Author: Nick Murphy

Gil Perkins (1907-1999) – Hollywood’s Australian stuntman

Above: Gil Perkins in a minor role as a policeman with (left) Tyler McVey [1912-2003] and (right) Chuck Courtney [1930-2000] in Teenage Thunder 1957. Author’s Collection.
The Five Second version

Gil (Gilbert) Perkins must have been amongst the busiest Australians working in Hollywood’s golden era, even if the nature of his work – usually as a stuntman – meant he was less well known than his contemporaries. Interviewed late in life by Tom Weaver, he claimed that he may have worked on 1500 features and in several thousand television episodes.[1]Weaver (1996) p210 The more realistic estimates from the IMDB – 220 acting roles and over 150 appearances as a stuntman – are still impressive.[2]In Nicolas Barker’s 1999 obituary for Gil, he was named “the Stuntman’s stuntman”- able to do anything

Perkins was born in inner-city Melbourne in 1907.[3]and not in “Northern Australia” or Queensland as is often claimed By 1928 he had followed his dream to act in movies, and without any significant Australian acting experience, he had gone to California to try his luck. At the end of a long career, he died there in 1999. Apart from the volume of his work, he stands out as a unique figure for other reasons. He returned to Australia at least six times for extended visits to see his family – possibly a record for an Australian working in Hollywood at the time. He became active in the Screen Actor’s Guild and the smaller Hollywood Stuntmen’s Association – industry associations designed to protect and advance conditions for workers in the film industry.[4]Perhaps coincidentally, two other expat Australian actors Snub Pollard [1889-1962] and William H O’Brien [1891-1981], were active in the Screen Extras Guild at this time, later absorbed into SAG

Perkins is also notable for his willingness to provide commentary on what it was like working in film in Hollywood’s “golden era”. He was interviewed numerous times later in life, and spoke with a candour often missing from popular actor biographies of the era.

The photo at left shows Gil in about 1962 [5]and wearing a toupee. Daily Mirror(London) 24 Nov 1962, p9
Stunt artists Gil Perkins and Cherie May [1905-1966], doubling for Bruce Cabot [1904-1972] and Fay Wray [1907-2004] scramble down a vine to escape King Kong (1933).[6]See Weaver (1996) p215. [7]Source of screengrab – Author’s copy

Born at the family home in Fergie Street in the inner Melbourne suburb of North Fitzroy in August 1907, Gilbert Vincent Perkins was the second son of Frederick and Emily nee Buck. Frederick Perkins worked for the shipping agency Mullaly & Byrne at the time.[8]Victoria, Birth Certificate: Gilbert Vincent Perkins 26646/1907 Within a few years the family moved to one of Melbourne’s seaside suburbs, settling down at 101 Park Street, Saint Kilda West, only one street from the beach.[9]Australian Electoral roll, 1921

Left: Gil Perkins birthplace – the cottage at 38 Fergie St, in the inner Melbourne suburb of North Fitzroy.
Right: the Perkins family home at 101 Park St, near West Saint Kilda beach. (the slate roofed home on the left). [Click to enlarge][10]Author’s collection

Although famous for giving frank interviews about the movie business in later life, Gil Perkins was noticeably vague about his own childhood – where he lived and went to school. There is, for example, no evidence that he ever lived in “northern Australia” as he once claimed. There has also never been a “Malvern Technical School”- a school that he said he attended – instead it is more likely he completed his schooling at South Melbourne Technical School, not far from Park Street, quite possibly in some aspect of engineering. He acknowledged his father did not approve of his emerging interest in the theatrical business, and had hopes he would work in the motor business or be an engineer.[11]Barker, 1999

The 1932 US naturalisation photo of Perkins remains the earliest available.[12]Ancestry.com

Much has been made of Gil Perkin’s 4 months as a deck hand on a freighter plying the South Seas at the age of 18 (1925) – in fact he told this story himself as as early as 1933.[13]The Herald (Melb)13 Dec 1933, p12 However this experience appears unrelated to his decision to emigrate to the US several years later, and might instead be evidence of his father using his shipping connections to get his son some worthwhile life experiences. If he really did run away to sea in 1925, it did not dramatically undermine his relationship with his parents or siblings, as he returned to Australia to see them repeatedly, over the rest of his life.

This writer has the sense that Gil Perkins loved “a bit of a yarn” – in the best Australian tradition.[14]meaning – he was a story teller He found a ready audience for Hollywood stories on visits home, for example in early 1934, Melbourne radio station 3UZ interviewed him repeatedly, in what seems to have become a popular segment that stretched out over three months. Thus, perhaps, some of his claims may need to be viewed with a degree of caution.

Gil Perkins farewell interview on Melbourne radio 3UZ in late April 1934.[15]The Argus (Melb), 23 Apr 1934 p14

The stories of Gil’s physical prowess growing up in Australia are many – and owe much to Hollywood based, Australian journalist/publicist Lon Jones [c1904-1989]. Amongst the various claims is one that is easily verified. Gil really was a champion swimmer and had trained as a lifesaver at West Saint Kilda lifesaving club – impressive achievements for a 21 year old.[16]See for example, The Argus,(Melb) 29 Oct 1927, p22 and The Herald (Melb) 9 Feb 1928, p10 He also played Australian Rules Football[17]The Herald (Melb) 8 June 1927, p3 at least at amateur level. He claimed this famously rough contact sport taught him protective skills he could use in later life – such as how to “fall and tumble.”[18]Rosenberg &Silverstein (1970) p283 Perhaps. He also said he had learned to box and ride horses – and bikes – in his Australian childhood,[19]Sporting Globe (Melb) 25 Jan, 1939, p8 but fencing he learned in Hollywood from sword master Fred Cavens.[20]Rosenberg & Silverstein (1970) p296

Gil’s beachside stomping ground today. Looking towards West St Kilda Beach in winter 2025. It remains a very popular summer destination. [Click to enlarge][21]author’s collection

In many of his interviews, Gil made it clear that as a young man he was passionate about the movies. He was not alone. By the 1920s, Hollywood’s studio system had become a dominant force in feeding Australian cinemas, and the phenomenon of the movie actor as a celebrity was well established. As Kirsten Mckenzie notes, in 1920 alone, Australia’s population of 5 million attended cinemas 68 million times.[22]McKenzie (2010)

Six foot tall,[23]182 cms in height physically strong, blond and blue-eyed, Gil Perkins arrived in San Francisco on July 7, 1928, as a passenger on the SS Maunganui, in company with Saint Kilda friend William Wedmore.[24]The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 June 1928, p15 On arrival, Gil gave his profession as auto salesman, while Wedmore described himself as a motor mechanic. They both gave the same US contact – a Mr R. Ireland of 750 Pine St, San Francisco. In time, their US careers went in different directions, although they remained close friends.[25]Gil was best man at Wedore’s wedding in July 1934, while Wedmore returned the favour when Gil married in 1939. Wedmore’s Automotive Service ran at 1100 Mission … Continue reading

Gil arrived in the US with no Australian stage or film experiences of his own. However he had the advantage of being a confident – or forceful – personality, something he acknowledged when he described himself as “a very determined young man.”[26]Rosenberg & Silverstein (1970) p278 For a short time, while he established himself in the US, he sold cars.[27]The Herald (Melb)13 Dec 1933, p12

Breaking into film

The sheer volume and variety of Gil Perkins’ work in Hollywood – spanning more than 50 years – means it does not lend itself to a succinct summary, and the most accurate list appears to be the Internet Movie Data Base(IMDB). Gil’s own estimate was that he appeared in 1500 films, and even more television programs.[28]Weaver (1996) p210 David Inman’s three volume directory, prepared in 2001, made a sterling effort to document the appearances of all TV performers[29]Inman (2001) Vol 3, p2221 however this does not seem to provide a definitive list of Gil’s work. In part, the issue is the nature of Gil’s work as a stuntman, a double or a featured extra – roles that so often went uncredited.

