tell, that first day, that the children of the cast are going to adore her. She pays them the compliment of talking to them as adults, is gentle and kind in helping them follow stage directions. And she’s very, very pretty. During her… absence from the land of her birth Virginia Barton has forgotten quite a lot of things,[but] has acquired a gentle, only just noticeable American accent.[34]The Australian Women’s Weekly, 9 Nov 1946, P9 via National Library of Australia’s Trove

Virginia Barton in the 1940s. Left – Meet the Wife opening in Massachusetts in 1943[35]Transcript Telegram,(Mass) 6 March 1943, P6 via newspapers.com Right – On her return to Australia in 1946 [36]The Sydney Morning Herald 16 Oct, 1946, P6 via National Library of Australia’s Trove

Virginia Barton returned to New York in August 1947. She married again, in Connecticut in June 1951, to Ferdinand Wolf, a New York attorney.[37]Connecticut Vital Records, Index of Marriages Now aged 40, she appears to have decided to leave acting behind for good. Of her later life sadly we know little – although there is evidence of regular travel to the Caribbean. Records seem to suggest that as late as 1960 she was still not a US citizen, travelling with Australian travel documents.

She died in New York on 17 February 1979.[38]New York Times obituaries, 21 Feb 1979, via New York Times

NICK MURPHY
April 2023

Further Reading

Text

  • John J McGowan (2016)(Second Edition) Hollywood’s First Australian. The Adventurous Life of J. P. McGowan. Display Vision Productions, South Australia.

Collections

Films online

Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University

This site has been selected for preservation in the National Library of Australia’s Pandora archive


Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 J. Willis Sayre Collection of Theatrical Photographs, JWS17981, University of Washington Special Collections
↑2 The Vancouver Sun, 15 Oct 1931, P15 via newspapers.com
↑3 Western Australia, Department of Justice, Birth Certificate Finis Ernestine Barton 1911/21. The actual place of her birth was the wheat belt town of Beverley
↑4, ↑36 The Sydney Morning Herald 16 Oct, 1946, P6 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑5 Years later, alumnus Catherine Martin would win four Academy Awards for work in film production and costume design. Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts also attended this school
↑6 The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 14 Nov 1923,P7, The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 19 May 1924, P3 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑7, ↑8 Desley Deacon (2013)
↑9 The Sydney Morning Herald 16 Oct, 1946, P6 and The Wireless Weekly Vol. 6 No. 26 (23 October 1925) P19, via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑10 The Theatre Magazine, 1 March 1913, P 25, via State Library of Victoria
↑11 but also giving her occupation as “Theatrical,” at a time when most young women travelling did not give an occupation
↑12 Minnie’s own story was unusual for the era – to this writer’s knowledge, no other Australian mothers preceded their children in a move to the US. Minnie’s naturalisation papers, US census records and various shipping manifests provide this detail. US National Archives via Ancestry.com
↑13 The Vancouver Sun (Vancouver, BC) 22 Aug 1931, P7, via newspapers.com
↑14 The Vancouver Sun, 26 Sept 1931, P17 via newspapers.com
↑15 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 25 June 1932, P9, via newspapers.com
↑16 The Los Angeles Times, 18 May 1932, P11 via newspapers.com and Hollywood Filmograph, 29 May 1932, P171 via Internet Archive
↑17 Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, 12 Oct 1932, P7 via newspapers.com
↑18 I can find no further information at all about this group and wonder if it too, was a studio story. Los Angeles Evening Citizen News 5 Oct 1932, P10 via newspapers.com
↑19 The Los Angeles Times 30 Apr 1933, P30 via newspapers.com
↑20 Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, 5 Jul 1932, P7 via newspapers.com
↑21 The Vancouver Sun, 26 Sept, 1931, P17 via newspapers.com
↑22 California County Marriages June 1933, 1153/236, via familysearch.com
↑23 Los Angeles Evening Citizen, 22 July 1936, P18 via newspapers.com
↑24 Screengrabs from copy at the Internet Archive
↑25, ↑26, ↑27 Source, copy of the film at the Internet Archive
↑28 Variety, 24 June, 1936. P45. Via Internet Archive
↑29 The Evening News (Harrisburg, PA) Apr 21, 1937, P14 via newspapers.com
↑30 The Cincinnati Post, May 7, 1937, P 28 via newspapers.com
↑31 In company with Peggy Wood, Clair Luce and New Zealand born Doreen Lang
↑32 The Evening Star (Washington DC) 20 Jan 1939 via Library of Congress
↑33 The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 October 1946, P6, via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑34 The Australian Women’s Weekly, 9 Nov 1946, P9 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑35 Transcript Telegram,(Mass) 6 March 1943, P6 via newspapers.com
↑37 Connecticut Vital Records, Index of Marriages
↑38 New York Times obituaries, 21 Feb 1979, via New York Times

Baby Lorna Volare (1911-1998) – the child actor from Benalla

Six year old Lorna Volare in 1917, at the time she appeared as a supporting player in Norma Talmadge’s The Moth [1]Film Fun, December 1917. via Lantern, Digital Media Library
The Five Second Version
Who today would know of the child stars of the silent film era – that is, before Shirley Temple? Baby Ivy Ward, Rosheen Glenister, Miriam Battista and Baby Lorna Volare are names unknown to us now and yet in the 1910s and 1920s they were much in demand by producers, popular with audiences – and their parents were well paid. Lorna Volare was a child from Australia whose parents had moved to the US in 1915. Lorna appeared in her first film at age four and a half, only a few months after the family settled in New Jersey.
“Baby” Lorna Volare in 1917, aged 6 [2]Motion Picture News, 27 Jan 1917, P577, via Lantern Digital Media Library

Lorna Volare was born in Benalla, a country town about 200 kilometres north east of Melbourne, Victoria on 10 October, 1911.[3]Victoria, Births Deaths & Marriages, Birth Certificate 1911/25784. It appears her mother Helen was visiting family or friends in the town to give birth, because the Volare home was in South … Continue reading However, there is little likelihood that Lorna ever had much memory of Benalla, or of Melbourne, as she left Australia before she turned four.

Fred Volare and the pianolas

Lorna’s father Fred Volare was a piano tuner, salesman and musician from England. He was born George Frederick Voller in London, and arrived in Australia in the first years of the twentieth century.[4]The 1901 English census lists George F Voller, a 19 year old piano tuner living with his parents and siblings in Wandsworth Perhaps the new spelling of his surname as Volare helped create an exotic musical persona or maybe the change of name helped him start a completely new life,[5]Years later, Fred Volare would visit and stay with his older sibling Alice Voller at 34 Quinton St, Earlsfield, London either way he quickly made a name for himself in Australia.

Fred travelled the length and breadth of Victoria tuning pianos and selling the new and very popular invention – the pianola. Four months before the birth of Lorna, in June 1911, he had married Helen McIntrye, a nurse – who came from a very large farming family of Port Campbell, in Victoria’s west.[6]Victoria, Births Deaths & Marriages, Marriage Certificate 1911/5150 A son, Erling Frederick, was also born of the marriage in June 1914.[7]Victoria, Births Deaths & Marriages, Birth Certificate 1914/16894

Above: Fred Volare at work in regional Victoria. [8]Left – The Horsham Times (Vic) 9 Feb 1912, P5. Right – Maryborough and Dunolly Advertiser (Vic.) 21 Oct 1914, P3. Both via National Library of Australia’s Trove

In early 1915, Fred and Helen made the dramatic decision to move to the US. This appears not to have been a whim, because they sold up all their belongings and their large home at 245 Williams Road Toorak with an announcement they were soon moving to the US.[9]The Age (Melb) 20 Feb, 1915, P2, via National Library of Australia’s Trove The advertisements listed their worldly goods for sale, confirming they were living a comfortable middle class life – apparently all thanks to Fred’s work selling pianolas. They sailed on the RMS Niagara, arriving in Vancouver on April 10, 1915, in transit for New York.

By 1920, US records show the family were living on Lake Avenue, Scotch Plains near Westfield in New Jersey. Fred, who was now described in documents as a “factory manager” and “piano expert”, worked at the Aeolian Piano and Pianola Company factory in nearby Garwood, New Jersey, only a few miles from their home.[10]Fred’s World War One US registration card lists Aeolian as his employer.

Lorna the “three year old”

The earliest film appearance by Lorna seems to have been in Ransom, a film starring Julia Dean, made in late 1915.[11]It is listed by the AFI as released in January 1916 Unfortunately, the film is now considered lost, as are most of Lorna’s 14 other films.[12]Part of The Moth (1917), a Norma Talmadge film, survives in the collections of the Library of Congress

The only account of how four year old Lorna from Australia ended up in films [13]all of which were made on the US East Coast survives in the pages of The Green Book Magazine.[14]The Green Book Magazine Vol 20, 1918, P968-969 via the HathiTrust Digital Library The story given here was that a group of actors on the Niagara saw Lorna playing on the decks and suggested (to her parents) that she should try acting. Perhaps this is true, but it is so very similar to every other “actor discovery” story that the modern reader would be wise to treat it with caution. It is worth remembering that the decision for four year old Lorna to act was made by Fred and Helen, who must have approved of and organised her performing. The typical story of a child being “discovered” by someone else meant parents could claim they were harnessing a child’s natural ability – rather than exploiting them by pushing them onto the stage.

Another photo of Lorna in 1917.[15]Moving Picture World, 27 Jan 1917, P526. Via Lantern, Digital Media Library

Contemporary newspapers made much of Lorna’s youth. Until late 1916, US reports inaccurately gave her age as three, while some also made a point of mentioning her film salary as $100 per week, a significant sum – which was mentioned so often it may be true. If she earned this, it was her parents who collected.[16]Hartford Courant (Connecticut) 3 May 1916, P6 via newspapers.com

At this time, the Gerry Society (New York’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) was very active in campaigning against child actors, something Fred and Helen must have been aware of. However, it appears the society had much more of a concern about the morality of children being on the stage, than they did about children appearing in film. On one occasion Lorna Volare and other juvenile actors were the subject of legal action during a Chicago run of Daddies in November 1919, because the play violated Illinois State law,[17]The New York Clipper, 19 Nov 1919, P5. Billboard magazine described the Gerry Society as a “self styled reform agency.” Billboard, 26 March 1921, P23. Via Lantern Digital Media Library but otherwise her childhood acting career seems to have been remarkably unhindered by the Gerry Society. Also see Note 1 below.

Lorna the actor

Some of Lorna’s appearances were in quality film productions. For example, she appeared in supporting roles in three films made in New York by the hugely successful actress-producer Norma Talmadge in 1917. These included The Law of Compensation and two of her “Select Pictures,” The Moth and The Secret of the Storm Country. Clearly Talmadge had confidence in Lorna’s abilities as she personally cast some roles. In the same year Lorna also appeared in A Man and the Woman, directed by pioneer director Alice Guy and her husband Herbert Blaché, almost certainly made at their Solax Studios at nearby Fort Lee in New Jersey.

As with so many reviews of child performers, reports of Lorna’s acting in films tended to be effusive. Motion picture directories also contributed to the stereotype of the time by describing her physical attributes – “golden brown hair, large blue eyes.”[18]Motion Picture Studio Directories 1919-1921, P249 Via Ancestry.com More considered were commentaries on her theatre performances. In October 1917 she appeared in a short run of the play The Claim, at New York’s Fulton theatre, “a drama of Western life.” One newspaper ran a large photo and reported on “Youthful Lorna Volare, whose years number barely five, but whose histrionic and emotional ability amazed first night audiences on Broadway last week.”[19]The Sun (New York) 13 Oct 1917, P5 via newspapers.com But Lorna’s big breakthrough came in September 1918 when she appeared on stage in David Belasco’s production of Daddies.

Lorna and John Cope in the comedy Daddies [20]New-York Tribune, Oct 6, 1918 · P36, via newspapers.com

Daddies was a great success – it ran for 340 performances in New York.[21]The Internet Broadway Database reports it ran from September 1918 to June 1919 The comedy was about four bachelors who are induced to adopt war orphans, and 7 year old Lorna played one of them. Theatre magazine noted her “accent betrays no locale proving her diction is faultless.”[22]Ada Patterson, Theatre Magazine, Vol 27-28, 1918, P350 via The Hathi Trust The Billboard labelled Lorna “the star of the cast,”[23]The Billboard, 9 Nov 1918, P17, via Lantern Digital Media Library while a reviewer for The Brooklyn Daily Eagle wrote that Lorna performed “with a skill and sense of values that is remarkable in a child.” [24]The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (New York) 6 Sep 1918, P6 via newspapers.com

David Belasco thought Lorna was a “marvellous child actor... “I have only known one child who equalled her. That was little Maude Adams. Maude had the same charm, the same bright mind, the same odd little ways that were all her own.” A happy home environment was vital to her continuing success, he thought. However Belasco was less confident that a married woman could be a success on stage. Firmly channeling his own nineteenth century upbringing, he warned, a woman “cannot serve two masters.”[25]ie – a husband AND the stage. Ada Patterson, Theatre Magazine Vol 27-28, 1918. P350 via The Hathi Trust

10 year old Lorna in her last film in 1921 [26]The Galena Evening Times, (Kansas)10 May 1921, P4 via newspapers.com

Lorna continued to appear on stage, including in a tour of Daddies. She also appeared in one final film made in 1921- His Greatest Sacrifice, with popular player William Farnum. She was now ten years old and hardly able to still be presented as “baby Lorna” by this time and therein lay the problem for all child actors – what to do once they started to grow up.

Lorna in Alias Jimmy Valentine in 1921 [27]New-York Tribune
18 Dec 1921, P45, via newspapers.com

In Lorna’s case, almost as quickly as she had arrived on the screen, by the end of 1923, she was gone.

Lorna in later life

From 1924, Lorna attended secondary school at Westfield High School, near her home. We know a little of Lorna’s school years because her High School yearbook has been digitized – a project of the Ancestry genealogical organisation. Her 1929 entry indicates she was involved in drama at school, had a “charming accent” (doubtless the result of parenting and elocution) and had an amazing biography. It appears she then went on to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.[28]The Courier News (New Jersey) 2 Dec 1937, P18, via newspaper.com

Lorna in the Westfield High School Yearbook, 1929 [29]Via Ancestry.com – US School Yearbooks 1900-2016 . The scan has been edited slightly to maintain the page title

Lorna was associated with several New Jersey theatre groups in the 1930s, as a performer and director. In December 1937 she married W Kenneth Ostrander, a journalist. They married at the family home, while the talented Fred Volare played the Wedding March. The couple remained in New Jersey and raised two children, living near Fred and Helen, for the next twenty years. Lorna also shared her parents’ interests – after the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, she joined their efforts with the local branch of the British War Relief Society. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, she joined the war industry, working at an engineering firm and encouraging other women to do the same.[30]The Courier News (New Jersey) 23 Nov 1942, P9 via newspapers.com Her wartime efforts were impressive – fund-raising, civil defence activities and even encouraging the collection of scrap metal.