This may be Gil, in Journey’s End (1930)[30]3 years later, he described himself in this scene to The Herald (Melb)13 Dec 1933, p12[31]screen grab from author’s copy

Gil’s first film part was as an extra in The Divine Lady (1928) – a sound film – in so far as it had an accompanying musical soundtrack, and then in The Delightful Rogue, also as an extra, contributing to background “atmosphere.”[32]The Herald (Melb)13 Dec 1933, p12 He then took an acting part in James Whale’s[1889-1957] Journey’s End, in 1930.[33]Rosenberg & Silverstein (1970) p278 A talkie, based on a dramatic stage play and set mostly in an officers dug-out in World War 1 France, it resonated with post-war audiences and was a great success. Unfortunately Gil’s brief role – as Sergeant Cox – is difficult to positively identify in the grainy, low-res copy available today. Fellow Australian, Billie Bevan, played an officer.

On being a stuntman

Gil Perkin’s transition into stunt work was apparently related to the downturn in work caused by the Depression – it was driven by necessity.[34]Weaver (1996) p233 In 1975, he told an Australian paper that he had actually been down to his last $5 when he got stunt work on Moby Dick (1930) with John Barrymore [1882-1942].[35]Australasian Post, 22 May 1975 Tall story or not, by the time of his first visit home in late 1933, he was already an established stuntman. Stunt work was good money, he said, perhaps even “easy money.” Years later he told interviewers Rosenberg & Silverstein that in the Depression he sometimes earned as much as $150-$200 a day as a stuntman.[36]Rosenberg & Silverstein(1970) p282 But one had to be fit, he explained. Although he said he enjoyed a glass of Australian beer, he didn’t smoke, or drink hard liquor.[37]Herald (Melb) 13 Dec 1933, p12 He remained in robust health for most of his life.

Another image from King Kong (1933). When Kong tries to pull the vine back up, Jack Driscoll and Ann Darrow (played here by Gil and Cherie May) let go and fall into the sea.[38]Weaver (1996) p215-6.[39]Source of screengrab – author’s copy

In 1996, Gil was interviewed at length by Tom Weaver about his stunt work in King Kong (1933), when he doubled for leading actor Bruce Cabot in some scenes, including the one shown above, where the two key characters are escaping from Kong. With a characteristic modesty, Gil described this as “no great stunt.”[40]Weaver (1996) p215-6

Rosenberg and Silverstein’s 1970 book The Real Tinsel includes several studio photos of Gil doing impressive stunts in other films – for example; hanging out a porthole and being suspended from high wires for Eddie Albert in The Fuller Brush Girl (1950). It is quite clear from interviews with Gil that stunt work in Hollywood’s golden era was self taught – learned by observation and practice – there was no stunt school to attend. It could also be risky, and Gil was scathing of directors who had lost stunt men in actions gone wrong. Carelessness meant Raoul Walsh [1888-1980] lost several stunt men in They Died with Their Boots on (1941), while Gil told Tom Weaver that director Ralph Ceder [1897-1951] would “kill you if you didn’t watch yourself.“[41]Weaver (1996 p221 There were also limits to what stunts he would do – by the time Rosenberg & Silverstein interviewed him, he had long since refused motorcycle and airplane stunts. A friend, stunt pilot Paul Mantz [1903-1965], had been killed in a plane crash on the set of The Flight of the Phoenix in 1965.[42]Rosenberg & Silverstein (1970) p288

Very bald but very fit, as boxer Bob Fitzsimmons in the Western The City of Bad Men (1953), but again an uncredited role.[43]Screengrab from DailyMotion

But much of the stunt work Gil did, appears to have been more mundane; fights and jumps, falls from horses, even dressing up in monster costumes. It was his stamina, wide range of physical skills – and a robust physique – that kept him employed and eventually gave him the reputation of being one of Hollywood’s leading stuntmen.

We see examples of this in much of his later work, where Gil was often a featured extra, sometimes with a few lines as well as having stunts to perform. In the 15-part Republic serial Captain America (1944), he appeared as a thug, who ends up fighting Captain America. Apparently audiences were not expected to remember minor players – and thus Gil appeared as a similar (but different) thug over several episodes – in exciting fight scenes. He explained to Tom Weaver that fight scenes in serials were generally done in one long “master shot” – with leading actors cut in later. By contrast, feature film fights were usually done in separate takes.[44]Weaver (1996) p224

Gil as the waiter-thug in the serial Captain America (1944). In the centre photo he has been sent flying over a chair during a fight. Click image to enlarge. [45]Source of screengrabs – Youtube

Stanley Kubrick’s[1928-1999] big budget “sand and sandals” epic, Spartacus (1960) used numerous stunt artists, including Gil. At 3 hours in length and with a large cast and many action scenes, Gil appears repeatedly as a featured extra – including in a couple of stunt sequences. Two stunt sequences are illustrated here. Below left, the fence on the gladiator’s cage is pushed over by escaping gladiators. Gil, as a gladiator, is climbing the left of the fence – hard to make out in this photo, but easily identifiable in still photos taken at the same time by LIFE photographer J.R. Eyerman. Below right, also during the gladiator’s revolt, Gil arrives with sword – soon to fight a Roman, who is about to appear from the left.

Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960) Left- Gil on the collapsing railing (climbing at left). Right – Gil in the background and about to fight during the gladiator’s revolt. Click to enlarge.[46]Screen grabs from author’s copy

In other scenes from the film, Gil appears prominently in the background. Below left, Gil can be seen centre right, as Spartacus (Kirk Douglas [1916-2020] at left) leads gladiators past the body of Draba (out of sight, at right). Below right, Spartacus and Antoninus (Tony Curtis [1925-2010] ) discuss plans with other rebel gladiators. Gil Perkins can be seen at extreme left. He has no dialogue in the film. Yakima Canutt [1895-1986] was credited as being the stunt coordinator on Spartacus. Gil graciously acknowledged “Yak” Canutt’s ability as a stuntman.[47]See Rosenberg & Silverstein(1970) p288 Gil also served as a stunt coordinator on feature films.[48]Barker (1999)


Gil Perkins as a featured extra in Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960). Click to enlarge.[49]Screen grabs author’s copy

While Gil provided no comments about Stanley Kubrick or producer-star Kirk Douglas, over time he did make many comments about other directors and actors he had worked with. He admired Alfred Hitchcock [1899-1980] and George Stevens [1904-1975] as directors and had long associations with actors Red Skelton [1913-1997] and William Boyd [1895-1972], both of whom he doubled for.

While comfortable in the company of actor John Wayne [1907-1979], Gil did not like director John Ford [1894-1973]. “I didn’t like the way he picked out a patsy on a picture and gave him a hard time. I thought he was a despot and a professional Catholic. I was a stuntman and got fired every night, so he didn’t scare me.”[50]Eyman (1999) p155 He recalled that on Fort Apache (1948), Ford took a particular dislike to John Agar(1921-2002). Ford “ate him alive. There was nothing this poor kid could do that was right.”[51]Eyman (1999) p336 Gil also did not like Eric Von Stroheim [1885-1957], whose bullying of Boots Mallory [1913-1958] on the set of Walking Down Broadway/Hello Sister (1933) he recalled vividly. “He was a pain in the ass.” [52]Weaver (1996) p219

Gil Perkins as the Policeman in Teenage Thunder (1957), produced by Joy N Houck. [53]Author’s collection

B-picture producer Joy Newton Houck [1900-1999] and his company Howco Gil could not recall fondly either – largely because of their financial dealings.[54]Weaver (1996) p227 Perhaps Hollywood at this time really was an era of brutal relationships, so at odds with the romantic and sentimental atmosphere modern writers sometimes give it.