Lorna Ostrander died in Arizona in 1998. She was never interviewed about the experience of being a child star of the silent era, and had long since been forgotten by Australians.

Note 1: The Gerry Society

That the Gerry Society served a reforming function seems without doubt. However, the eccentricities of the society at the start of the twentieth century can be gauged from Elbridge T Gerry‘s own commentary in 1890, when he asserted there were three classes of theatres – 1) reputable – “Where legitimate drama is exhibited,” 2) semi-reputable, which were still often vulgar, and 3) disreputable, with their audiences composed of the “lowest and most degraded class of society.” Despite this, Cullen, Hackman and McNeilly note how inconsistent the society was in applying their rules in relation to individual acts. For example, they were apparently not concerned about a young Fred Astaire dancing, but hounded Buster Keaton’s family.[31]Cullen, Hackman and McNeilly 2007 P436 The Pollard Lilliputian Opera Company, comprising children from Lorna’s home town of Melbourne, never performed on the US east coast because of the Society’s presence.

The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children exists today, with a very contemporary child protection mission. See https://nyspcc.org/

Left: Lorna in Daddies in 1918. [32]The Green Book Magazine Vol 20, 1918, P968 via the HathiTrust Digital Library

Another Australian child star – Little Peggy Eames

Peggy Eames, c 1926[33]Motion Picture Review, Dec 1926, via Via Lantern, Digital Media Library

Peggy Eames was reputedly born or adopted in 1918, while her English parents John and Mary lived in Australia in the 1910s. They arrived in the US in 1921 and stayed there. But that’s another story.

Nick Murphy
February 2023

References

Web

Text

  • Laura Bauer (Ed)(2019) Hollywood Heroines. The most influential women in film history. Greenwood
  • Frank Cullen, Florence Hackman, Donald McNeilly (2007)Vaudeville old & new: an encyclopedia of variety performances in America. Psychology Press
  • Elbridge T Gerry (1890) “Children of the Stage” The North American Review, Vol 151, No 404, July 1890 P14-21 via jstor.
This site has been selected for preservation in the National Library of Australia’s Pandora archive

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Film Fun, December 1917. via Lantern, Digital Media Library
↑2 Motion Picture News, 27 Jan 1917, P577, via Lantern Digital Media Library
↑3 Victoria, Births Deaths & Marriages, Birth Certificate 1911/25784. It appears her mother Helen was visiting family or friends in the town to give birth, because the Volare home was in South Yarra, a suburb of Melbourne, as the birth certificate states.
↑4 The 1901 English census lists George F Voller, a 19 year old piano tuner living with his parents and siblings in Wandsworth
↑5 Years later, Fred Volare would visit and stay with his older sibling Alice Voller at 34 Quinton St, Earlsfield, London
↑6 Victoria, Births Deaths & Marriages, Marriage Certificate 1911/5150
↑7 Victoria, Births Deaths & Marriages, Birth Certificate 1914/16894
↑8 Left – The Horsham Times (Vic) 9 Feb 1912, P5. Right – Maryborough and Dunolly Advertiser (Vic.) 21 Oct 1914, P3. Both via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑9 The Age (Melb) 20 Feb, 1915, P2, via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑10 Fred’s World War One US registration card lists Aeolian as his employer.
↑11 It is listed by the AFI as released in January 1916
↑12 Part of The Moth (1917), a Norma Talmadge film, survives in the collections of the Library of Congress
↑13 all of which were made on the US East Coast
↑14 The Green Book Magazine Vol 20, 1918, P968-969 via the HathiTrust Digital Library
↑15 Moving Picture World, 27 Jan 1917, P526. Via Lantern, Digital Media Library
↑16 Hartford Courant (Connecticut) 3 May 1916, P6 via newspapers.com
↑17 The New York Clipper, 19 Nov 1919, P5. Billboard magazine described the Gerry Society as a “self styled reform agency.” Billboard, 26 March 1921, P23. Via Lantern Digital Media Library
↑18 Motion Picture Studio Directories 1919-1921, P249 Via Ancestry.com
↑19 The Sun (New York) 13 Oct 1917, P5 via newspapers.com
↑20 New-York Tribune, Oct 6, 1918 · P36, via newspapers.com
↑21 The Internet Broadway Database reports it ran from September 1918 to June 1919
↑22 Ada Patterson, Theatre Magazine, Vol 27-28, 1918, P350 via The Hathi Trust
↑23 The Billboard, 9 Nov 1918, P17, via Lantern Digital Media Library
↑24 The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (New York) 6 Sep 1918, P6 via newspapers.com
↑25 ie – a husband AND the stage. Ada Patterson, Theatre Magazine Vol 27-28, 1918. P350 via The Hathi Trust
↑26 The Galena Evening Times, (Kansas)10 May 1921, P4 via newspapers.com
↑27 New-York Tribune
18 Dec 1921, P45, via newspapers.com
↑28 The Courier News (New Jersey) 2 Dec 1937, P18, via newspaper.com
↑29 Via Ancestry.com – US School Yearbooks 1900-2016 . The scan has been edited slightly to maintain the page title
↑30 The Courier News (New Jersey) 23 Nov 1942, P9 via newspapers.com
↑31 Cullen, Hackman and McNeilly 2007 P436
↑32 The Green Book Magazine Vol 20, 1918, P968 via the HathiTrust Digital Library
↑33 Motion Picture Review, Dec 1926, via Via Lantern, Digital Media Library

The short, fabulous career of Ivy Schilling (1892-1972)

Ivy Schilling in early 1913. Photo by May and Mina Moore, Sydney. The Stage Pictorial, April 1913. Via State Library of Victoria

The 5 second version
Born in Richmond, an inner suburb of Melbourne Australia in 1892, Ivy Schilling (spelled Shilling after 1914) became a hugely popular dancer on the Australian and British stage. Vibrant, good looking and energetic, her acrobatic and audacious style of dance was enthusiastically received. Her reputation as a typical “Australian girl” was also fed by clever publicity, including claims of her outstanding athletic prowess. She was photographed numerous times, won various competitions and often provided commentary on a wide range of topics. From 1914 she worked in Britain, then making a triumphant return to Australia in 1921. She commenced a tour of the US in the 1922, however a serious injury appears to have brought her dancing to an end almost immediately. By the mid 1920s she was living in Hollywood, associating with some leading figures including actor Enid Bennett and Producer Charles Christie. After a private visit to Australia in 1928 she returned to England for good. In 1932 she married an Australian-born surgeon, retiring from public life. She died in England in 1972.

Ivy growing up

Ivy May Schilling was born in George St, Richmond, an inner suburb of Melbourne, on August 4, 1892, the third of four children of Julius Schilling and Louisa nee Baldrock.[1]Victoria, Births, Deaths and Marriages. Birth certificate 26916/1892 Her father was described as a baker on her birth certificate, but by the 1910s he was listed in directories and electoral roles as a carrier. Ivy’s German grandfather had arrived in Melbourne at the end of the goldrush era on the ship Persian, in March 1862. The family had prospered, and by 1915, the Schillings lived at a comfortable home at 5 Raglan St, Saint Kilda East.[2]Julius and Louisa and Ivy’s brother Royal occupied the home for many years. It was later converted to apartments, and continues as this today

As was usual for working class children of the era, Ivy left school at about age 13, at the end of 1905, already with a reputation for giving entertaining performances.[3]She attended South Yarra State School. See Prahran Chronicle (Vic) 14 Dec 1901, P3 and Prahran Chronicle (Vic) 16 Dec 1905 P3, via National Library of Australia’s Trove The National Library of Australia’s Michelle Potter notes the contemporary newspaper story that Ivy had pleaded with her mother to be allowed to learn to dance, although there are numerous examples of other talented working class children being encouraged to try the stage by their parents, as an alternative to the inevitable factory work or an apprenticeship.[4]Michelle Potter (2005). A variant childhood story was that her mother was keen for her to take up piano. See West Bridgeford Advertiser 27 April 1918, P4 via British Library Newspaper Archive

Ivy quickly became one of the leading students at Jennie Brenan’s dance school.[5]The Bendigo Independent (Vic.) 16 May 1906, P1, via National Library of Australia’s Trove As Historian Janet McCalman has pointed out, Jennie Brenan was to develop a close association with JC Williamson’s, the Australian theatre monopoly, which soon meant exciting opportunities for young dancers like Ivy.[6]Potter states her first stage appearance was in a Mother Goose panto

Ivy Schilling, in an undated photo taken sometime before 1914. Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne.

Ivy dances with JC Williamson’s

By 1910, 18 year old Ivy was a prominent dancer in the JC Williamson’s Pantomime company, performing throughout cities in Australia and New Zealand – in various pantomimes including Jack and Jill and Aladdin.[7]See for example The Darling Downs Gazette (Qld.), 29 Jun 1909, P8 via Trove and Takanaki Herald 26 August 1909 P3 via National Library of New Zealand, Papers Past

Ivy’s breakthrough appearance appears to have been in the comic opera Our Miss Gibbs, in Sydney in September, 1910. Teamed with Fred Leslie (1882-1965), she appeared in La Danse du Vaurien -a combination of Apache and acrobatic dancing. The couple evoked “thunders of applause” from the audience and great reviews from newspapers.[8]See for example Evening News (Syd), 26 Sep 1910, P2 via National Library of Australia’s Trove Fred Leslie remained her partner, off and on, for at least seven years.

Ivy featuring as premier danseur for JC Williamson’s. Left – with Leslie Holland (1874-1952), in The Quaker Girl in Melbourne in July 1912 [9]Table Talk, 18 July 1912, P19 via State Library of Victoria Right – with Fred Leslie in Puss in Boots in early 1913[10]Table Talk, 23 Jan 1913, P23 via State Library of Victoria

Ivy saves a drowning surfer

Towards the end of Our Miss Gibb’s Sydney run, Melbourne’s Punch could tell its readers that audiences had “gone mad” over Ivy. “She is the best girl dancer yet found in Australia… who belongs to the athletic cult and practices assiduously with the heavy dumbbells and the parallel bars…”[11]Punch (Melb) 2 March 1911. P24 via National Library of Australia’s Trove And indeed she quickly developed a reputation as a health-conscious, outdoorsy, sports-loving Australian girl.

At the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century, Australians were sometimes represented in literature as superior variations of the “British type.” For example, a character in E W Hornung’s 1890 book A Bride from the Bush speaks of “the typical Australian…[as] one of the very highest if not the highest development of our species.”[12]E W Hornung (1890) A Bride from the Bush via Project Gutenburg, P107 Emerging actors were sometimes popularised because they appeared to fit this representation – and being physically active and loving the outdoors were key elements of the stereotype.

Ivy Schilling modelling her prowess in physical culture in 1911. Sydney’s Sun newspaper was a strong supporter of her career.[13]The Sun (Syd) 17 March 1911, P12, via National Library of Australia’s Trove

In March 1911, newspapers reported that Ivy, then performing in Sydney, had saved Tommy Walker, a well known surfer, who had been “seized by cramp” while swimming at Manly beach. “Taking the 10 stone lad under her arm… [Ivy] brought him back to the sands and safety… Miss Schilling, after her fine performance, resumed her dip in the surf as if nothing had happened,” reported Sydney’s Sun [14]Sun (Syd) 23 March 1911, P1 via National Library of Australia’s Trove It was a good story, but suspiciously it coincided with newspaper articles showing Ivy’s modelling physical culture (as above) and with her success in the West Pictures’ Sirens of the Surf – a competition and short film. Shown as part of a mixed theatre program, the short film profiled a number of female Australian swimmers and was directed by Franklyn Barrett.[15]See Eric Reade, P47 Theatre audiences could then vote for their favourite siren, and not surprisingly, Ivy won.[16]The Sydney Morning Herald 13 Mar 1911, P11 and National Advocate (NSW) 31 Mar 1911 P2 via National Library of Australia’s Trove

Left: Ivy, the winner, posed with the third place getter, in the Sirens of Surf competition.[17]Table Talk, 6 April, 1911 P1, via State Library of Victoria. Right: Ivy featured prominently in West’s Pictures advertising in April 1911 [18]The Bendigo Advertiser, 10 April 1911, P1 via National Library of Australia’s Trove

The story of Ivy in the surf was revisited in 1912, when the ever-helpful Sydney Sun reported she had bumped into a shark while swimming at Manley.[19]It transpired the shark was dead. The Sun (Syd) 21 Feb 1912, P6 via National Library of Australia’s Trove Clearly keen to keep up public interest in her, a week later she contributed the (then revolutionary) view that Australian girls should be allowed to play football.[20]National Advocate (NSW) 21 Feb 1912, P4 via National Library of Australia’s Trove If she really believed this, she was a century ahead of her time, as women’s football did not begin in Australia until the 21st century.

Above: Poses by Ivy Shilling in Australian Stage Pictorial, April 1913. These have been cropped and rearranged to fit on the screen.[21]Australian Stage Pictorial, April 1913, P56, Via State Library of Victoria

Ivy Schilling, the genius?

In 1913, the Sun’s theatre critic, “Playgoer,” gave voice to the extraordinary enthusiasm some felt about 21 year old Ivy, and the need to find suitable roles in Australia for such a talent, lest she disappear overseas. Under the heading “Is Ivy Schilling a genius?” the following appeared;

As a dancer Miss Schilling has a genius, a temperament remarkably her own and remarkably vivid. Whenever she has had the proper opportunity… she has been – electrical, unique…. I have not seen a dramatic power like hers in any other recent Australian dancer. I saw Miss Schilling in some production (heaven knows which, of them) in a “Danse du Vaurien” … and the splendid expressiveness of that dance is not to be forgotten. I saw her again, revealed by Mr. Fred Leslie, in a dance which he called’ the ‘Juno Kata,’ placed more or less incongruously in… musical comedy. Here she was once more superb… What we want for Australian dancers, when rare temperaments like that of Miss Schilling… is opportunity — opportunity for their own development, and opportunity to make themselves understood by the public…. They need -sympathy, appreciation, comprehension; and, above all, a chance..[22]The Sun (Syd) 25 May, 1913, P15 via National Library of Australia’s Trove

In June 1913, Ivy gained another sort of publicity when she was named as one of the co-respondents in the “society divorce” of Walter Oswald Watt and Muriel Maud Watt. While the case attracted much press attention, it appears to have had no negative impact at all on Ivy’s career.[23]Watt was a well known society figure and had been aide-de-camp to the state governor. For reporting see numerous articles on National Library of Australia’s Trove, including Australasian (Melb) … Continue reading

Ivy as the butterfly, in the “Spider’s Web” dance, from the revue Come Over Here, 1914. Fred Leslie played the spider. [24]Theatre, 1 Jan 1914, P23 Via State Library of Victoria

Newspaper reports aside, the most convincing evidence of Ivy’s booming popularity at this time can be found in her surviving JC Williamson’s contracts, now held in the Australian Performing Arts Collection in Melbourne. In April 1911, Ivy was contracted at £7 a week, with a guaranteed 45 weeks work. In April 1912 this was boosted to £9 per week and in April 1913 it was boosted again to £12 a week. In her final JC Williamson’s contract of 1914, she was offered £17 per week for the part year she was to work. By comparison, in 1907 the Australian “basic wage” was set at £2 and 2 shillings.[25]Known as the “Harvester Judgement,” the basic wage was intended to set the living wage an unskilled labourer and dependent family would need Thus Ivy was extremely well paid for a 19 year old.

Ivy also owed at least some of her success to having teamed with Fred Leslie, an experienced dancer and choreographer, ten years her senior. Several of her highly successful turns are known to have been choreographed by him, although given their success as a partnership over a long period of time, a degree of collaboration also seems likely.

In 1913, JC Williamson’s launched a major revue that opened in December 1913 – called Come Over Here.[26]For more on this, see Veronica Kelly (2013) Not all reviewers were enthusiastic about this piece of “overcrowded entertainment” – but Ivy and Fred Leslie’s turn in “the Spider Web dance” was universally well received.[27]Referee (Syd) 24 Dec 1913, P15 Via National Library of Australia’s Trove A very young Robert Helpmann (1909-1986) saw the show in Adelaide, and was enthralled by the dance.[28]Anna Bemrose (2006) P50

After a paired-down version opened for a season in Melbourne, and despite the very generous rate of pay she was on, Ivy Schilling did what so many hopeful Australian performers did. She packed up and headed to London, departing on the Otranto in late June 1914.

She provided one final interview for the Australian press that expressed her high hopes. Perth’s Daily News reported: “Ivy Schilling is a tonic. She is so full of optimism, She sat on her bunk on the R.M.S Otranto this morning, and talked more than hopefully of her prospective tour of England. ‘I have been wanting to see the outer world for a long time… I was born in Melbourne— never been outside of Australasia’ “[29]The Daily News (Perth) 30 Jun 1914, P6 Via National Library of Australia’s Trove

Ivy in England, 1914-1921

Despite not having a pre-arranged contract in London, and arriving only a few days before the outbreak of war, Ivy found work quite quickly in the patriotic themed vaudeville show Europe, that opened at the Empire. Fred Leslie had arrived only a few weeks after Ivy, and the couple introduced the popular “Ju-jitsu” dance they had performed in Australia. By December 1914 the couple were appearing in Birmingham, where the dance was described as “the most astonishing piece of dancing likely to be witnessed…for some time.”[30]Birmingham Daily Gazette, 28 December 1914, P6, via British Library Newspaper Archive Compared to the experiences of so many, Ivy’s transition to working in London was remarkably smooth.

Ivy dropped the spelling of her surname “Schilling” for the more British sounding “Shilling” on arrival – of course she was not the only Australian of German origins to do this at the time. The family of Australia’s leading General of the First World War, John Monash, had done the same.[31]Some went further than a name change. Ivy’s father maintained the pretence he was Irish-born all his life. See Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria. Death Certificate, 1943, Julius Schilling … Continue reading

Ivy and Fred Leslie performing the Ju-jistu dance. Photo by Bassano Ltd,
1914, National Portrait Gallery, UK, Creative Commons Licence.

Ivy’s success on the British stage is well documented. She appeared in British producer Alfred Butt’s production of Irving Berlin’s first musical – Watch Your Step, at the Empire Theatre in 1915, followed by a long run in the musical Betty at Daly’s Theatre. Looking back several years later, she complained that much of 1915 was spent “playing parts and singing” and it was not until 1916 that she was given dancing parts again in Three Cheers. Dancing in this revue was again choreographed by Fred Leslie and he also featured as Ivy’s partner.[32]Theatre,(Sydney) 1 Jan 1921, P1, via State Library of Victoria Variety reported that her dances with Fred Leslie became “the talk of London.”[33]Variety 1 May 1917, P5, via the Internet Archive

She appeared in a short film in 1919 – one of the Around the Town series that now appears to be lost.[34]Kinematograph Weekly (UK) 30 October 1919, P112. Via British Library Newspaper Archive

Ivy Shilling and Fred Leslie in one of their acrobatic dances for Three Cheers, early 1917.[35]The Sketch 21 Feb 1917, P156. Copyright held by Illustrated London News Group. Via British Newspaper Archive

She continued to provide public commentary and posed for endless photos. In 1920 her comment that Jazz was “stupid and vulgar” gained her some attention.[36]Sunday Times (Perth) 4 Jan 1920, P5 via More importantly however, by 1920 she commented on the growing popularity of picture shows. She observed that during the war, audiences of soldiers on leave helped to fill live theatre shows. British theatre historian J P Wearing notes that during London performances of Shanghai in 1918, which was headlined by the newly arrived Australian Dorothy Brunton (1890-1977), in addition to featuring Ivy, Australian soldiers on leave shouted the greeting “Coo-ee” from the stalls.[37]J.P. Wearing (1982), P484, citing The Stage newspaper However, by 1920 tastes had changed. Since the war’s end, Ivy thought London people had “gone crazy over picture shows… so much so that a number of well known theatres had been sold and turned into picture houses.”[38]Daily Telegraph (Syd) 20 Sept 1920, P6, via National Library of Australia’s Trove Of course, it was an observation many performers were making at the time.

In September 1920, Ivy arrived back in Australia on the SS Orsova, with a contract to perform for the Tivoli circuit. As Michelle Potter notes, the contract covered her passage from England and allowed for an extraordinary salary of £100 per week [39]Also on board was Dorothy Brunton, contracted to perform for JC Williamson’s. She received a grand welcome home and journalists clamoured to interview her: “Australia always admired her ability and England has endorsed that opinion” announced Table Talk, approvingly. [40]Table Talk (Melb) 16 Sep 1920 P23 via National Library of Australia’s Trove She appeared with Vera Pearce in Robert Greig’s production of the musical Maggie, followed by a tour in the operetta The Lilac Domino, followed by some variety at the Tivoli.[41]The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 23 May 1921, P3 via National Library of Australia’s Trove

In 1921 she teamed with Harold or Leon Kellaway (1897-1990) [42]later known as Leon Jankowsky or simply Jan Koswka, he was the brother of Alec and Cecil Kellaway who would later join her in the US.

Ivy in Australia in 1921. Left – on the cover of Table Talk.[43]Table Talk (Melb) 11 August 1921, P7 via State Library of Victoria Right, advertised dancing with “Harold Kellaway” in 1921 (aka Leon Kellaway) [44]Table Talk (Melb) 25 August 1921, P16, via State Library of Victoria

Also while in Australia, she took a cameo role as a dancer in Raymond Longford and Lottie Lyell’s feature The Blue Mountains Mystery. [45]Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper (1977) P145 When the film was released in the UK, Ivy’s name was prominently listed – she was the best known of the cast for British audiences. Unfortunately, this “society drama” is another lost Australian film.

Ivy arrived back in Britain in November 1921, Kellaway arrived on another ship at about the same time.

Ivy in the US, 1922-1928

After some work in England, in August 1922, Ivy travelled to New York. She had been contracted by producer George Choos (1879-1961) for his new revue The Realm of Fantasy.[46]also known as The Land of Fantasy After an awkward moment with her visa,[47]the Australian quota for entry to the US in August had been filled and Ivy claimed she was unaware of visa requirements. See The Standard Union (New York) 19 Aug 1922, P2 and New York Tribune, 19 Aug … Continue reading Ivy started performing in the show with her partner Leon Kellaway – first in Connecticut and then, very briefly, in New York. But, after only a few days she left the show and was replaced.[48]The Billboard, 23 Sept 1922, P17, via Lantern Digital Media Project US papers gave no indication as to why.

It sounded good, but just didn’t happen. Ivy and Leon “Jenkowski” (fellow Australian Leon Kellaway) advertised in August 1922. [49]Hartford Courant (Connecticut) 27 Aug 1922, P36 via newspapers.com

However, soon after this, Australian newspapers reported rumours of Ivy as having suffered some serious but unspecified injury[50]The Sporting Globe (Melb) 28 Feb 1923, P9 and The Sun (Syd) 17 Apr 1923, P11 via National Library of Australia’s Trove and finally, a correspondent for Melbourne’s Table Talk saw her in New York, in early 1923. This paper reported that although Ivy was “much thinner… she was expecting to start work again, as her leg was nearly right.” [51]Table Talk (Melb) 22 March 1923, P32 For someone who knew how to generate publicity for good effect, Ivy’s silence about the dance injury she sustained suggests it was much more serious than ever acknowledged.

Most significantly, there does not appear to be any evidence she danced professionally again.

After a brief return to England in 1923, Ivy went back to the US, but this time, it was reportedly to pursue a film career in Hollywood.

Ivy in late 1923. Off to be filmed in Hollywood, according to British and US newspapers.[52]Left – Sunday Illustrated, 21 Oct 1923, P10, via British Newspaper Archive. Right – Billboard, 23 Nov 1923, via Lantern Digital Media Project

Ivy ended up staying in Hollywood for about five years, although there is no evidence she appeared in any films. There is also no indication how she supported herself in the comfortable bungalow she lived in at 1424 Orange Grove Avenue. Reports show she mixed in with the large British film colony, and with Australians – becoming a close friend of Enid Bennett, and her sisters Marjorie and Catherine. By 1925, she was also associated romantically with Canadian-born producer Charles Christie (1882-1955). In April 1925, Photoplay reported that a wedding announcement for the couple was expected “any day.”[53]Photoplay, Vol XXVII, April 1925, P17, via Lantern Digital Media project It would be easy to dismiss these stories as the usual creative Hollywood gossip, however shipping manifests show Ivy and Charles travelling back to the US on the SS Paris in October 1925, after a holiday in Europe together, including a visit to London’s Piccadilly Hotel. This seems to confirm a close personal association.[54]Ship’s manifest SS Paris, 7-14 October 1925, US National Archives via Ancestry.com

Ivy (second from right) in California in early 1928, surrounded by Hollywood celebrities [55]Daily News (New York) 26 Feb 1928, P375

Ivy retires from the stage

However, Charles Christie and Ivy did not marry. In mid 1928 she left California for a trip to Australia, accompanying Enid Bennett’s mother on the voyage. Ivy explained later that her trip was a personal one to see family, although there was considerable speculation she would perform again.[56]Everyone’s (Aust) 25 July 1928, P48. Via National Library of Australia’s Trove She returned to London on the Otranto in late 1928 and from then on, made England her home.

In January 1932, Ivy married Australian-born Harley Street surgeon, John Ryan, in London. She announced she was retiring, although she had not been active on stage for ten years. What she really meant was that she was retiring from public life. She died in London on April 8, 1972, following a stroke.[57]UK General Register Office, Death Certificate, Ivy May Ryan, 8 April 1972.

Ivy married surgeon John Ryan in 1932. [58]Daily Mirror, 21 Jan 1932. P24. Via British Newspaper Acrhive

Nick Murphy
February 2023

References

Special Thanks

  • Claudia Funder, Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne.

Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne

National Library of Australia, Canberra -The Papers of Ivy Shilling 1904-1930

State Library of New South Wales, Sydney – The Papers of Fred Leslie 1882-1965

  • The Mitchell Library has Fred Leslie’s papers. At the time of writing these had not been consulted.
    J.A Wells account of Leslie’s life makes reference to this collection – MLMSS 7077/Boxes 1, 2X-8X

Text

  • Bemrose, Anna (2006) Australasian Drama Studies, Apr 2006; “The Boy from Mount Gambier: Robert Helpmann’s Early Career in Australia (1917-1932)” Via Proquest.
  • Paul Cliff (2000) The Endless Playground: Celebrating Australian Childhood. National Library of Australia.
  • Veronica Kelly (2013) Popular Entertainment Studies, Vol. 4, Issue 1, pp. 24-49. “Come Over Here! The Local Hybridisation of International ‘Ragtime Revues’ in Australia.” School of Drama, Fine Art and Music, Faculty of Education & Arts, The University of Newcastle, Australia.
  • Hal Porter (1965) Stars of Australian Stage and Screen. Rigby Ltd.
  • Michelle Potter (2005) National Library of Australia News, “The Papers of Ivy Schilling” 1 Feb 2005, P12-14. Via Informit.
  • Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper (1977) Australian Film 1900-1977, A Guide to Feature Film Production. Oxford University Press.
  • Eric Reade (1975) The Australian Screen. Lansdowne Press.
  • J.P. Wearing (1982) The London Stage, 1910-1919 : A Calendar of Plays and Players. Scarecrow Press 1982

Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University

Web

This site has been selected for archiving and preservation in the National Library of Australia’s Pandora archive