The post war period was an era of significant change in the US – reflecting new priorities for the urban middle classes and changes in cinema audience habits. The changes associated with the rise of television were many. In Hollywood a decline of the studio system saw increasing job insecurity – there were fewer and fewer actors and writers with ongoing studio contracts. Peter Lev notes that while there were 804 actors under contract to major studios in 1945, ten years later there were only 209.[55]Lev (2006) p26 It was in this uncertain environment that Gil was appointed to the board of the Screen Actors Guild – in April 1954,[56]Daily News (Los Angeles) Apr 12, 1954, p6 – although he had been a member of this labour union since the mid-1930s.[57]Gil was still serving the Screen Actors Guild in 1975, according to Australasian Post, 22 May 1975

A 1953 cartoon by Gordon Currie, another US-based Australian journalist, shows 3 contemporary stuntmen – Left to Right: Gil, Saul Gorss and Dale Van Sickle. [58]Los Angeles Mirror, June 11, 1953, p41

In 1954, Gil was also instrumental in setting up the Hollywood Stuntmen’s Association – a fraternal organisation comprising, at first, only 35 members.[59]Daily Telegraph(Qld) 19 Aug, 1954, p25. This was another report by Lon Jones

Of course, television soon provided another source of work for stuntmen – and Gil can be found in numerous programs from the 1950s. As a spokesman for stuntmen, Gil was less than impressed by the efforts to reduce violence on TV and he dismissed such scenes as merely “rough and tumble brawls.” He felt the work was down by 50% for some stuntmen in 1962,[60]Lodi News-Sentinel (California) 8 Oct 1962, p14 however Gil seems not to have suffered this problem so much himself. He was still regularly a featured, but uncredited extra – and was now often consigned to playing menacing heavies – Kaos agents in Get Smart, henchmen in Batman and endless bad guys in westerns such as The Virginian, The Life & Legend of Wyatt Earp, Bonanza and Wagon Train.

In the following example from a 1963 episode of The Beverley Hillbillies, Granny fires a shotgun and Gil, as the pool maintenance man, leaps over the veranda to escape her. This appearance also showcased Gil’s natural accent – the same accent found among many Australians from the urban middle class of his era. As Nicolas Barker noted in his 1999 obituary, to American ears he simply passed for English.[61]Barker 1999

The Beverley Hillbillies, Season 2, Episode 8, 1963, “The Clampetts are overdrawn”. Click to enlarge [62]Screengrabs from youtube
Audio of Gil Perkins as the Pool Maintenance man, with Granny played by Irene Ryan [1902-1973]

In only one film appearance did Gil actually play an Australian. This was Lost Flight (1970) a made for TV film – a pilot for a TV series that did not eventuate. In this, he was credited as “the Australian”, while Playboy model Connie Kreski [1946-1995] played his wife. (She had no lines, so perhaps no one noticed she was also 40 years his junior!!) Gil had one line, where presumably to emphasize his Australian-ness, the line included the words “bloody” and “mate.”

Gil and Connie Kreski in Lost Flight (1970) [63]Screen grab from copy on DailyMotion
Audio of Gil Perkins as “the Australian”, in Lost Flight (1970)

Gil’s final film was a small part in Martin Scorsese Raging Bull (1980), which also appears to have been the year of his final visit home to Australia.[64]The Age (Melb) 1 April 1980, p2 But no matter how many films he appeared in, Gil Perkins was apparently never really satisfied with just being a good stuntman. In 1970, he told Rosenberg and Silverstein that he really wished he had been a 2nd Unit director.[65]Rosenberg & Silverstein (1970) p287 On a return home in 1975 he told an Australian journalist that he had only ever wanted to be an actor.[66]Australasian Post, 22 May 1975 In one of his final interviews – with Tom Weaver in 1996, he said he wished he had been a cameraman.[67]Weaver (1996) p233 The problem was that it was “hard to graduate from stuntman to anything else.”[68]Rosenberg & Silverstein(1970) p296

Back in Australia again, in 1975. Radio announcer Norman Banks (left) with Gil, and a producer (right).[69]Australasian Post, 22 May 1975

Gil Perkins died at the Motion Picture & Television Hospital on Mulholland Drive,
Woodland Hills, in late March 1999. He had become a US citizen in the early 1930s, and had married in 1939. He was survived by his daughter Susan, and by his extended family still living in Australia.

Gil’s daughter Susan Perkins (1941-2023) was a long time employee of 20th Century Fox.

Nick Murphy
August 2025

References

  • Victoria, Births Deaths & Marriages, Birth Certificate 26646/1907 Gilbert Vincent Perkins, 24 August 1907.

Oral History

  • Gil Perkins interviewed by Ronald L Davis, 21 August 1986. Oral History collection, De Golyer Library, Southern Methodist University.

Text

  • Barker, Nicolas (1999) Gil Perkins obituary. The Independent (London UK) 29 April 1999, p6
  • Eyman, Scott, (1999) Print the legend : the life and times of John Ford. Simon & Schuster
  • Inman, David M (2001) Performers’ Television Credits, Vol 3: N-Z, McFarland & Co
  • Freese, Gene Scott (2014) Hollywood Stunt Performers, 1910s-1970s: A Biographical Dictionary. 2nd Edition. McFarland & Co.
  • Lev, Peter (2006) The Fifties: Transforming the Screen, 1950-1959. Vol 7 in History of the American Cinema. University of California Press.
  • McKenzie, Kirsten. Journal of Women’s History; Baltimore Vol. 22, Iss. 4, (Winter 2010): “Being Modern on a slender income: ‘Picture Show’ and ‘Photoplayer’ in early 1920s Sydney”. 114-136, 329.
  • Rosenberg, Bernard & Silverstein, Harry (1970) The Real Tinsel. MacMillan Company
  • Weaver, Tom (1996) It came from Horrorwood. Interviews with moviemakers in the science fiction and horror tradition. McFarland Books