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Victoria, Births, Deaths and Marriages. Birth certificate 26916/1892
↑2 Julius and Louisa and Ivy’s brother Royal occupied the home for many years. It was later converted to apartments, and continues as this today
↑3 She attended South Yarra State School. See Prahran Chronicle (Vic) 14 Dec 1901, P3 and Prahran Chronicle (Vic) 16 Dec 1905 P3, via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑4 Michelle Potter (2005). A variant childhood story was that her mother was keen for her to take up piano. See West Bridgeford Advertiser 27 April 1918, P4 via British Library Newspaper Archive
↑5 The Bendigo Independent (Vic.) 16 May 1906, P1, via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑6 Potter states her first stage appearance was in a Mother Goose panto
↑7 See for example The Darling Downs Gazette (Qld.), 29 Jun 1909, P8 via Trove and Takanaki Herald 26 August 1909 P3 via National Library of New Zealand, Papers Past
↑8 See for example Evening News (Syd), 26 Sep 1910, P2 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑9 Table Talk, 18 July 1912, P19 via State Library of Victoria
↑10 Table Talk, 23 Jan 1913, P23 via State Library of Victoria
↑11 Punch (Melb) 2 March 1911. P24 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑12 E W Hornung (1890) A Bride from the Bush via Project Gutenburg, P107
↑13 The Sun (Syd) 17 March 1911, P12, via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑14 Sun (Syd) 23 March 1911, P1 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑15 See Eric Reade, P47
↑16 The Sydney Morning Herald 13 Mar 1911, P11 and National Advocate (NSW) 31 Mar 1911 P2 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑17 Table Talk, 6 April, 1911 P1, via State Library of Victoria.
↑18 The Bendigo Advertiser, 10 April 1911, P1 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑19 It transpired the shark was dead. The Sun (Syd) 21 Feb 1912, P6 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑20 National Advocate (NSW) 21 Feb 1912, P4 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑21 Australian Stage Pictorial, April 1913, P56, Via State Library of Victoria
↑22 The Sun (Syd) 25 May, 1913, P15 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑23 Watt was a well known society figure and had been aide-de-camp to the state governor. For reporting see numerous articles on National Library of Australia’s Trove, including Australasian (Melb) 21 June, 1913, P34
↑24 Theatre, 1 Jan 1914, P23 Via State Library of Victoria
↑25 Known as the “Harvester Judgement,” the basic wage was intended to set the living wage an unskilled labourer and dependent family would need
↑26 For more on this, see Veronica Kelly (2013)
↑27 Referee (Syd) 24 Dec 1913, P15 Via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑28 Anna Bemrose (2006) P50
↑29 The Daily News (Perth) 30 Jun 1914, P6 Via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑30 Birmingham Daily Gazette, 28 December 1914, P6, via British Library Newspaper Archive
↑31 Some went further than a name change. Ivy’s father maintained the pretence he was Irish-born all his life. See Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria. Death Certificate, 1943, Julius Schilling 10555 / 1943
↑32 Theatre,(Sydney) 1 Jan 1921, P1, via State Library of Victoria
↑33 Variety 1 May 1917, P5, via the Internet Archive
↑34 Kinematograph Weekly (UK) 30 October 1919, P112. Via British Library Newspaper Archive
↑35 The Sketch 21 Feb 1917, P156. Copyright held by Illustrated London News Group. Via British Newspaper Archive
↑36 Sunday Times (Perth) 4 Jan 1920, P5 via
↑37 J.P. Wearing (1982), P484, citing The Stage newspaper
↑38 Daily Telegraph (Syd) 20 Sept 1920, P6, via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑39 Also on board was Dorothy Brunton, contracted to perform for JC Williamson’s.
↑40 Table Talk (Melb) 16 Sep 1920 P23 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑41 The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 23 May 1921, P3 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑42 later known as Leon Jankowsky or simply Jan Koswka, he was the brother of Alec and Cecil Kellaway
↑43 Table Talk (Melb) 11 August 1921, P7 via State Library of Victoria
↑44 Table Talk (Melb) 25 August 1921, P16, via State Library of Victoria
↑45 Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper (1977) P145
↑46 also known as The Land of Fantasy
↑47 the Australian quota for entry to the US in August had been filled and Ivy claimed she was unaware of visa requirements. See The Standard Union (New York) 19 Aug 1922, P2 and New York Tribune, 19 Aug 1922, P4
↑48 The Billboard, 23 Sept 1922, P17, via Lantern Digital Media Project
↑49 Hartford Courant (Connecticut) 27 Aug 1922, P36 via newspapers.com
↑50 The Sporting Globe (Melb) 28 Feb 1923, P9 and The Sun (Syd) 17 Apr 1923, P11 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑51 Table Talk (Melb) 22 March 1923, P32
↑52 Left – Sunday Illustrated, 21 Oct 1923, P10, via British Newspaper Archive. Right – Billboard, 23 Nov 1923, via Lantern Digital Media Project
↑53 Photoplay, Vol XXVII, April 1925, P17, via Lantern Digital Media project
↑54 Ship’s manifest SS Paris, 7-14 October 1925, US National Archives via Ancestry.com
↑55 Daily News (New York) 26 Feb 1928, P375
↑56 Everyone’s (Aust) 25 July 1928, P48. Via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑57 UK General Register Office, Death Certificate, Ivy May Ryan, 8 April 1972.
↑58 Daily Mirror, 21 Jan 1932. P24. Via British Newspaper Acrhive

Snub Pollard, the jobbing extra, writes to his family

Above: Snub Pollard in 1937. He made over 600 film and TV appearances between 1915 and 1962. Many of those made after the coming of sound were as an uncredited player. Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne.

Snub Pollard with two unnamed female friends in San Francisco, 1937. He sent this photo to his nephew in Australia. Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne.

Snub Pollard, born Harold Fraser in North Melbourne, Australia, in 1889, enjoyed a very long career on stage and in the US cinema.(See more about his professional life here) At the height of his success as a film comedian, he returned to Australia on a two month visit in 1923. He was well established at the Hal Roach studio, and told an Australian newspaper that he had a contract with Roach until 1927. Everything seemed to be going well. He was newly married, financially secure – to such an extent he could spend £2000 on a new house in Carlton for his mother.[1]He also paid for her to visit California the following year

Most of his letters home, surviving at the Australian Performing Arts Collection in Melbourne, are addressed to his brother George or to his nephew, also named Harold, who lived in Portarlington, a pretty seaside town south of Melbourne. The collection of letters mostly date from after this visit home, from the 1930s -1950s, by which time he was appearing in supporting or uncredited roles. His letters give no hints about his change in fortunes – the transition from being a major silent screen comedian of the early 1920s to jobbing extra [2]an actor who is taking any work to maintain their career is never mentioned. The correspondence is too late to cover the mid 1920s when Snub left Roach and set up his own production company, which then failed. However, there are other insights to be had from reading his correspondence.

Snub Pollard returns to Australia. At left is Snub and his new wife meeting the head of Amalgamated Pictures in Melbourne. At right, Snub greeted on arrival by his large extended family.[3]Table Talk, 22 March 1923, via State Library of Victoria

This writer has often wondered how strongly expat Australians working in Hollywood and Britain identified with their new cultural contexts and whether they maintained any sort of Australian identity. The evidence in the correspondence is that although Snub became a US citizen, he still regarded himself as an Australian and Australia as “home”. When he watched US newsreel footage showing the catastrophic 1939 bushfires near Melbourne, he said he felt homesick,[4]Australian Performing Arts Collection, Pollard collection, Letter 24 March 1939 when he went swimming or enjoyed the hot weather [5]APAC, Letter 25 May 1939 he thought it was because he was Australian. He said he read Australian newspapers at the RKO studios to keep up with the news.[6]APAC, Letter 25 May 1939

Snub’s trip home in 1923 remained a powerful memory. The very joyful time spent with brother George and his family at Portarlington seems to stayed with him for the rest of his life.“…Portarlington has a warm spot in my heart” he wrote.[7]APAC, Letter 18 September 1939 Even as late as 1949, he expressed his desire to visit again, “then we will all go swimming together” [8]APAC, Letter 17 February 1949 but soon after he complained that there were now no longer direct ships between California and Australia, “so that’s that” – meaning it was too much effort to travel to Vancouver to catch one.[9]APAC, Letter 14 March 1949

Snub posted a number of film publicity photos home to his nephew, including this one showing him in drag and without his trademark mustache. Unfortunately there is no notation as to what this film is. Australian Performing Arts Collection.

As might be expected, the topics covered in his letters include the mundane, like the weather in Los Angeles and how the seasons in California are the opposite to Australia’s, the opening of the baseball season, and comments about horse racing – a shared family interest that went back to Snub’s father. He also loved receiving family photos and regularly asked for more. He often listed the other family members he had just written to – it’s clear he took his family correspondence seriously.

Only sometimes does professional news feature in Snub’s letters, but several observations can be made from what he wrote. Westerns seem to have given him greatest pleasure; he mentions appearing in films with cowboy stars like Bob Steele and Tex Ritter and occasionally he mentioned the film titles by name. However, he worried that these Westerns might not be shown in Australian cinemas and therefore his family may not see them. Although he did not say so, these Westerns were second features, made quickly and on small budgets, usually with a running time of 60 minutes.

A photo sent home to Snub’s nephew in Australia. Tex Ritter with sometime sidekick Snub aka Peewee Pollard, cowboy stars of the late 1930s. Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne.

Interviewed in 1973, Tex Ritter seemed to suggest he had a role in Snub’s appearance as his sidekick in a dozen of his westerns made between 1936 and 1938. “I had seen Snub in his own little comedies when I was a kid. He was always one of my favourite comedians when I was growing up…I convinced them to put the old mustache back on him because a lot of people my age would remember him.”[10]John Booker (2017) The Happiest Trails. P142-3. Ent Books. The interview was conducted by Grant Lockhart during Tex Ritter’s last UK tour in May 1973

The film Snub mentioned most often in letters sent during the period 1943-44 is the Pete Smith film Self Defence, one of a string of 10 minute comedy shorts made at MGM.[11]APAC postcards, 12 June 1943, 26 May 1944, 21 June 1944, 4 Nov 1944 Unfortunately, it appears to be lost, although other Smith shorts have survived. Snub makes the point in one letter that as an extra, he didn’t really know how good his part would be until he started work on the picture.[12]APAC Letter 14 March 1949 This may explain why he appears to have little awareness of the significance of some of the films he appeared in – such as the now classic sci-fi film The Day the Earth Stood Still, in 1951 or the musical Singin’ in the Rain in 1952. In May 1948, he wrote of working on a Bing Crosby film for two weeks in San Francisco, although what this was seems difficult to identify now – possibly it was A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. [13]APAC Letter 15 May 1948

Snub Pollard without makeup. c1940s. Australian Performing Arts Collection

One of the most significant matters alluded to by Snub was his involvement in the Screen Extras Guild, an association he joined in the later 1940s. [14]APAC Letter 23 March 1949 He was on the board of directors of the Guild by March 1949 and remained so for at least ten years, in company with another Australian actor, perennial Hollywood butler William H O’Brien.[15]Valley Times (CA) 14 Jul 1952, P4 via newspapers.com While there is no evidence his politics were as radical as those of another famous Australian-born unionist in the US, Harry Bridges of the International Longshoremen’s Association, the activities of the SEG were designed to protect the rights of worker members who might otherwise easily be exploited. SEG’s efforts included demanding health and welfare benefits for extras [16]Los Angeles Times, 1 June 1955, P16. via newspapers.com and refusing compromising conditions to employment.[17]The Fresno Bee (CA) 24 March 1949 via newspapers.com Snub’s first travel in a commercial aircraft was on SEG business in 1949. He wrote about the experience at some length and posted the United Airlines information packet home to his nephew.

The technology Snub often wrote about in the later 1940s was television – as he was beginning to be employed in TV shows and started to see his old comedies replayed. He seemed to have lived in hope that the new medium might see him making comedies again in his old makeup, and he wrote that he had some good proposals. Television in Australia was still being planned when he wrote to his nephew to explain how the exciting new medium worked: “you sure will like it. After dinner you go in your front room, turn on the television set and see all the pictures you want to, even Snub Pollard comedies.” [18]APAC letter 4 Jan, 1952 “Yes television over here is great I see a lot of my old comedies…”[19]APAC Letter 15 (possibly) July 1952 Television began in Australia in late 1956, when to fill screen time, Australian TV stations no doubt turned to the readily available work of silent comedians like Snub.

A photo sent to Australia in the early 1950s. On the back Snub wrote “this is… from a television picture I was in recently. What do you think of the girl?” What the TV program was, remains unknown. Australian Performing Arts Collection.

Of Snub’s personal life, the surviving letters tell us only a little. After the Second World War he lodged with old friends, including a director of some of his old comedies.[20]But he does not say who the ex director was. APAC Letter 13 May 1949 He spent Christmas and festive occasions with friends and still received fan mail. He had married three times, but by 1944 could assure his family he was no longer married and by 1946 had apparently decided he wanted to stay single.[21]APAC Postcards 30 Sept 1944 and 30 April 1946

Occasionally Snub sent small gifts home in a parcel – combs and pens. He also sometimes posted the comic sections of US newspapers to his nephew, and forwarded on postcards he had been sent by fans, that tickled his fancy. Several of these were fairly risqué for the time, and might tell us something about Snub’s own sense of humour.

A 1948 postcard that had been sent to Snub by a US fan with the annotation “Im wondering about your trip here last year” and sent on to his Australian nephew. “Sure is a funny one” Snub added. Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne.

Snub Pollard did not return again to see his family, but stayed in California.[22]Several Australian newspapers announced he had returned for a performance tour in 1931, however, there is no other evidence of this Although he never stated it directly, there is a sense of regret about this in his letters. However, he had spent most of his life at a remove from his family – first travelling the world with the Pollard child performers, then with older ex-pollard players, and then in Hollywood, which had more than a sprinkling of former Australian vaudevillians amongst them. Snub worked almost to the time of his death in 1962.

Snub Pollard on a holiday, late in life. c1950s. Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne

NOTE 1

The collection consist of postcards, photos, Christmas cards and letters, the majority are dated between 1939 and 1953. Correspondence from the war years are all postcards. The recipient of most is Harold Fraser, the son of Snub’s older brother George. The Australian Performing Arts Collection purchased this collection in the early 1990s. As noted, Snub wrote to all his family, and we must assume this is only a partial record.

Thanks

  • Claudia Funder, Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne, who convinced me to leaf through their Snub Pollard Collection.
  • Kevin Summers and Geoffrey Wright, whose patient persistence demonstrated that I was wrong and Snub Pollard did indeed appear as a taxi driver in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Further Reading

  • John Booker (2017) The Happiest Trails. P142-3. Ent Books.
  • Kevin Brownlow (1968) The Parade’s Gone By… University of California Press.
  • Ted Holland (1989) B western actors encyclopedia; Facts, photos and filmographies for more than 250 familiar faces. McFarland & Co
  • Kalton C Lahue and Sam Gill (1970) Clown princes and court jesters. Some great comics of the silent screen. A S Barnes
  • Brent Walker (2013) “Mack Sennett’s Fun Factory: A History and Filmography of his Studio and His Keystone and Mack Sennett Comedies, with Biographies of Players and Personnel” McFarland & Co
  • Matthew Ross. Lost Laugh Magazine, Number 13.

This site has been selected for preservation in the National Library of Australia’s Pandora archive

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 He also paid for her to visit California the following year
↑2 an actor who is taking any work to maintain their career
↑3 Table Talk, 22 March 1923, via State Library of Victoria
↑4 Australian Performing Arts Collection, Pollard collection, Letter 24 March 1939
↑5, ↑6 APAC, Letter 25 May 1939
↑7 APAC, Letter 18 September 1939
↑8 APAC, Letter 17 February 1949
↑9 APAC, Letter 14 March 1949
↑10 John Booker (2017) The Happiest Trails. P142-3. Ent Books. The interview was conducted by Grant Lockhart during Tex Ritter’s last UK tour in May 1973
↑11 APAC postcards, 12 June 1943, 26 May 1944, 21 June 1944, 4 Nov 1944
↑12 APAC Letter 14 March 1949
↑13 APAC Letter 15 May 1948
↑14 APAC Letter 23 March 1949
↑15 Valley Times (CA) 14 Jul 1952, P4 via newspapers.com
↑16 Los Angeles Times, 1 June 1955, P16. via newspapers.com
↑17 The Fresno Bee (CA) 24 March 1949 via newspapers.com
↑18 APAC letter 4 Jan, 1952
↑19 APAC Letter 15 (possibly) July 1952
↑20 But he does not say who the ex director was. APAC Letter 13 May 1949
↑21 APAC Postcards 30 Sept 1944 and 30 April 1946
↑22 Several Australian newspapers announced he had returned for a performance tour in 1931, however, there is no other evidence of this

Tempe Pigott (1867-1962)-the busy Hollywood character actor

Above: Tempe Pigott playing a charwoman, in the early technicolor film Becky Sharpe, 1935. She was 68 years old and well and truly typecast.
The 5 second version.
Florence Edith Tempe Pigott was aged almost 50 when she arrived in the US in mid 1916, an unusually late start in life for an Australian actor interested in working overseas. She was born on a remote Queensland pastoral station in 1867 but had lived most of her early life comfortably in Brisbane. A teacher of elocution and long active in amateur theatre, she started professional work in about 1907. (See Note 1 below regarding her birth)

Tempe went on to be one of the busiest Australian actor exports of her generation. But when she died in California in 1962, her death certificate recorded very few details accurately. It listed her birthplace as England and gave her date of birth as 2 February 1884. Without family to correct details the real story of her remarkable career – with more than 70 film credits and numerous stage appearances, has been obscured. She was to be typecast for her entire Hollywood career. Speaking disparagingly of film producers, she once said ‘When they want a drunken fishwife, they know where to apply.‘[1]The Wireless Weekly, 2 Oct 1936, P11, Via National Library of Australia’s Trove


Above: Tempe Pigott, while performing in Melbourne in 1912.[2]Table Talk, 18 July 1912. Via State Library of Victoria

Tempe’s remote Australian birth

Florence Edith Tempe Pigott was born at Auburn station, about 450 kms north-west of Brisbane,[3]in Australia, a station means a large pastoral lease running livestock – like a ranch in North America in the Burnett district in Queensland, on 2 February 1867. Tempe was therefore 84 years old when she appeared in her last recorded film in 1951 and about 95 when she died in 1962. (See Note 1 below regarding her birth)

Tempe’s father was pastoralist[4]in Australia the word “Squatter” is also used Peter J Pigott, her mother was Lydia nee Clarke, the daughter of well known Queensland architect Francis Clarke. While working life on pastoral leases like Auburn was hard, the profits to be made were significant. Pigott could afford to go on an extended trip to England and Ireland in the mid 1860s, but when his business partner J M Murphy died in an accident, he hurried home.[5]Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser (Qld) 28 Apr 1863, P3 and Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser (Qld)1 Mar 1865, P2 Via National Library of Australia’s … Continue reading The frontier of Tempe’s birth was also notoriously violent. Records of catastrophic clashes with Indigenous Australians do not mention Pigott or Auburn station, but they are found in nearby localities at this time. Another significant feature of life on properties like Auburn was its remoteness. Today, the nearest town is Chinchilla – comprising 6,500 people and about 100 kms to the south. However, when Pigott took up his lease at Auburn, Chinchilla did not exist, and Maryborough, 300 kms to the east was the nearest big town.

Photos of Auburn station are elusive. This shows the main homestead sometime in the 1920s. State Library of Queensland.[6]Auburn Station homestead. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland.

Life in Brisbane

Peter J Pigott died in November 1870 aged only 49, and soon after Lydia took her children back to Brisbane.[7]Like Tempe’s birth certificate, Peter Pigott’s death certificate remains elusive. However, his death notice appeared in The Brisbane Courier (Qld), 14 Nov 1870, P 2. Via National Library … Continue reading In 1874 Lydia married William Horsley, a merchant and Brisbane broker. Brisbane was a growing city but in 1900 its population of 120,000 was still only a quarter the size of the other major east coast cities – Melbourne and Sydney. Consequently its theatre scene was smaller and opportunities for those keen to pursue the stage were limited. Tempe’s first recorded appearance in amateur theatre was in a charity performance of the comedy New Men and Old Acres, in June 1885.

Tempe was 18 when she appeared in this Brisbane charity performance in 1885.[8]The Brisbane Courier,(Qld) 9 June 1885, P1. Via National Library of Australia’s Trove

In later interviews with journalists, Tempe revealed other aspects of her Brisbane life as a young adult. She said she was an accomplished tennis player, having become amateur women’s champion of Queensland. She was also a recreational rifle shooter, and had taken up women’s rowing. She also painted watercolours in her spare time.[9]Australian Town and Country Journal (Syd) 20 May 1914, P26 via National Library of Australia’s Trove While electoral rolls for the early 1900s listed her as a typist, we also know she taught elocution in Brisbane, advertising her services in local papers in 1904 and 1905 – a 14 week course cost 25 shillings. By this time she was living at a rather grand, gothic style, private hotel called Riversleigh on Brisbane’s North Quay, although her mother and step-father lived only a few streets away.

Tempe, not in character in a photo possibly taken when she was aged in her 30s.[10]Melbourne Punch, 11 July 1912 State Library of Victoria

Elocution and the theatre

In addition to making her own income, as the daughter of a successful pastoralist and step-daughter of a wealthy businessman, she would also have had a healthy degree of financial freedom and she certainly enjoyed connections with Brisbane’s elite. When 29 year old Tempe attended the Governor’s Ball in 1896, her attendance and attire was duly noted, [11]The Brisbane Courier (Qld.) 12 Sep 1896 P6 via National Library of Australia’s Trove and when she visited friends in Warwick or Gympie, the newspapers reported her “holidaying” in their social pages. Even when she returned to Australia in 1936 after 20 years in the US, she was still well enough connected to be invited to society events where “anecdotes of Hollywood were very much in demand”[12]The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 Sept 1936, P7 via National Library of Australia’s Trove – these included afternoon tea with Sydney’s Lady Mayoress and friends.[13]The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 15 Sept 1936, P9, via National Library of Australia’s Trove

In his study of selected character actors of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Axel Nissan respectfully describes Tempe as ‘the Eternal Landlady’ [14]See Axel Nissen: Accustomed to Her Face: Thirty-Five Character Actresses of Golden Age Hollywood. McFarland & Co, 2016 and that is indeed, the way we see her in many of her surviving films.[15]Although the available film role databases also list her by less flattering titles – such as ‘Old woman/Old Hag/Old Crone/Charwoman/Flower seller etc It appears she began to appear in these types of roles while performing in Australia.

Tempe playing a maid in the farce, A Dead Shot, a fundraiser for the Roma School of Arts in 1888.[16]Western Star and Roma Advertiser (Qld.) 2 June 1888
P3 via National Library of Australia’s Trove

At some stage in 1907, Tempe started to appear in professional performances. The first was probably with the Lillian Meyers Company – touring Australian cities and towns with a variety of drama and comedies. Thanks to her skill in elocution, she increasingly took on important character roles. For example, in Hobart in January 1908, in a new play about the ever popular Kelly Gang, she took the supporting role of Ned Kelly’s Irish mother, Ellen. Ellen Kelly was still alive at the time, and the Kelly story still resonated so strongly with Australians that it had been made into a feature film only a few years before.[17]Mercury (Tas) 2 Jan 1908, P7, via National Library of Australia’s Trove

Tempe’s character roles on the Australian stage included (left) Cora the maid in the comedy The Man on the Box, and (right) Scottish nurse Christine Grant in Nobody’s Daughter.[18]Melbourne Punch (Vic), 28 Aug 1913, P21 and Telegraph (Qld) 11 Nov 1911, P18, via National Library of Australia’s Trove

By 1911, she was now touring with the Hamilton-Plimmer-Denniston Company, in the comedy-drama Nobody’s Daughter, alternating with the comedy Lover’s Lane. In the latter, Tempe formed part of a “splendid gallery of portraiture” – which, after all, was the task of a character actor.[19]Table Talk (Vic) 13 Jul 1911, P21 via National Library of Australia’s Trove Tempe’s role as the old Scottish nurse Christine Grant in Nobody’s Daughter received very good reviews.

By 1912 Tempe was in regular work on the Australian stage, often performing for Sydney’s Little Theatre, between longer seasons at larger east coast theatres. However we gain some sense of why better paid overseas work may have been attractive from her surviving JC Williamson’s contract for the patriotic play The Man Who Stayed at Home. Her July 1915 contract was for the very modest sum of £6 per week, the equivalent perhaps of $600 in 2021 money.[20]Tempe Pigott, JC Williamson Ltd Contract, 23 July 1915, courtesy Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne

In late April 1916, the Sydney Little Theatre farewelled her after a final performance in Hindle Wakes.[21]Sydney Morning Herald, 29 April 1916, P18, via National Library of Australia’s Trove

As the nasty gossip Mrs Candour, in School for Scandal, at Sydney’s Little Theatre in 1914. [22]The Sydney Mail (Syd) 17 Jun 1914, P15 via National Library of Australia’s Trove

Work in the US

In May 1916, Tempe boarded the SS Sierra for the US. Her travelling companion was Marie Irvine, a Brisbane journalist. Although it was now wartime and the usual reporting about an Australian actor travelling overseas to take on the world was muted, her hometown paper, the Brisbane Courier reported “Miss Pigott ranks with the best artists the Australian stage possesses…This esteemed artist cannot possibly fail to make a name in America…”[23]Brisbane Courier 13 May, 1916, P12, via National Library of Australia’s Trove.

The passenger manifest makes it clear her destination was New York and she seems to have succeeded in finding work soon after arrival. From late 1916 Tempe can be found in the cast lists of several plays touring US cities. The first of these was Peg O’ My Heart – where she took the role of the English Mrs Chichester, who educates a young New York girl to be a lady, in return for a large portion of an inheritance – a Pygmalion style story. The next four years of effort on the US stage, including a short season of Perkins in New York in 1918, finally saw her in Los Angeles, performing at the Writer’s Club.

Like so many of her contemporaries, the actual reasoning for Tempe’s move to the US had been a career and financial decision. And of Hollywood she said; “It was quite natural that I should gravitate towards Hollywood… 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.”[24]The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 Aug 1936, P8 via National Library of Australia’s Trove All the same, as this writer has indicated, there is some likelihood Tempe had inherited some additional financial security.

Her first film was apparently the Famous Players Lasky’s The Great Impersonation, released in 1921, probably a lost film, although in interviews she nominated other films as her first, including Behold My Wife (1920).

58 year old Tempe Pigott, listed as a female character actor, in the Standard Casting Directory of 1925.[25]Standard Casting Directory, Feb 1925, via Lantern Digital Media Archive and the Internet Archive

Alex Nissan, who seems to have gone to the effort of finding and watching much of her work, writes: “in films there has to be someone to open the door and say so and so is calling, or make a drunken spectacle of themselves in a pub… Such an actress was Tempe Pigott.“[26]Nissan, 2016, Chapter 25 All the same, definitive commentary about her thirty years of work in film is difficult, insofar as she sometimes played such minor character roles and her appearance is fleeting.

Tempe in one of her fleeting roles – as Mrs Hudson, Sherlock Holmes’ landlady, in A Study in Scarlett (1933)[27]screengrab from a copy on youtube

There is also the problem of mis-identification of Tempe, given that she was undoubtedly made up to look as aged and careworn as possible in many of her films. For example, the current version of the IMDB illustrates her profile with a photo that is arguably Dorothy Phillips made-up as an older woman.[28]See Photoplay July-Dec 1925. Via Lantern Digital Media Library & The Internet Archive

An unusually well-lit Tempe, as McTeague’s mother in Erich von Stroheim’s Greed (1924)[29]Screengrab from copy at the Internet Archive
Tempe as the maid to Princess Isobel (Billie Dove), in The Black Pirate , a two colour Technicolour action film featuring Douglas Fairbanks(1926)[30]Screengrab from copy at the Internet Archive

Some available examples of Tempe’s film work are linked in the references section below. Nissan notes that the earlier 1930s were a busy time for her,[31]she appeared in at least 35 films in 1930-36 and she made the transition to sound films successfully, when so many did not. Commenting on this herself on her return to Australia in 1936-7, Tempe suggested this was partly thanks to her expertise in elocution. “So much depends not only on the voice but on the pronunciation.” The journalist reported that Tempe ” had a beautiful speaking voice, fine diction and an easy manner…”[32]Telegraph, (Qld) 2 March 1937. P6. via National Library of Australia’s Trove “Talkies came upon us so suddenly…and it was pathetic to watch the falling of so many of the stars. Many of the women, and the men, too, merely had beautiful faces; often they could not speak English at all. If they did, it was sometimes harsh English, which could never be corrected.”[33]The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 Aug 1936, P8 via National Library of Australia’s Trove She had gone to some effort to avoid picking up an American accent, she said.[34]Wireless Weekly (Aust) 2 Oct, 1936, P18, via National Library of Australia’s Trove As her surviving sound films illustrate, her voice skills were particularly notable in a variety of British accents.