Web

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

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1, ↑28 Weaver (1996) p210
↑2 In Nicolas Barker’s 1999 obituary for Gil, he was named “the Stuntman’s stuntman”- able to do anything
↑3 and not in “Northern Australia” or Queensland as is often claimed
↑4 Perhaps coincidentally, two other expat Australian actors Snub Pollard [1889-1962] and William H O’Brien [1891-1981], were active in the Screen Extras Guild at this time, later absorbed into SAG
↑5 and wearing a toupee. Daily Mirror(London) 24 Nov 1962, p9
↑6 See Weaver (1996) p215.
↑7 Source of screengrab – Author’s copy
↑8 Victoria, Birth Certificate: Gilbert Vincent Perkins 26646/1907
↑9 Australian Electoral roll, 1921
↑10, ↑53 Author’s collection
↑11 Barker, 1999
↑12 Ancestry.com
↑13, ↑27, ↑32 The Herald (Melb)13 Dec 1933, p12
↑14 meaning – he was a story teller
↑15 The Argus (Melb), 23 Apr 1934 p14
↑16 See for example, The Argus,(Melb) 29 Oct 1927, p22 and The Herald (Melb) 9 Feb 1928, p10
↑17 The Herald (Melb) 8 June 1927, p3
↑18 Rosenberg &Silverstein (1970) p283
↑19 Sporting Globe (Melb) 25 Jan, 1939, p8
↑20 Rosenberg & Silverstein (1970) p296
↑21 author’s collection
↑22 McKenzie (2010)
↑23 182 cms in height
↑24 The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 June 1928, p15
↑25 Gil was best man at Wedore’s wedding in July 1934, while Wedmore returned the favour when Gil married in 1939. Wedmore’s Automotive Service ran at 1100 Mission St, South Pasadena for many years.
↑26, ↑33 Rosenberg & Silverstein (1970) p278
↑29 Inman (2001) Vol 3, p2221
↑30 3 years later, he described himself in this scene to The Herald (Melb)13 Dec 1933, p12
↑31 screen grab from author’s copy
↑34, ↑67 Weaver (1996) p233
↑35, ↑66, ↑69 Australasian Post, 22 May 1975
↑36 Rosenberg & Silverstein(1970) p282
↑37 Herald (Melb) 13 Dec 1933, p12
↑38 Weaver (1996) p215-6.
↑39 Source of screengrab – author’s copy
↑40 Weaver (1996) p215-6
↑41 Weaver (1996 p221
↑42 Rosenberg & Silverstein (1970) p288
↑43 Screengrab from DailyMotion
↑44 Weaver (1996) p224
↑45 Source of screengrabs – Youtube
↑46 Screen grabs from author’s copy
↑47 See Rosenberg & Silverstein(1970) p288
↑48 Barker (1999)
↑49 Screen grabs author’s copy
↑50 Eyman (1999) p155
↑51 Eyman (1999) p336
↑52 Weaver (1996) p219
↑54 Weaver (1996) p227
↑55 Lev (2006) p26
↑56 Daily News (Los Angeles) Apr 12, 1954, p6
↑57 Gil was still serving the Screen Actors Guild in 1975, according to Australasian Post, 22 May 1975
↑58 Los Angeles Mirror, June 11, 1953, p41
↑59 Daily Telegraph(Qld) 19 Aug, 1954, p25. This was another report by Lon Jones
↑60 Lodi News-Sentinel (California) 8 Oct 1962, p14
↑61 Barker 1999
↑62 Screengrabs from youtube
↑63 Screen grab from copy on DailyMotion
↑64 The Age (Melb) 1 April 1980, p2
↑65 Rosenberg & Silverstein (1970) p287
↑68 Rosenberg & Silverstein(1970) p296

The Majeroni brothers: Stage royalty & pioneer screen villains

Above: Giorgio Majeroni as De Lima in Patria, 1917. Youtube.

This article was originally published in On Stage, the online journal of Theatre Heritage Australia.

The Five second version
Born in Italy and Australia respectively, Mario and Giorgio Majeroni [1]listed as George Carlo John Majeroni on his Australian birth certificate, his name was also spelled Giorgio and Georgio during his lifetime. The author has used the more common Italian spelling of … Continue reading were the children of celebrated Italian actors Eduardo and Giulia Majeroni. Mario was born in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy on 23 September 1870. Giorgio in Melbourne Australia on 11 January 1877. The brothers performed on stage for over a decade in Australia and New Zealand before departing for the United States in late 1905. With their friend Paul Scardon, they were amongst the first wave of actors to arrive in the US from the new Australian Commonwealth. By the time of the Great War, they had drifted into the booming and lucrative US film industry, as versatile character actors, although their preference seems to have remained the stage. Tall, (they both stood about 182 cms, or 6 feet) good-looking, well-travelled, multi-lingual, and able to step across cultural boundaries with ease, they had plenty of stage experience when they arrived in the US, as well as carrying their family’s notable theatrical heritage.
Mario Majeroni as Larrabee in Sherlock Holmes, 1916 Internet Archive.

There are various competing claims made regarding who was the first Australian to appear in or to make a career in US films in the early Twentieth Century. Was it adventurer J.P. McGowan? Or vaudevillian Clyde Cook? Swimmer Annette Kellerman has a strong claim. Perhaps it was former Sydney hairdresser Marc McDermott – who arrived in New York in 1902. So much early cinema history has been lost and the cultural identity of being an ‘Australian’ as distinct from ‘British’ had yet to emerge. In addition, in the first decade of the new century, the money to be made from movie making was not yet appreciated, and the concept of the film actor or star who was a celebrity icon was still emerging. However, we can still identify many of these pioneer Australian performers, whose first intention–as late as the First World War–was usually to try their luck on the US stage, not necessarily to dive into the new, revolutionary world of moving pictures. Brothers Mario and Giorgio Majeroni were amongst the earliest Australians to travel to the US to try their luck in the new century.

The Majeroni brothers professional record suggests that by the time they were settled in the US, they were having no difficulty finding work. By way of example, the Internet Broadway database (IBDB) lists more than a dozen Broadway productions each, while the Internet Movie database (IMDB) lists more than thirty film appearances each. Unfortunately, we are dependent on a narrow range of sources – newspapers, trade and fan magazines to verify their careers, while details of short films and provincial touring records are often lost.

In a lengthy interview for Table Talk in 1902, Giulia Majeroni said that her sons had “true artistic instinct, developed by artistic associations.”[2]Table Talk (Melb) 3 April 1902, P14 It is quite likely they learned their stagecraft through family mentoring and close observation of their parents – no evidence exists of any other training, although in Australia they consistently performed with leading actors of the day. The presence of strong family traditions is also suggested by the fact the brothers sometimes worked together during their careers and remained close personally throughout their lives. A survey of the Australian career of the Majeroni parents possibly goes some way to explaining Mario and Giorgio’s later success.

26 year old Mario and 19 year old Giorgio with their mother Giulia in Melbourne in 1896. Talma Photographers, Melbourne, 1 Jan 1896. State Library of Victoria

The Majeroni family arrive in Australia

In July 1875, Adelaide Ristori and her Italian Dramatic Company arrived in Australia–at the tail end of a long and grandly named “farewell tour of the World.” With Signora Ristori were Eduardo and Giulia Majeroni and their five-year-old son Mario. The Ristori troupe had performed in New York, then travelled across the US, before moving on to Australia. Eduardo took many of the male leading roles for the company, while Giulia, a niece of Adelaide Ristori, also played leading roles.[3]Eduardo Majeroni’s interesting life experiences are recounted in numerous sources including W.H. Leavitt’s Australian Representative Men. However, it is difficult to verify all of the claims made.

The Australian leg of the tour took in Sydney, Bendigo, Ballarat, Melbourne, Geelong and Adelaide. The company performed a repertoire of plays that included some especially written for Ristori – such as Elizabeth, Queen of England (written by Paolo Giacometti). The tour was a critical success, despite the fact the plays were performed in Italian, to overwhelmingly English-speakers, and seats were relatively expensive.[4]See Tony Mitchell’s two-part account of the 1875 Ristori tour of Australia in Australasian Drama Studies, 1995

Program from Adelaide Ristori’s farewell world tour in 1875, performing Lucretia Borgia in New York. The program was written in English and Italian. Author’s Collection
Adelaide Ristori c1876 as Mary Stuart. National Library of Australia.

A review given by Melbourne’s Argus in August 1875 provides a taste of the enthusiastic reception given to the Italians in Australia.[5]The Argus (Melb) 30 August 1875, P6 The paper reported at length on Madame Ristori’s “superior energy” and “emotional power on stage”. A correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald went further, describing Ristori as “the greatest tragic actress of the age, the first great artist of world renown who has visited this far off country.”[6]The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 August 1875, P5 In December 1875 Ristori’s troupe went home, but Eduardo and Giulia chose to stay on in Australia. Years later, Giulia explained that this was to give the couple a chance to learn English. By mid-1876, Eduardo had learned enough to perform The Old Corporal in English, again to enthusiastic Australian audiences. Giulia found the new language easier to learn – to such an extent that in 1893 she wrote a novel in English, based on one of their plays.[7]A Living Statue, 1893. State Library of New South Wales Meanwhile, the couple’s second son, Giorgio, was born in Melbourne in January 1877. Only a few months after the birth, Giulia was back on stage, touring Jealousy and A Living Statue with Eduardo.