Tempe as Mrs Haggerty in the home front film Seven Days Leave (1930) [35]Screengrab from copy at the Internet Archive

Not all of her screen appearances were fleeting. Her extended supporting role as one of the working class London women in the Gary Cooper vehicle Seven Days Leave (1930), gained positive reviews – the film is based on J.M. Barrie’s bitter-sweet play The Old Lady Shows Her Medals. Some of her shorter appearances are still of characters important in film narratives – such as nurse Mrs Corney, who steals the ring from Oliver’s mother in Oliver Twist (1933), thus setting in train the series of events that make the story.

Tempe, with the castor oil bottle and Douglas Scott as Oscar in Night Work (1930).[36]Screengrab from copy at the Internet Archive

Tempe’s voice can be heard in this example from Night Work (1930), where she plays Clara the nurse, determined to give young Oscar his castor oil, enlisting Mr Musher (Eddie Quillan) to help.[37]Source – copy at the Internet Archive

Tempe also appeared in a role of substance in the very successful 1933 Fox film Cavalcade, based on a play by Noël Coward. A film in the style of the Forsyte Saga and Upstairs Downstairs, it was one of a string of Hollywood films that romanticized all things English, while also celebrating the challenges and successes of family life. It won several Academy Awards – for best Picture, best Director (Frank Lloyd) and best Art Direction. Alongside Tempe was fellow Australian Billy Bevan, also playing a role that required a working class English accent – something Hollywood studios often called upon Australians to perform.

A posed still of the main cast of the hugely successful Cavalcade (1933). A smiling Tempe (as Mrs Snapper) is standing at left rear.[38]Cinemundial, June 1933, P331, Via Lantern Digital Medial Library & the Internet Archive

Tempe returned to Australia for a visit in August 1936. She stayed on for about seven months, living with her cousins (on her mother’s side) at their comfortable home at Sydney’s Darling Point. She was widely interviewed for radio and newspapers, and gave talks at society events. She gave at least one radio performance as Sairey Gamp (a character from Charles Dicken’s Martin Chuzzlewit) for ABC radio. She even expressed a hope that she might appear in an Australian film. But she didn’t. She returned to Hollywood in March 1937. Unfortunately, given her age, she was stopped on return to the US. She was an alien (a non-US citizen), and was given a class “B” medical certificate, probably because her age (stated to be 68 but really 70) might normally suggest she would be unable to earn a living. However, in the end, the US accepted her, perhaps after some assurances from her agent or a studio.

Tempe in The White Angel (1936) – a creative telling of the Florence Nightingale.[39]Truth (Syd) 16 Aug 1936, P35, via National Library of Australia’s Trove

Did she lose her “currency” in the time she was away from Hollywood? It is difficult to be certain, but her film ouput seems to have slowed on her return to Hollywood. Her 30 year film career finally came to a close with a tiny role in the 1951 Douglas Sirk crime drama Thunder on the Hill, when she was aged 84, and again playing an “old crone,” according to the cast list at the IMDB.

Two key documents we might expect would help cast some light on Tempe’s later life are at least partly erroneous. As Alex Nissan notes, the 1940 US census shows Tempe was a lodger in a house in the heart of Hollywood by this time, and had only earned $500 in the year before the census.[40]Nissan, 2016, Chapter 25 But the document also gives her place of birth as England, and her age as 56. Her 1962 death certificate also stated she was an Englishwoman, born on 2 Feb 1884. In fact, she was 95 years old when she died. The certificate also reveals that she had broken her hip in a fall not long before her death.

Tempe (as a beggar) with fellow Australian C Montague Shaw in costume for The Pilgrimage Play (1950).[41]Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, 15 July 1950, P3, via Newspapers.com

We might view Tempe Pigott as another victim of Hollywood casting practices, however she also appears to have been quite conscious of what the studios required and was a willing participant in the transaction – and after all, she had returned to the US to do more of it in 1937. During her visit home to Australia she repeatedly said that Hollywood had a policy of “typing” actors. She alluded to an unnamed acquaintance [42]possibly fellow Australian William H O’Brien who was only ever offered butler roles. Because of this practice of typecasting she would never be offered “a grand dame to play”[43]Daily Telegraph (Syd) 4 Aug 1913, P12 via National Library of Australia’s Trove. But this appears not to have concerned her, as such grand dame parts were “very thankless… You just sail about” she observed.[44]Wireless Weekly (Aust) 2 Oct, 1936, P18, via National Library of Australia’s Trove

To the best of this writer’s knowledge Tempe did not marry[45]her death certificate states she was a widow, but no record of a marriage has come to light and she had no children. US papers reported her death in California in 1962, but remarkable though her very long career was, her passing was completely overlooked in Australia. She really should not have been so easily forgotten in her country of birth.

Note 1. The mystery of Tempe’s birth

There is no surviving Queensland birth certificate for Florence Edith Tempe Pigott, or if one exists, it has been mis-identified. While that was unusual in the Australian colonies, it is not unknown. But we know the details of her birth with a high degree of certainty from several other sources:
1. When she was born on 2 February 1867, her parents announced the birth of their (as yet unnamed) daughter in a prominent position in a number of major Australian newspapers, in New South Wales and Queensland, in February 1867.[46]The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 Feb 1867, P1 and The Brisbane Courier, 15 Feb, 1867, P2. Via National Library of Australia’s Trove

2. And on Tempe’s mother Lydia’s death certificate from 1912 (by now Lydia Horsley), her three surviving children from her first marriage to Peter J Pigott were clearly named, with their ages. This again confirms Tempe as the child born in 1867.

Enlargement of part of Lydia Horsley’s 1912 death certificate showing her 3 surviving adult children, including Tempe.

3. Also of interest, Tempe’s younger sibling Madaline, born in October 1868, did not have a birth certificate issued until 1871, confirming that the family were not very observant of obligations to complete official paperwork – but perhaps their isolation was also to blame.(On Madaline’s birth certificate Tempe is listed as a 3 year old) And as noted, there is no death certificate for Tempe’s father, Peter J Pigott, who died on 2 November 1870, while seeking treatment for an unspecified ailment. The absence of a death certificate is unusual.

Nick Murphy
December 2022

References

Primary Sources

  • Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre, Melbourne.
  • National Archives of Australia
  • Ancestry.com
  • Queensland; Births, Deaths & Marriages
  • California, Department of Public Health
  • Lantern, Digital Media Project at the Internet Archive
  • National Library of Australia, Trove.
  • Newspapers.com

Text

  • Queensland Government Intelligence & Tourist Bureau. Hotel And Boarding House Directory, 1912 (via Internet Archive)
  • William Brooks. The Central and Upper Burnett River District of Queensland centenary souvenir, 1848-1948, embracing the districts of Gayndah, Mundubbera, Eidsvold and Monto. 1948
  • Paul Michael (Ed) The American Movies. Garland Books, 1974.
  • Axel Nissen. Accustomed to Her Face: Thirty-Five Character Actresses of Golden Age Hollywood. McFarland & Co, 2016
  • Rosebud T Solis-Cohen. The Exclusion of Aliens from the United States for Physical Defects. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Jan-Feb 1947, Vol 21, No 1, 33-50. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Films

Web: Ausstage Database

Web: The Files of Jerry Blake

This site has been selected for preservation in the National Library of Australia’s Pandora archive

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 The Wireless Weekly, 2 Oct 1936, P11, Via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑2 Table Talk, 18 July 1912. Via State Library of Victoria
↑3 in Australia, a station means a large pastoral lease running livestock – like a ranch in North America
↑4 in Australia the word “Squatter” is also used
↑5 Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser (Qld) 28 Apr 1863, P3 and Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser (Qld)1 Mar 1865, P2 Via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑6 Auburn Station homestead. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland.
↑7 Like Tempe’s birth certificate, Peter Pigott’s death certificate remains elusive. However, his death notice appeared in The Brisbane Courier (Qld), 14 Nov 1870, P 2. Via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑8 The Brisbane Courier,(Qld) 9 June 1885, P1. Via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑9 Australian Town and Country Journal (Syd) 20 May 1914, P26 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑10 Melbourne Punch, 11 July 1912 State Library of Victoria
↑11 The Brisbane Courier (Qld.) 12 Sep 1896 P6 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑12 The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 Sept 1936, P7 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑13 The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 15 Sept 1936, P9, via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑14 See Axel Nissen: Accustomed to Her Face: Thirty-Five Character Actresses of Golden Age Hollywood. McFarland & Co, 2016
↑15 Although the available film role databases also list her by less flattering titles – such as ‘Old woman/Old Hag/Old Crone/Charwoman/Flower seller etc
↑16 Western Star and Roma Advertiser (Qld.) 2 June 1888
P3 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑17 Mercury (Tas) 2 Jan 1908, P7, via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑18 Melbourne Punch (Vic), 28 Aug 1913, P21 and Telegraph (Qld) 11 Nov 1911, P18, via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑19 Table Talk (Vic) 13 Jul 1911, P21 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑20 Tempe Pigott, JC Williamson Ltd Contract, 23 July 1915, courtesy Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne
↑21 Sydney Morning Herald, 29 April 1916, P18, via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑22 The Sydney Mail (Syd) 17 Jun 1914, P15 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑23 Brisbane Courier 13 May, 1916, P12, via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑24 The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 Aug 1936, P8 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑25 Standard Casting Directory, Feb 1925, via Lantern Digital Media Archive and the Internet Archive
↑26, ↑40 Nissan, 2016, Chapter 25
↑27 screengrab from a copy on youtube
↑28 See Photoplay July-Dec 1925. Via Lantern Digital Media Library & The Internet Archive
↑29, ↑30, ↑35, ↑36 Screengrab from copy at the Internet Archive
↑31 she appeared in at least 35 films in 1930-36
↑32 Telegraph, (Qld) 2 March 1937. P6. via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑33 The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 Aug 1936, P8 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑34, ↑44 Wireless Weekly (Aust) 2 Oct, 1936, P18, via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑37 Source – copy at the Internet Archive
↑38 Cinemundial, June 1933, P331, Via Lantern Digital Medial Library & the Internet Archive
↑39 Truth (Syd) 16 Aug 1936, P35, via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑41 Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, 15 July 1950, P3, via Newspapers.com
↑42 possibly fellow Australian William H O’Brien
↑43 Daily Telegraph (Syd) 4 Aug 1913, P12 via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑45 her death certificate states she was a widow, but no record of a marriage has come to light
↑46 The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 Feb 1867, P1 and The Brisbane Courier, 15 Feb, 1867, P2. Via National Library of Australia’s Trove

Lloyd Lamble (1914-2008)-“The strutting & the fretting”*

Above and below: Lloyd Lamble in the first of many authority roles – shown here as the RAF Meteorological Officer in the British Lion film Appointment in London, or Raiders in the Sky 1953. Courtesy Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre, Melbourne.
The 5 second version
Lloyd Lamble (born Melbourne, Australia in 1914) is not a forgotten Australian actor. There are a number of biographies on line and in print, and several fulsome obituaries appeared when he died. Yet most make little mention of his 18 year career on the Australian stage and in radio before he moved to the UK in 1951, and there are also confusing claims about key events in his life. His British career saw him become what Brian McFarlane describes as a “sturdy, reliable character player.”[1]Brian McFarlane (2003) The Encyclopedia of British Film, P376, BFI/Methuen His first film was a 1943 propaganda short. While the IMDB lists over 160 TV and film appearances – usually as an authority figure in a supporting role – it transpires that by the end of his life he was deeply dissatisfied with his career. He married three times and died at his home in Cornwall in 2008.

* The first draft of his unpublished autobiography was entitled The Strutting and the fretting – which is a quotation adapted from Macbeth: “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more.” 

Lamble in Melbourne

Lloyd Nelson Lamble was born in Melbourne, Australia on February 8, 1914, the youngest of four boys born to William Henry Lamble, a musician and secretary of the Musicians Union of Australia and Frances nee Potter. A promising soloist in his church choir, Lloyd won a scholarship to nearby Wesley College in Prahran, and on leaving school he found work as a “Junior Announcer” at Melbourne radio station 3DB, followed by a longer stint at 3KZ and then at 3AW, broken up by some work as a Dance Band singer.[2]He would later claim that he suffered periods of unemployment at this time which may well have heightened his political senses – see also The Daily News (Syd) 12 Feb 1940, P2 Via Trove Bob Walker, 3KZ’s biographer, described the young Lloyd Lamble as “tall, good looking, with blond hair and rich of voice.”[3]RR Walker(1984) Dial 1179, The 3KZ Story. P.22 Lloyd O’Neil While at 3AW he moved into radio acting with the Lee Murray Radio Players, and not surprisingly, then found his way to the stage.[4]Richard Lane (1994) The Golden Age of Australian Radio Drama. P185-6, Melbourne University Press[5]Newspapers had noted his success on the amateur stage as early as 1933 – see The Argus (Melb) 13 May 1933 via Trove

His accent was described by one radio listener as “jammy,”[6]Walker P23 – which is archaic Australian slang for “posh”, a comment audiences regularly made of radio announcers of the era. Surviving examples of his accent illustrate a very well spoken, or “refined” Australian accent. An episode of popular Australian comedian Mo’s (Roy Rene) short nightly program from late 1936 – with straight roles played by Lloyd (as Willie) and Sadie Gale (as Mrs Mo) – can be heard here at the Australian Old Time Radio website.

“Tall, good looking, with blond hair and rich of voice“. Photo by Athol Shmith of Lamble c1935 [7]Note: Damage on the print emulsion has been covered up Courtesy the Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne

Lamble commented on Australian accents in his autobiography and his own “oxford accent.” This is interesting given he said some of his family and fellow students at school had broad accents.[8]Lloyd Lamble (1990) The Strutting & the Fretting, unpublished autobiography, P60. 1st draft, Private collection. The final title of the unpublished work was Hi Diddle Dee Dee: An Actor’s Life … Continue reading However, it is likely his accent developed with the aid of elocution or “speech” lessons at Wesley. In 1937 Lamble started his own acting and radio school, which included elocution lessons for aspiring radio artists.[9]Lamble, 1990, P93 Also see Note 1 below.