(Left) Signora Giulia Majeroni, from her novel The Living Statue, 1893, State Library of NSW. (Right) Lithograph of Eduardo Majeroni, attributed to Herbert J Woodhouse from Australian Representative Men, 1887. Author’s Collection

In 1878, and now more confident about performing in English, Eduardo and Giulia moved back to the United States with their sons. Over the next five years they toured new and favourite plays, while the 1880 US census showed the family living in New York. Despite making the US their new home, the Majeronis were not always happy with their treatment by managers, and their seasons met with mixed success. Finally, ongoing illness saw Eduardo step back from the stage into theatre management, after losing his voice, and, according to one 1882 newspaper report, suffering “malarial fever” in New York’s “severe changeable weather”.[8]Buffalo Morning Express, 27 March 1882, P4 A decision to return to Australia was apparently made based on Eduardo’s health.

Eduardo Majeroni & W J Wilson’s production of La Fille De Madame Angot. Theatre Royal Adelaide, March 1885. Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne

By April 1883, the Majeroni family were again in Australia, with every indication this was now to be their home. However, in the 1902 interview for TableTalk, Giulia recalled that Eduardo’s change to theatre management was a mistake – she felt he did not have the business sense to succeed.[9]Table Talk, (Melb) 3 April 1902, P14.

The couple’s performance tour to India and China in 1889-91 was also not a success.[10]See Geoff Barker (2012) and contemporary reports such as The Argus (Melb) Fri 23 Oct 1891 P10 In July 1891 a grand benefit performance was given in Sydney to support the couple – which Mario also performed in. Sadly, Eduardo succumbed to tuberculosis (TB) in Sydney later that year, while Giulia was so ill with chronic influenza, she could not attend his funeral.[11]Phillip Parsons (1995) P338

Mario and Giorgio on the Australian stage

During his education at Sydney’s Royston College [12]Mario was apparently an outstanding athlete at Royston, Mario had at least one documented appearance on stage in 1884, while his parents toured, however his definitive pathway to the stage can be traced through amateur theatre in Sydney in the early 1890s. Perhaps the death of his father and the crippling 1890s depression encouraged young Mario to search for secure employment – because records show he sought steady work as a clerk in the Post Office at the age of twenty-one. Soon after, he applied for a New South Wales Certificate of Naturalization – suggesting his intention was to live in an Australian colony for the foreseeable future. At the same time, he was also a regular in amateur dramatics in Darlinghurst. However, within a few years he had left the Post Office and was appearing professionally. In 1893, Shakespearean actor Walter Bentley employed him for a six-month tour of Australia, in a program of Shakespeare and comedies.[13]Bentley had previously been associated with the Majeroni seniors Following this he appeared in a tour of New Zealand with the Myra Kemble Dramatic Company. Mario reportedly also first wrote for the stage at this time. Contemporary newspapers referred to his newly authored play A Rebel Flag in May.[14]The Lorgnette (Melb) 2 May 1894 P2. Some accounts claim this play was written by Giulia Majeroni. It was a melodrama set in the future, but further records of this play do not exist He appeared with Bentley again in New Zealand in 1894.

Giorgio’s professional acting career began in Sydney in May 1893, in a supporting role in George Rignold’s production of the melodrama East Lynne. He had spent some of his schooling as a boarder at Queen’s College (a now defunct school in St Kilda, Melbourne) and at sixteen, his youthful inexperience on the stage was noted. But later that year he was in the cast of George Darrell’s Australian play The Double Event, a tale of the Melbourne Cup. By 1894 he was a regular in the Charles Holloway Dramatic Company – in My Jack, A King of Crime and The Ring of Iron. He stayed with this company until early 1896. In 1898 Giorgio attracted attention in the role of the mute servant Clon in Under the Red Robe, played with “dramatic vigour and intelligence.”[15]The Sportsman 27 Sept 1898, P6 The cast at Her Majesty’s Sydney included leading actors of the time – Julius Knight, W F Hawtrey and Gaston Mervale. Possessed of a fine baritone voice, in 1900 newspapers reported JC Williamson’s were training him for opera roles. It transpired that he did not have an important singing role until he was in the US.

Up and coming Australian performers. Giorgio and Mario as featured in The Bulletin, Oct 16, 1897, P10. National Library of Australia.

Giulia’s stated desire was that she might act one day with her boys. She did appear at least once on the same bill with them at another benefit concert (for her) in Melbourne in December 1895 –when she recreated the sleep – walking scene from MacBeth. The strength of her bond with her two sons and her anxiety about their future was indicated in the preface to her 1893 novel and the long 1902 Table Talk interview. In both, she worried that by living in Australia she was keeping her sons from pursuing careers overseas. “I would like my boys to go to England or America, but I fear I have been the means of keeping them in Australia … I have always said what will become of me if you go, and they have stayed for my sake.” What the boys thought about this, we do not know, but they did not leave Australia until well after her death.

Mario’s success in Australia from the mid-1890s was undoubtedly in part because of his close association with another acting family – that of actor-manager Robert Brough (1857-1906) and his wife Florence. Mario first joined the Brough – Boucicault company in 1894, and over the next seven years, regularly appeared in supporting roles with Brough.[16]Dion Boucicault left the partnership in 1896 In the words of his ADB biographer, Brough was a “champion of refined and legitimate drama” in Australasia.[17]Helen M. Van Der Poorten, ‘Brough, Lionel Robert (1857–1906)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography Hal Porter described the contribution of the Brough-Boucicault company to Australian theatre as “greater than that of any other company” of the era, their casts being “meticulously schooled.”[18]Hal Porter (1965) P92 For a young and ambitious actor like Mario, it was the right theatrical company to be part of.

In 1896, Table Talk noted that Mario had “impressed theatregoers very favourably of late, by the vitality of his acting in subsidiary characters”.[19]Table Talk (Melb) 15 May 1896, P13 Both the Majeroni brothers joined Robert Brough’s Comedy Company tour of India and the far east, departing Australia in September 1897. Indian and Shanghai newspapers welcomed the visiting company with enthusiasm. Their repertoire included comedies and farces–such as Darnley’s The Solicitor, Grundy’s Sowing the Wind and Pinero’s The Amazons; the productions being turned over every few days for expat audiences – who longed for culturally familiar productions from home. The Broughs always took first billing and leading roles, while the ever-reliable Majeronis took supporting parts.[20]The North China Herald and Supreme Court & Consular Gazette (Shanghai) April 18, 1898, P670

The relationship between the Broughs and Mario in particular, was not merely professional. When Mario married Nellie Harbin in Sydney in September 1899, Brough and his wife Florence were in attendance, together with other company members. Another performing member of the Brough family – Percy Brough – was groomsman, while brother Giorgio Majeroni was best man.

Mario featuring in the cast of Brough company plays in 1899 and 1900. Australian Performing Arts Collection.
 Mario and Nellie Harbin married in September 1899. Melbourne Punch, 5 Oct 1899. State Library of Victoria

In late 1902, Mario and Giorgio established their own Majeroni Dramatic Company, to tour Australia and New Zealand with a repertoire of “tip-top sensational melodramas” including Brother Against Brother, The Banker’s Daughter, My Jack, Judge Not and Wages of Sin.[21]Otago Witness,(New Zealand) 22 October, 1902 P57 Mario more often than not took roles as villains in these – notably Stephen Flint the merciless wicked landlord in The Shamrock and the Rose and as callous villains in The Flight for Life and Enlisted. Also in their repertoire was a version, probably Mario’s, of the convict story For the Term of His Natural Life. He also wrote his own version of the very popular Kelly Gang story, the troupe performing this for the first time in Brisbane in July 1904.[22]Fotheringham (2006) P558

Giorgio Majeroni (At rear, centre), as Brother Paul in The Christian, by Wilson Barrett and Bernard Espinasse. Photographed by A. J. Perier, c.1901. State Library of New South Wales.

One member of the Majeroni troupe, Lionel Walshe, left a vivid and entertaining memoir of the tour. It was exhausting he recalled and struggled to make a profit. Interviewed ten years later he still thought it the “most exciting time of his stage life”.[23]Northam Courier (Western Australia) 11 March 1913, P4 The Majeroni troupe was in New Zealand in August 1903, when Giulia Majeroni finally succumbed to her chronic influenza (back in Melbourne). Performance commitments meant they could not return for the funeral.[24]She died in Melbourne but was interned next to her husband in Sydney

Mario and Giorgio in the US

In late 1905, Nance O’Neil offered both Mario and Giorgio work on her return tour of North America. They took this opportunity to try their luck in the US, as did their friend Paul Scardon, who had most recently been touring Australia with Minnie Tittel Brune. The O’Neil company arrived in San Francisco in December 1905. Mario’s wife Nellie did not join them. She was possibly unwell when the boys left, as she died in a Sydney hospital nine months later. Possibly–like Paul Scardon’s Australian fiancée Elizabeth, the couple were waiting to see whether a US career would take off.[25]Elizabeth Hamilton travelled to New York and married Paul Scardon. Sadly she died in the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic The six-month tour with Nance O’Neil – performing works by Ibsen and Shakespeare – wrapped in Boston in May 1906. The Majeronis then made their base in New York. Following the Nance O’Neil tour, Mario and Giorgio had success in finding work–more readily than others, probably given their theatre antecedents. Over the next few years, both established themselves as reliable supporting actors on the New York stage.

Like many actors of this era, Mario and Giorgio apparently had no desire – or saw no need – to publicise their acting credentials or to provide any ongoing narrative on their career, even after they began to appear in the US, when one might expect more commentary to appear.

We owe their contemporary Paul Scardon an acknowledgement, as unlike the Majeronis, he had no qualms about maintaining his public profile by feeding Australian newspapers with reports of what was happening to him and his network of friends. About 12 months after they had arrived in the US, Scardon wrote to Melbourne Punch from New York, to recount the following: “There was quite a bunch of us here during the summer, chasing the nimble engagement, but they’re considerably scattered now. George Majeroni and my self being the only two in town at this moment – (the) balance being out on the road…”

Scardon went on to describe what had occurred to Mario and Giorgio in late 1906. His description of their experiences provides an insight of what was probably typical for many jobbing actors of the era. He wrote “Mario had rotten luck – gave a trial rehearsal of the Prince of India and satisfied them, and signed at a big salary; however after rehearsing a fortnight [he] contracted a bad cold …[Producers] Klaw and Erlanger…[said] he wasn’t physically strong enough for the part; then came the news of his wife’s death two days later… Giorgio had a landed a leading role in The Kreutzer Sonata, but the whole production had been laid up because leading lady Bertha Kalich had appendicitis.“[26]Punch (Melb) 20 December 1906, P38. Scardon, or someone closely associated with him, kept up the stream of reports from New York over the next few years, sometimes these featured the activities of … Continue reading

A very young looking Mario in the pages of The Theatre (New York) in 1906. The Theatre, Vol 6, No 67, Sept 1906. Hathitrust.

Despite Mario’s bad luck with Prince of India, New York Producer Charles Frohman was impressed with him. He was given supporting roles in three of his New York productions between mid 1907 and December 1910 – My Wife based on a French comedy by Robert Charvay and Paul Gavault, Jack Straw – a comedy of ‘good quality’ by W Somerset Maugham, and Israel, a study of race prejudice by French playwright Henri Bernstein.

Giorgio also had good fortune despite the difficulties with The Kreutzer Sonata in September 1906.[27]Perhaps producer-director Stephen Fiske had offered Giorgio a role because he had worked with Eduardo and Giulia in the late 1870s In January 1907, Lee and JJ Shubert picked Giorgio up for a supporting role in the musical The Belle of London Town, but a more successful experience followed in the musicals The Top o’th’ World, which opened at New York’s Majestic Theatre in October 1907, and The Motor Girl, which opened at New York’s Lyric Theatre in mid-1909. In 1910 he also took the role of Sugar in a staged version of the fairy tale The Blue Bell. In the same year Mario took a role in the popular farce Why Smith Left Home. There was also good news personally for Mario at this time. In November 1910 he married fellow actor Gwendolyn Lowrey, touring with her through cities of the US east coast for a time.

Mario while touring in the ‘hilarious farce’ Why Smith left Home. Pittsburgh Daily Post. 1910. Newspapers.com

Although there is convincing evidence that while the Majeronis performed in a diverse range of characters in their first years in the US, it seems clear that within a relatively short time, both were consigned to a narrower range of character roles–distant authority figures or sinister villains. When Giorgio appeared as the white slaver and gang leader Enrico Savelli in Charles Frohman’s stage production of The Conspiracy in 1913, audiences were treated to his satisfying demise in the finale. In late 1913, when Mario appeared in At Bay, reviewers commented on Mario’s established reputation for playing society villains. His portrayal was reportedly so good that when his character–the ‘despicable blackmailing lawyer’ Judson Flagg suffered a heart attack in the second act, audiences invariably welcomed the death.

Second from the left–Giorgio Majeroni as the white slaver Enrico Savelli in the popular play The Conspiracy. Charles Frohman also produced a film version of the play–without Giorgio. The Green Book Magazine V9, 1913. P380. Hathitrust.
Mario Majeroni as the blackmailing lawyer Judson Flagg, with Chrystal Herne, in the play At Bay. The Theatre Magazine,(New York) Nov 1913. Hathitrust.

The Majeronis in film

At the same time the Majeronis were becoming well known figures on the stages of New York and the east coast, the US film industry was rapidly emerging. By the end of the First World War it was the country’s fifth largest industry. Voracious for material and talent, it was yet to become the organised studio system we associate with Hollywood’s golden age. And at this time, the industry was still based in New York and New Jersey, on the US east coast–near the established centres of finance, population and creativity. It was not until after the First World War that Hollywood California became the dominant centre of film production. What better place to find actors for film parts than the New York stage.

For established stage actors, work in the new medium of film was financially too attractive to ignore, even if they preferred the stage or had misgivings about the transitory and populist appeal of the ‘moving pictures.’ Unfortunately, the Majeroni brothers left no commentary about this themselves, but some of their contemporaries did. Queensland actor and elocutionist Tempe Pigott, who arrived in the US about ten years after the Majeronis at the late age of 49, yet who went on to forge her own remarkable US acting career, recalled the attraction of film work. Interviewed years later she said; “More money may be made in a day in pictures than in a week on the stage; so, naturally, everyone is attracted to film work.”[28]The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 Aug 1936, P8 Bevan Harris, a vaudevillian from Orange NSW, who went into US movies as Billy Bevan in 1915, similarly observed; “this is the highest paying business in the world…” He was astute enough to add however, “Of course, one fine morning, like every other actor, I’ll wake up and though I may not know it, I’ll have done my last day’s work in pictures.” [29]The Mail (Adelaide) 22 Apr 1939, P4

The timing of the Majeronis entry into film was therefore not accidental and matches the experiences of many others. Melbourne born Paul Scardon first appeared as an extra on screen in about 1909, and then in featured parts several years later, when he left the stage for good. He turned to directing in 1913. Sydney – born Marc McDermott also left the New York stage for good in 1909. J P McGowan from Adelaide first appeared for the New York based Kalem company in about 1910. Another young adventurer, Sidney Bracey, also from Melbourne, first appeared on screen in 1909. Annette Kellerman arrived in New York in 1908 with the brightest reputation of all and found her way from variety theatre and into filmed shorts soon after.