Lamble’s radio school advertising in Melbourne’s Argus in November 1938.[10]The Argus (Melb) 19 Nov 1938, P25. Via Trove

Breakthrough role

As Richard Lane has noted, 22 year old Lloyd Lamble’s breakthrough role on stage was in Emlyn Williams’ “exciting throat-gripping thriller”– Night Must Fall, directed by Gregan McMahon.[11]The Argus (Melb) 17 Feb 1936 P5 Via Trove His leading role as “Baby-face Dan” was a triumph, the Age newspaper reporting that “Lamble exhibited once more a talent which should be nurtured with great care. His scene with Elaine Hamill (Olivia Grayne) in the second act was wholly brilliant…”[12]The Age (Melb) 17 Feb 1936, P12, Via Trove The play toured cities of east coast Australia and in New Zealand, to great acclaim. “It would be a difficult matter to find an actor, even in London or New York, who could handle this remarkable character as masterly as Lloyd Lamble” reported Dunedin’s Evening Star in August 1936.[13]A nice compliment from the paper, but Emlyn Williams was performing the role himself at the time on Broadway, to similar acclaim. Evening Star,(NZ) 3 Aug 1936, P6. Via National Library of New … Continue reading Before the tour of New Zealand, Lloyd became engaged to an old friend, Marjorie Barrett, a secretarial clerk from South Yarra. The couple married in Melbourne on March 18th 1937, Lloyd reputedly being required back on stage that same night.[14]Victoria BDM, marriage certificate 998/1937 18 March 1937

Another photo of Lamble in the mid 1930s, by Athol Shmith. Courtesy the Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne

By 1940 Lloyd Lamble was widely recognised as one of the country’s leading radio actors.[15]See for example, the breathy interview with him in Wireless Weekly, 7 Sept 1940, P9.”…Worships at the shrine of a radio actor” Via Trove From 1939 he took roles in a string of productions at Sydney’s new Minerva Theatre, for entrepreneur David N Martin.[16]The Wireless Weekly, Sept 14, 1940, Vol. 35 No. 37, P5 Via Trove Fellow performers included a long list of others who were making their name, or had already done so – the likes of John Wood, Ron Randell, Fifi Banvard, Claude Flemming, Trilby Clark, Marjorie Gordon and Muriel Steinbeck. A reviewer for The Bulletin in May 1940 wrote “Lamble is acting so well these days…that it is becoming worthwhile to go to any Minerva production just to watch his development.”[17]The Bulletin May 8, 1940, P31 Via Trove, also cited in Richard Lane (1994) P186

Left: Lamble as Denys in Quiet Wedding, Jan 1940. Right: Lamble as Lennie in Of Mice and Men, with Ron Randell, April 1940. Courtesy the Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne

Marriages, children & communism

Several important developments occurred in the first years of the Second World War. Despite his success, Lamble’s political views had become more pronounced with his own experience of the theatre and radio scene, and in particular, he saw first hand the challenge of actors being exploited and living on a pittance.[18]See for example The West Australian, 18 Jul 1941, P3 and The West Australian, 22 Apr 1942, P3, Via Trove In his memoirs, Lamble indicates he had also faced periods of unemployment – “I’ve lived on the smell of an oil rag” he told a Sydney paper in 1940.[19]Daily News, 12 Feb 1940, P2, Via Trove Increasingly active in his union and determined to protect the rights of performers in the small industrial world of the Australian theatre, in 1942 he was elected President of Actor’s Equity, a position he held for much of the 1940s.

Another change related to his personal circumstances. On his return to Sydney he met actress Barbara Smith (a younger sister of actress Nancy O’Neil). Barbara Smith had studied at London’s RADA before returning to Australia in 1935 and was forging her own career on stage and radio at the time.[20]The Australian Women’s Weekly, 8 May 1937, P54, Via Trove The couple’s affair began while they were performing together in Dinner at Eight at the Minerva Theatre in 1939. In his autobiography, Lamble describes the resulting confrontation with Marjorie, who on hearing of the affair, had rushed up from Melbourne. “Poor darling! She was shattered and it was an awful, traumatic time.“[21]Lamble 1990, P101 Their divorce was finally granted in May 1943. [22]Herald (Melb) 27 May 1943, page 3 via Trove

Lloyd Lamble and Barbara Smith in 1941. Private Collection.

In his autobiography, Lamble described the war years in Sydney as an exciting time and a glance at the holdings of the NFSA (here) and the Ausstage database (which is incomplete) shows he continued to be busy on stage and in radio.[23]The most complete list of his work is in Richard Lane P278-9 He appeared in several popular radio serials – Big Sister, Crossroads of Life and in numerous roles for the Lux and Macquarie Radio Theatres.[24]Richard Lane, P185-7 and Lamble, 1990, P141 A 1946 episode of the popular radio series The Shadow featuring Lloyd, can be heard (here) at the NFSA website. It also featured Peter Finch.

A grainy but significant photo – showing Lamble involved in war work. Standing centre left, he is about to address workers to encourage subscriptions in a New Zealand War loan, in August 1944. [25]The Press newspaper, 25 August, 1944. Via Papers Past

The official war work often attributed to Lamble comprised propaganda pieces for radio as well as newsreel narration. Fox Movietone (Australia) newsreels regularly made use of his voice – the NFSA database (click here) lists a number of episodes he voiced.[26]See also the entry for Movietone newsreel, “sinking of the hospital ship Centaur” at the Australian War Memorial Several accounts of Lamble’s fundraising for war loans also exist.[27]Tribune (Syd) 31 Aug 1944, P3 via Trove And he appeared in at least one Department of Information short propaganda film – The Grumblens in 1943, with Muriel Steinbeck – his first film.[28]Smith’s Weekly (Syd), 7 Aug 1943, P19 via Trove

In 1942, Lamble fathered a child by Barbara, although – most unusually for the time – the couple had yet to formalise their relationship through marriage – “a defiant act of revolution on both our parts.”[29]Lamble, 1994, P188 However in a further complication to his life, while on a 1944 performance tour of New Zealand (without Barbara) he met Lesley Jackson, a 29 year old actress from Wellington, and again, began an intense affair. He returned to Australia in late 1944, Barbara then being pregnant in Sydney with their second child.

Screengrab from Lamble’s first film The Grumblens (1943) Click on the image to watch this propaganda short at the Australian War Memorial site.
Lamble’s first feature film was the ill-fated Strong is the Seed (1947-9). Unfortunately, the film was about wheat farming. It was only briefly released.[30]The Australian Women’s Weekly. 8 May 1948. P26. Via Trove. See also Pike and Cooper(1980) P272

Of his two children, Lamble has little to say in his autobiography, but the end of the relationship with Barbara was another traumatic experience, he records, and it divided his friends and acquaintances,[31]Lamble 1990, P171 and in time, deeply embarrassed his own family. Reading the draft and final version of memoirs now, it is difficult to follow the 1940s period of his life sequentially, and this writer assumes it is because Lamble found the events of the decade difficult to acknowledge, even fifty years later. An important coda is that the Smith family insisted Lloyd “do the right thing” by Barbara and their two children, and marry her. The couple married in Sydney on September 20, 1945, but Lloyd left Barbara immediately after the wedding. A divorce was finalised in March 1949.[32]The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 12 Sep 1948, P16 via Trove

Notes from Lamble’s ASIO file indicate that in 1948 he was living with Lesley Jackson in an apartment in Pott’s Point, about 2 kilometres from Barbara and their two children, whom he never saw. Lloyd Lamble finally married Lesley Jackson in April 1949. Barbara and her family clearly thought he would provide ongoing financial support, but this remained a cause of constant tension and ill feeling.[33]Barbara Lamble gave up the stage, and became a secretary to support her two children

Above: Lesley Jackson about the time she became Lamble’s third wife in 1949 [34]Cover of ABC Weekly, December 17, 1949 Via National Library of Australia’s Trove

Leaving Australia

While the 1940s appears to have been a busy time professionally for Lamble – he had acted and directed in almost every radio and theatrical style, it is clear that by 1950, there was suddenly less work. This was largely related to accusations of his being a communist (although some colleagues also did not approve of his abandoning his family either) formalised by the 1950 Victorian Royal Commission into Communism, when he was publicly identified as a communist.

1950 Victorian Royal Commission into Communism, P83.[35]Via National Library of Australia’s Trove

As Stephen Alomes writes, in the new cold war era, accusations of communist sympathies became the means and the justification for theatre managements to marginalise politically active figures like Lamble. He was effectively, blacklisted as a result.[36]Stephen Alomes (1999) When London Calls. The expatriation of Australian creative artists to Britain.P36. Cambridge University See Note 2 below.

Above: Lloyd Lamble and visiting British actor Robert Morley in Edward, My Son in 1949. Courtesy the Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne

While only months before he had been on stage with visiting British actor Robert Morley (1908-1992), Lamble recalled that in 1950 he had to resort to door to door sales to make ends meet. [37]Lamble 1990, P219-221

Not surprisingly therefore, in late 1950, Lloyd and Lesley decided to leave Australia. Despite the claim that he left Australia on a false passport, the couple departed Adelaide in early January 1951 under their own names, on the Norwegian Cargo-Passenger ship, MS Torrens. There was however, a degree of secrecy – Lloyd had hoped to slip out of the country because he did not wish to be caught up in another dispute with Barbara about support payments.

A snapshot of his British career

Lloyd Lamble’s unpublished autobiography could reasonably be expected to deal in detail with his successful 35 year career in Britain after 1951. Unfortunately, it does not. Late in life he became convinced he was “a failed actor”[38]Lamble 1990 P361 and elsewhere. Even the final version in 1994 is dedicated “To all those thousands of actors who never quite made it” and much of what he wrote for posterity is framed in this way. Of his many British TV roles, he had little to say. Perhaps the issue was that having enjoyed such success in the small theatrical world of Australia and New Zealand, he suddenly found himself consigned to being a character actor in the very large theatrical world of post-war Britain. There seems little doubt that he compared himself to his Australian contemporaries like Peter Finch, and felt he had been less successful.

Lamble was lucky when he arrived. Although he and Lesley had little money, within a few weeks Al Parker (1885-1974), then the leading London agent,[39]and husband of Australian Margaret Johnston (1914-2002) was representing him – a huge advantage professionally.[40]Lamble, 1990, P250 By April Lamble was onstage in The Martin’s Nest at the Westminster Theatre. After a three week run – he felt the play was not a success – he moved on to productions at West London’s Q Theatre for a year.

Above: In his first London play – The Martin’s Nest (April-May 1951) with Yvonne Mitchell(1915-1979) at the Westminster Theatre. Courtesy the Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne

Al Parker was also responsible for introducing Lamble to television – which was live television at the time. Lamble described his experience on The Passing Show (1951) as “agony”, due to the technical challenges. In fact, he joked that “an actor who has led a bad life will…be condemned to do live television for all eternity.”[41]Lamble 1990, P246-7 Not surprisingly, at this time he preferred film to TV – and his early film performances demonstrated his versatility. These included leading roles as “Jacko” the stage manager in Curtain Up (1952), a comedy about a rep company preparing a play, and as Inspector Freddie Frisnay in Terence Fisher’s mystery Mantrap (1953). Watched today, his beautiful speaking voice is a feature – reminding us of his extensive experience as a radio actor.

Above: Left – As Inspector Frisnay with Paul Henreid in Mantrap (1953). Right – as “Jacko” the stage manager in Curtain Up (1952). Courtesy the Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne

Amongst his best known film roles were his cameos in the St Trinian’s films – commencing with The Belles of St Trinian’s (1954), the story of a riotous girls’ school. Lamble played local Police Superintendent Sammy Kemp-Bird, with Joyce Grenfell (1910-1979) as his too wholesome girlfriend Sgt Ruby Gates. The running joke was that Kemp-Bird had once promised marriage to Sgt Gates but now didn’t wish to go through with it, and sought any excuse to avoid commitment. The cameo was repeated in two sequels in 1957 and 1960 and is a highlight of the films. Lamble recalled her fondly – in real life he thought she was exactly like the character she portrayed.[42]Lamble 1990, P270

Screengrab from Pure Hell of St Trinian’s (1960) with Joyce Grenfell. Author’s collection.

He was often typecast as a Police Inspector. As early as 1957, he said ” I suppose that by now directors are so used to seeing me in police roles, that I’m the first person they think of when casting.”[43]Leicester Evening Mail, 21 Dec 1957, P4, via Newspapers.com

At some point, Lamble fell out with Al Parker rather spectacularly, although the reason why is unknown. Lamble acknowledged in his autobiography that it was a foolish decision to leave Parker and that, in turn, Parker wrote a vitriolic letter claiming he had established Lamble in “all mediums, despite the fact that… [he was] a communist.”[44]Lamble, 1990 P275 So Lamble’s reputation, whether gained unfairly or not, had travelled with him to the UK.

Lamble’s connections with Australia seem to have remained strong. In 1953, he chaired a meeting of British-based Australian playwrights at Australia House,[45]The Stage,12 March 1953, P10, via British Newspaper Archive and he was still active with an association of Australian performing Artists in the late 1970s. He knew and sometimes mixed with many of the Australians who had left post-war and were now working in the UK – Dick Bentley (1907-1995), Fenella Maguire (1935-2001), Bill Kerr (1922-2014) and John Sherman (1911-1966) were all friends mentioned in his autobiography. BBC records show he appeared in radio programs with Vincent Ball, and Allan Cuthbertson in Lasseter’s Reef in 1953, and others in radio episodes of The Flying Doctor in the late 1950s. However, he complained that the national connection counted for little in the way of actual employment offers – there were only two occasions where expat Australian directors gave him work.[46]Lamble 1990, P267 This is not all that surprising, as the same phenomenon was experienced by other Australian actors in the UK and US. Australians like to believe they will help each other out without question, but perhaps internationally, the business is just too competitive for that to be a reality.