Thelma, made in 1912 by the Reliance Film Company at their studio in Brooklyn, appears to be Giorgio’s first.[30]Motion Picture News, P16, August 24, 1912 Not surprisingly, given the speed at which the industry worked to fulfil the demand, it was based on a popular novel by Marie Corelli–and a version had been filmed only a few years before. Yet another movie version was an easy option for a company looking for material to film quickly. Unfortunately, details of this film are sketchy and it appears to be a lost film.

Mario Majeroni and Ethel Barrymore in the film The Nightingale, 1914. The Moving Picture World Oct 1914, P192  Lantern Digital Library & the Internet Archive

Mario’s first film venture was in the Ethel Barrymore melodrama The Nightingale, made in New York in 1914. This was also Ethel Barrymore’s first film and it was written especially for her. A member of the famous acting family and well established on the stage, the 35-year old Barrymore specialised in playing young female roles. Mario had a supporting role as the vocal teacher Mantz, who helps to discover Isola (Barrymore) and her beautiful voice. This is also a lost film.

In an era when films lacked dialogue, early cinema often depended on forms of expression that are foreign to us today. At the same time, familiar stage types helped audiences identify a character quickly. In 1916, Giorgio appeared in a technical treatise on motion picture acting, a still from the film My Lady Incog being chosen to illustrate ‘watchfulness, suspicion, and sharpness’. In this film, Giorgio had given a strong performance as the thief and ’polished imposter’ Rene Lidal.

A page featuring Hazel Dawn and Giorgio demonstrating expressions. Motion Picture Acting for Professionals and amateurs. A Technical Treatise on Make-up, Costumes and Expression (1916) by Jean Bernique, P119. Lantern Digital Library & the Internet Archive

Veronica Kelly’s 2011 survey of the work of Gaston Mervale, another actor who worked in film and on stage in Australia and the US[31]Mervale was born in Devon, England in 1866 as Gaston Mistowski also throws light on the roles the Majeronis took. Mervale (who was known to the Majeronis from the Australian stage) also specialised in character work – often “vividly realised and sinister personalities with intimations of… dark gothic powers.”[32]Veronica Kelly (2011) P109 In the course of his career, Mervale portrayed Svengali, the wicked piano player with mystic powers, in the play Trilby, over 800 times. Giorgio Majeroni played an identical malevolent type with similar but ill-defined mystical or hypnotic powers, in the film The Stolen Voice,(1915). The film script closely parallels the play Trilby – again a feature of films of this era, when scripts stole shamelessly from books and popular plays. Mario also went on to play hypnotist/mystics in several films in 1917.

As noted, in time, both the Majeroni brothers found themselves regularly cast as pointy-moustached villains in films. One must conclude that their age, height and their dark and swarthy appearances contributed to the roles they were given. We should also note the long tradition of foreign ‘types’ who so often appeared as villains in theatre and film in the Western world. In its review ofthe Charles Frohman revival of Diplomacy at New York’s Empire Theatre in late 1914, Life magazine [33]Life. Vol.64, number.1671 November 5, 1914 reported that Giorgio, with his ‘pronouncedly Hebraic features’ was therefore suitable for the role of the Russian, Count Orloff. He reprised this role for a filmed version of the play in 1916.

Screengrab of Mary Pickford with Mario Majeroni as Ramlan the Indian sword maker in Less than the Dust (1916). He also played Ali Bey, an Indian servant, in the film Children Not wanted (1920) Youtube.
Leslie Faber, William Gillette and Giorgio Majeroni in Charles Frohman’s play Diplomacy. The Theatre (New York) V 20, 1914, P266. Hathitrust.

In 1917, following the release of the William Randolph Hearst funded serial Patria, Giorgio made a rare public commentary about being typecast. “I have been on the stage full twenty years and have been trying for the greater part of that time to quit being a villain, but it seems without success… Throughout my stage career I have plotted crimes and murders without end and have killed and slain until this hand is redder than that of any Borgia. When there was no one else to kill, I have had to kill myself a score of times…” In Patria, Giorgio played the wicked Senor de Lima of Mexico, who, in league with Japanese Baron Huroki (Warner Oland) plots to overthrow the US. “Here I am again in villainy up to my neck” he said. [34]Interview found in several US newspapers at the time including The Nashville Globe, 11 May 1917 Some greater controversy surrounded this serial. During World War One Japan was an ally, and in a rare case of concern about the reception a US film might have overseas, the administration of President Woodrow Wilson requested changes.[35]Geoff Mayer (2017) P.225

Tempe Pigott accepted that she had become well and truly type-cast as a perpetual ‘land-lady’. On a return to Australia in 1936 she told reporters: “Immediately you score a success in Hollywood they type you, and you play that sort of role for ever… “[36]The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 18 Sep 1936  P14 But after her visit she happily returned to Hollywood and to more typecast roles. At 84, her last role in a Douglas Sirk film was as an ‘old crone,’ in 1951.

Giorgio Majeroni in a supporting role as the traitor Bolo Pasha in the film The Caillaux Case (1918) The real Bolo Pasha had been executed in France only a month before. Moving Picture World May 11 1918, P800. Lantern Digital Library & the Internet Archive

By 1913 the Majeronis old friend from Australia, Paul Scardon, had moved from acting into directing films – first for New York’s Majestic Pictures and several years later for Vitagraph. Most likely as a result of their friendship, Giorgio Majeroni appeared in a string of Scardon’s films –eleven in all – for Vitagraph Pictures, between 1918 and 1920. Scardon’s films were really designed as vehicles for Harry T Morey, and usually featured Betty Blythe as the love interest. (Scardon married Betty Blythe in 1920) Unfortunately, Paul Scardon and Giorgio Majeroni’s friendship did not lead to any change in casting practices for Giorgio. All of his appearances were as secondary characters – again, usually as dubious foreigners or society villains. In Tangled Lives (1918) he played an unsympathetic millionaire killed by lightning, in The King of Diamonds (1918) he played the poisoner Dr Torrano, while in Beauty Proof (1919) he played Hodge the criminal. Each time, thwarted by Harry T Morey’s character.

Despite Paul Scardon’s considerable output as a director (he is credited as a director on more than 50 films between 1913 and 1924) not all of his efforts were well received, even at the time. In another Harry Morey vehicle – a story of high finance based on a play, The Gamblers (1919), Giorgio played the villain George Cowper. The Film Daily panned Scardon’s direction as stagey and posey.

Mario also appeared in three of Scardon’s films–playing a marquis in The Hawk (1917), the leader of a family of crooks in Partners of the Night (1920) and the Hindu servant Ali Bey in Children Not Wanted (1920) He had previously appeared as an Indian sword maker in the film Less than the Dust (1916) with Mary Pickford and a mystic Hindu Yogi in the play Eyes of Youth (1918)

Giorgio Majeroni as the wicked Oliver Landis in the Sidney Olcott film Marriage for Convenience (1919). His expression says it all. Motion Picture News  March–April 1919, P154. Lantern Digital Library & the Internet Archive

Later Careers

Despite the easy attractiveness of acting for film, both the Majeronis remained strongly committed to the theatre, and their narrow range of roles in films may be a reason why. In 1918, Giorgio was elected to the board of the Green Room Club, one of several New York thespian clubs. Opened in 1902 for young aspiring (male) actors, by the time Giorgio had joined it producers and managers dominated – including the Schubert brothers and George M Cohan. Mario also became a member, as did fellow Australian vaudevillian Bert Levy, who once described himself as a life-long pal of the Majeronis.

Following the release of the Paul Scardon film The Darkest Hour in early 1920, Giorgio appeared only twice more (as foreign villains), in films made in 1921. Apart from a passing role as a singer in a Betty Blythe film in 1922, it seems his interest in film had come to an end. Giorgio had married In June 1915, and settled in Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania, later moving to Skillman, New Jersey. He took up farming–apparently commuting to New York for acting work when he needed to. Unfortunately, at about the same time, Mario’s second marriage had come to an end in divorce.