His political activities did not disappear overnight. In 1952, he felt a need to explain to British Actor’s Equity that there was no Australian Equity ban on visiting actors, rather, the field of local employment was so narrow that Australian Equity had to take “some precautions” such as refusing to work with travelling chorus performers – where Australians could be employed.[47]The Stage, 11 September 1952, P11, via British Newspaper Archive

It is notable that the stage remained his passion and his public commentary usually emphasized this. “Definitely one prefers the stage…Filming I love… But the field is wide and I will do anything that is interesting financially or artistically,” he told The Stage in 1991. Lamble had a significant body of theatre work to his credit, often in provincial theatre, that has tended to be overshadowed by his better documented screen work. Aged even in his 70s, he appeared in touring performances of Marriage Rites, On Golden Pond and A Month of Sundays – and was regularly picked out for positive reviews. Amongst his last stage performances was a run in Me and My Girl at the Adelphi Theatre.[48]The Stage, 4 July 1991, P6, via British Newspaper Archive

Above: Lamble touring in A Christmas Carol in late 1976. Program in the author’s Collection.[49]See The Stage, 18 Nov 1976, P1. Via British Newspaper Archive

With a very long list of stage and TV appearances, it was inevitable that Lamble would often be recognised in public. His autobiography provides one anecdote told against himself, when he was approached by a man who said “we’ve met…” “Oh you’ve probably seen me on the Telly” answered Lamble. “Don’t be a clot” was the man’s reply. “We worked together last week.”[50]Lamble, 1990 P244-245 The anecdote also serves to remind the reader of the mundane and often underwhelming nature of so much TV work.

There were hits and misses in his career of course. He featured – briefly – in two tiresome soft-core porn films in the 1970s, Sex through the Ages (1974) and Eskimo Nell (1975) – but claimed he was misled into appearing in these. Perhaps. But rewarding roles were also a feature of his screen work – he took supporting roles in The Invisible Man (1958), Emergency Ward 10 (1966), The Kids from 47A (1973), The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960), The Boys (1962) and The Naked Civil Servant (1975).

Australians Mavis Villiers (1909-1976) and Lloyd Lamble playing American tourists in London in a cameo in No Sex Please We’re British (1973). Screengrab from copy on youtube.

Determined not to be dependent on acting for his livelihood, at various times, Lamble invested and speculated in property in England – with mixed results. He also invested in commercial video technology when it first appeared, an enterprise that had limited success.

Lloyd Lamble with his daughter in 1998. Private collection

Lloyd Lamble stayed married to Lesley Jackson for the rest of his life. He adopted two children with Lesley and finally, he met and built a relationship with his two children by Barbara. Late in life, he also met Barbara while she was travelling in Britain, in an effort to make amends.[51]Lamble, 1994, P189

Undoubtedly his own worst critic, even the final version of his autobiography needed a ghost writer or a serious edit. His remarkable 50+ year career on radio, TV, the stage and film, his political idealism, blacklisting and subsequent journey to Britain as one of the great group of post-war Australian actors, was a story worth telling.

Lloyd Lamble died in Cornwall, in March 2008.

Lloyd Lamble with Lesley Jackson, 2004. Private collection.

Note 1: Lamble on accents

In a 1942 article he wrote for ABC Weekly, Lamble seemed to suggest a warm climate was responsible for the Australian accent – which was an easy-going “lazy” accent. His comments reflected contemporary thinking about accents – the desirability of an actor or announcer developing a refined accent and the value of training or elocution.[52]ABC Weekly, 31 October 1942, P22 via Trove Interviewed by students from the University of Wellington in 1944, Lamble was noted as speaking with “a pleasing voice… his accent conforms to standard English.” Asked whether New Zealand or Australian accents were acceptable on the stage, Lamble indicated they were not. He suggested “the pronounced Australian accent was only used on the stage in… low comedy, e.g. Dad and Dave.”[53]See The Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion, Victoria College, University of Wellington, Vol 7, No 6, July 12, 1944

Lamble’s natural accent can be heard in this interview with Phil Charley in 1994.

Note 2: Lloyd Lamble the Communist?

In the 1994 edition of his memoirs, Lamble appears to acknowledge that he had been a communist, or “fellow traveller” (sympathiser) while he lived in Australia in the 1940s, but that it was through the influence of others.“As I became more deeply involved in Equity matters, I was subtly guided towards becoming a communist.”[54]Lamble, 1994, P242-243

The National Archives of Australia holds Lloyd Lamble’s 56 page ASIO file.[55]The Australian Security & Intelligence Organisation was established in 1949. It is generally regarded as the equivalent of MI5 in the UK or the FBI in the USA. ASIO’s predecessor was the … Continue reading Today the file makes for fairly unremarkable reading and one can only conclude that it says as much about Australia at the time as it does about Lamble. It was clearly his leadership of Actor’s Equity in the 1940s that first attracted official attention, and his support for causes like the Spanish Republican movement added to suspicion. Other acts, such as his letter of protest regarding the treatment of the Hollywood Ten in the USA were noted. Communist Party of Australia (CPA) meeting minutes collected by ASIO show occasional mention of him – sometimes promising to read workers poetry at Union meetings or promising to be involved in fundraising events. Yet the list of the people he associated and corresponded with [56]presumably his mail was intercepted was much more mundane – it included a wide circle of friends and acquaintances – including actors like Elsie Mackay (Montesole), Allan Cuthbertson and his brother Henry (“Bruzz”) Cuthbertson, Queenie Ashton and Carrie Moore – none of them remotely communists.

It was never illegal to be a communist in Australia. In 1950 the High Court ruled a new law to ban the Communist Party to be unconstitutional.[57]The Communist Party Dissolution Act A referendum to change Australia’s Constitution so that the party could be banned also failed. All the same, the accusation of being a communist marginalised some and stalled the careers of others. Alomes notes that Chips Rafferty, Michael Pate and Peter Finch were also listed at times as being possible Communists.[58]Alomes, P36 In a long investigative article written in 1990, David McKnight and Greg Pemberton suggested that “puritanical, anti-intellectual Australia clearly viewed Finch, Rafferty and many others as radicals because they belonged to the arts world and were strong trade unionists…” Michael Pate, who was interviewed by McKnight and Pemberton, said “In no way would we have thought to be subversive to Australia. We were radical thinkers in that we didn’t agree with all the opinions of the establishment.” [59]David McKnight and Greg Pemberton, “Seeing Reds” The Age (Melb), Good Weekend Magazine (insert) P35+ via Newspapers.com

Nick Murphy
October 2022 and May 2023

Special Thanks

  • To Libby White. For our long conversations, her suggestions and permission to read her father’s unpublished autobiography.
  • To Claudia Funder at the Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre, Melbourne.

References

  • Primary Sources
    • Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre, Melbourne.
    • National Archives of Australia
    • Ancestry.com
    • Victoria; Births, Deaths & Marriages
    • New South Wales; Births, Deaths & Marriages
    • National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, Papers Past.
    • National Library of Australia, Trove.
    • British Newspaper Archive.
  • Text
    • Stephen Alomes (1999) When London Calls. The expatriation of Australian creative artists to Britain. Cambridge University Press.
    • Lloyd Lamble (1990) The Strutting and the Fretting. Unpublished first draft of autobiography. Private collection.
    • Lloyd Lamble (1994) Hi diddle dee dee, An Actor’s Life for Me. Final version of autobiography. Unpublished. Australian Performing Arts collection. Also at National Library of Australia.
    • Richard Lane (1994) The Golden Age of Australian Radio Drama. Melbourne University Press.
    • Brian McFarlane (Ed) (2003) The Encyclopedia of British Film. BFI-Methuen
    • David McKnight and Greg Pemberton, “Seeing Reds” The Age (Melb), Good Weekend Magazine (insert) P35+
    • Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper(1980) Australian Film 1900-1977. Oxford Uni Press
    • Eric Porter (1965) Stars of Australian Stage and Screen. Rigby Ltd
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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Brian McFarlane (2003) The Encyclopedia of British Film, P376, BFI/Methuen
↑2 He would later claim that he suffered periods of unemployment at this time which may well have heightened his political senses – see also The Daily News (Syd) 12 Feb 1940, P2 Via Trove
↑3 RR Walker(1984) Dial 1179, The 3KZ Story. P.22 Lloyd O’Neil
↑4 Richard Lane (1994) The Golden Age of Australian Radio Drama. P185-6, Melbourne University Press
↑5 Newspapers had noted his success on the amateur stage as early as 1933 – see The Argus (Melb) 13 May 1933 via Trove
↑6 Walker P23
↑7 Note: Damage on the print emulsion has been covered up
↑8 Lloyd Lamble (1990) The Strutting & the Fretting, unpublished autobiography, P60. 1st draft, Private collection. The final title of the unpublished work was Hi Diddle Dee Dee: An Actor’s Life For Me (1994) Copies of this are held by the Australian Performing Arts Collection and National Library of Australia
↑9 Lamble, 1990, P93
↑10 The Argus (Melb) 19 Nov 1938, P25. Via Trove
↑11 The Argus (Melb) 17 Feb 1936 P5 Via Trove
↑12 The Age (Melb) 17 Feb 1936, P12, Via Trove
↑13 A nice compliment from the paper, but Emlyn Williams was performing the role himself at the time on Broadway, to similar acclaim. Evening Star,(NZ) 3 Aug 1936, P6. Via National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, Papers Past
↑14 Victoria BDM, marriage certificate 998/1937 18 March 1937
↑15 See for example, the breathy interview with him in Wireless Weekly, 7 Sept 1940, P9.”…Worships at the shrine of a radio actor” Via Trove
↑16 The Wireless Weekly, Sept 14, 1940, Vol. 35 No. 37, P5 Via Trove
↑17 The Bulletin May 8, 1940, P31 Via Trove, also cited in Richard Lane (1994) P186
↑18 See for example The West Australian, 18 Jul 1941, P3 and The West Australian, 22 Apr 1942, P3, Via Trove
↑19 Daily News, 12 Feb 1940, P2, Via Trove
↑20 The Australian Women’s Weekly, 8 May 1937, P54, Via Trove
↑21 Lamble 1990, P101
↑22 Herald (Melb) 27 May 1943, page 3 via Trove
↑23 The most complete list of his work is in Richard Lane P278-9
↑24 Richard Lane, P185-7 and Lamble, 1990, P141
↑25 The Press newspaper, 25 August, 1944. Via Papers Past
↑26 See also the entry for Movietone newsreel, “sinking of the hospital ship Centaur” at the Australian War Memorial
↑27 Tribune (Syd) 31 Aug 1944, P3 via Trove
↑28 Smith’s Weekly (Syd), 7 Aug 1943, P19 via Trove
↑29 Lamble, 1994, P188
↑30 The Australian Women’s Weekly. 8 May 1948. P26. Via Trove. See also Pike and Cooper(1980) P272
↑31 Lamble 1990, P171
↑32 The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 12 Sep 1948, P16 via Trove
↑33 Barbara Lamble gave up the stage, and became a secretary to support her two children
↑34 Cover of ABC Weekly, December 17, 1949 Via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑35 Via National Library of Australia’s Trove
↑36 Stephen Alomes (1999) When London Calls. The expatriation of Australian creative artists to Britain.P36. Cambridge University
↑37 Lamble 1990, P219-221
↑38 Lamble 1990 P361 and elsewhere. Even the final version in 1994 is dedicated “To all those thousands of actors who never quite made it”
↑39 and husband of Australian Margaret Johnston (1914-2002)
↑40 Lamble, 1990, P250
↑41 Lamble 1990, P246-7
↑42 Lamble 1990, P270
↑43 Leicester Evening Mail, 21 Dec 1957, P4, via Newspapers.com
↑44 Lamble, 1990 P275
↑45 The Stage,12 March 1953, P10, via British Newspaper Archive
↑46 Lamble 1990, P267
↑47 The Stage, 11 September 1952, P11, via British Newspaper Archive
↑48 The Stage, 4 July 1991, P6, via British Newspaper Archive
↑49 See The Stage, 18 Nov 1976, P1. Via British Newspaper Archive
↑50 Lamble, 1990 P244-245
↑51 Lamble, 1994, P189
↑52 ABC Weekly, 31 October 1942, P22 via Trove
↑53 See The Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion, Victoria College, University of Wellington, Vol 7, No 6, July 12, 1944
↑54 Lamble, 1994, P242-243
↑55 The Australian Security & Intelligence Organisation was established in 1949. It is generally regarded as the equivalent of MI5 in the UK or the FBI in the USA. ASIO’s predecessor was the Commonwealth Investigation Service
↑56 presumably his mail was intercepted
↑57 The Communist Party Dissolution Act
↑58 Alomes, P36
↑59 David McKnight and Greg Pemberton, “Seeing Reds” The Age (Melb), Good Weekend Magazine (insert) P35+ via Newspapers.com

Elsie Jane Wilson (1885-1965) actor and Hollywood director

Above and below; Sydney-born actor and director Elsie Jane Wilson in a spread in Photoplay magazine in late 1917. She had been working in the US for 6 years. [1]Photoplay magazine Oct 1917-March 1918, via Lantern, Digital Library

How could a successful Australian actress, who directed her first film in Hollywood in 1917, at the age of about 32, be so quickly forgotten? Unfortunately, even in her lifetime, press accounts tended to assume Elsie Jane Wilson was, like her husband Rupert Julian, New Zealand born, or perhaps English, and since then, even homegrown accounts have overlooked her. It is only in the last few decades that Elsie has finally attracted some of the interest she deserves. Recent writers include Mark Garrett Cooper at the Women Film Pioneers Project (here), Karen Ward Mahar and Robert Catto at his specialist website devoted to Rupert Julian (here).

Directing was “man’s work” Elsie suggested to interviewer Frances Denton in the Photoplay interview. But the posed photograph used in the article presents Elsie as a woman of ability and authority.[2]Photoplay magazine Oct 1917-March 1918, via Lantern, Digital Library

One of a group of women who directed at Universal Studios in the 1910s, Elsie had enjoyed a successful Australian stage career before appearing on stage in the US and acting in 40 films. She is known to have directed at least 10 films and also wrote several screenplays – all this before 1920. Her working life after 1920 remains obscure, although there is evidence suggesting she kept working in partnership with Rupert.

The Wilson family

Elsie Jane Wilson was born in Sydney on November 7, 1885[3]NSW Births Deaths & Marriages, Birth Certificate 3700/1885 to James Wilson, a 51 year old Scottish immigrant and his 37 year old English wife Jane nee Jordan. By the time of her marriage to New Zealand actor, Percival Hayes (stage name Rupert Julian) in 1906,[4]Victoria Births Deaths & Marriages Marriage Certificate 6213/1906 Elsie was able to describe her father as “a gentleman”, which – in the language of the time – suggested a person of independent means. Records show however, that most of his life he was a bootmaker[5]or “clicker” – a skilled tradesperson who cut boot leather and the family lived for many years in Riley Street, in the inner eastern Sydney suburb of Woolloomooloo.[6]A City of Sydney Archive photo of nineteenth century houses in Riley Street can be seen here