Giorgio appeared on stage in New York again – as Signor Diranda in J Huntley Manner’s drama One Night in Rome, opening in late 1919, followed a year later in the mystery play The Claw, with Lionel Barrymore. In April 1920, Mario took over his brother’s role in a One Night in Rome, when it opened at London’s Garrick Theatre. The play had a notably rocky start in London, newspapers reporting that an organised gang of ‘play wreckers’ disrupted the opening night,[37] Daily News (London) 30 April 1920, P1 but it soon settled into a good run.[38]J.P. Wearing (2014) P24

Giorgio Majeroni played the mesmerist Mr Morrison, in this comedy-ghost play. The Boston Globe 18 Feb 1923, P39. Newspapers.com

In May 1924, newspapers announced Giorgio had tuberculosis, and was dropping out of David Belasco’s play Laugh, Clown, Laugh! and heading off to Saranac Lake in New York state. At this time, rest cure was the only solution for the usually deadly disease, and Saranac Lake provided the ideal fresh air climate, with numerous privately run cure cottages available for the ailing. Broadway magazine wished him well, adding that he was a “fine fellow and a splendid actor.”

Sadly, he declined rapidly.[39]He was not the only Australian actor to face a battle with tuberculosis in the US. A few years later, 45 year old vaudevillian Nellie Quealy was admitted to a Saranac Lake sanatorium. She spent six … Continue reading Bert Levy warned Australian readers of The Bulletin that he had been told there was no hope for Giorgio. He succumbed in early August 1924. Mario was the informant on his brother’s death certificate, indicating he had travelled to be with his younger brother at the end. Giorgio left behind his wife Ethel and two sons, an eight year old and a five month old.

Mario as the criminal Capriano(seated) with George Walsh, (brother of director Raoul Walsh), in From Now On (1920) Wikimedia Commons

It is possible to discern a different professional experience for Mario in his post First World War career. His roles were, like Giorgio’s, often of a type – familiar villains as in From Now On (1920) and The Snow Bride (1923) and suspicious foreigners – such as Dr Dejonge in The Substitute Wife (1925) and Count Krenko in The King on Main Street (1925). Mario was most closely associated with film productions from Famous Players-Lasky at this time, but unlike Giorgio at Vitagraph, was apparently not contracted to them, allowing him to work for others. He also worked with some notable figures in cinema–actors Gloria Swanson and Lionel Barrymore, and emerging directors including Raoul Walsh, Allan Dwan and Frank Borzage. Films that were well received included The Valley of Silent Men (1922), Enemies of Women (1923), two films from 1924 with Gloria Swanson – The Humming Bird and Her Love Story and the 1925 comedy The King on Main Street. His last film role was as Prince Zibatchefsky in the Famous Players-Lasky comedy Rubber Heels in 1927, released just before the arrival of sound. By then, film production had largely moved to California.

Adolphe Menjou and Greta Nissen with Mario Majeroni in the film The King on Main Street (1925) The Richmond Item (Indiana) 1 May 1927, P18 Newspapers.com

On stage in the later 1920s, Mario also took a range of character roles. In mid 1926 he appeared in Kongo, a melodrama set in an African trading post, inspired no doubt by the recent success of Leon Gordon’s play White Cargo. Mario donned blackface for 135 performances to play the voodoo priest Zoombie. In Broadway, a comedy -drama set behind the scenes of the night club world, he was back to playing a heavy role–the Greek owner of the Paradise Night Club.

A cartoon of some of the cast of Kongo–Betty Bruce Henry, Richard Stevenson, Clarence Redd (a real African-American actor who usually went uncredited) and Mario Majeroni in makeup. Times Union (New York) 2 May 1926, P24. Newspapers.com

In November 1931, while performing in a run of the play Cynara at New York’s Morosco Theatre, Mario died, quite suddenly. His death was put down to an unspecified stomach ailment, for which he had previously had treatment. [40]The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 Dec 1931, P4 Many Australian newspapers carried news of his death, a reminder that although he had lived in the US for 25 years, he still had many friends there.

In this era of heightened national consciousness, can we really celebrate the Majeroni family as distinctively Australian performers? Perhaps not. Both brothers had started the process of becoming US citizens – Giorgio in 1918 and Mario in 1923, and neither returned to Australia. This was also a time when Betty Blythe remembered her Melbourne – born husband Paul Scardon as a “gentlemanly Englishman.”[41]Kevin Brownlow (1968) P378 The Commonwealth was only a few years old when the Majeroni brothers left and although they were sometimes described as Australians while living in the US, they were more often described as Italians. However a fitting reminder of this remarkable family still exists in Carlton, Melbourne near the heart of the Italian restaurant precinct of Lygon Street. Guilia Majeroni, was living at 99 Drummond Street when she died in 1903. Number 99 is the centre building of a large terrace block – crowned with the pediment at the top, and although now used for offices, it remains one of Melbourne’s finest Victorian-era terraces.

99 Drummond Street, Carlton in 2023. Giulia Majeroni’s last residence was the central terrace, with the pointed pediment. Author’s Collection.
As at May 2025, the property is for sale

Originally published in On Stage, the online journal of Theatre Heritage Australia, September 2023

Nick Murphy
Sept 2023 & May 2025

Majeroni films available online

References

  • Geoff Barker (2012) ‘Collodian photographic negative of Eduardo Majeroni in The Old Corporal by Freeman Brothers Studio.’ Powerhouse Museum (Curator’s Notes)
  • Jean Bernique (1916) Motion Picture Acting for Professionals and Amateurs. A Technical Treatise on Make-up, Costumes and Expression. Producers Service Company, Chicago
  • Katherine Brisbane (Ed)(1991) Entertaining Australia, an Illustrated History. Currency Press, Sydney.
  • Kevin Brownlow (1968) The Parade’s Gone By. University of California Press.
  • Clay Djubal (2001) ‘That men may rise on stepping stones’: Walter Bentley and the Australasian stage, 1891‐1927, Journal of Australian Studies, 25:67, 152-161.
  • Richard Fotheringham (2006) Australian Plays for the Colonial Stage, 1834-1899. University of Queensland Press
  • Veronica Kelly (2011) ’Australia’s Svengali: Gaston Mervale in Theatre and Film.’ Australasian Drama Studies, April 2011, P107-125
  • W.H. Leavitt (Ed) (1887) Australian Representative Men. Wells & Leavitt (See also online at State Library of NSW)
  • Ralph Marsden, Theatre Heritage Australia On Stage Vol 9 No 4, Spring 2008 ‘Melbourne Stage by Stage’ P41-44
  • Geoff Mayer (2017) Encyclopedia of American Film Serials. McFarland
  • Tony Mitchell (1995) Australasian Drama Studies, Number 26 1995 ‘Adelaide Ristori tours Australia 22 July–4 December 1875’ Part 1, P179 -199
  • Tony Mitchell (1995) Australasian Drama Studies, Number 26 1995 ‘High Art and Low Purse. Adelaide Ristori tours Australia 22 July–4 December 1875’ Part 2, P123
  • Phillip Parsons and Victoria Chance (Eds)(1995) Companion to Theatre in Australia. Currency Press/Cambridge University Press.
  • Hal Porter (1965) Stars of Australian Stage and Screen. Rigby
  • Helen M. Van Der Poorten, ‘Darrell, George Frederick Price (1851–1921)‘, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1972, accessed online 16 May 2023.
  • Helen M. Van Der Poorten, ‘Brough, Lionel Robert (1857–1906)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1969, accessed online 27 May 2023.
  • J.P. Wearing (2014) The London Stage 1920-1929 : A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel. (2nd Edition) Rowman and Littlefield
This site has been selected for preservation in the National Library of Australia’s Pandora archive

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 listed as George Carlo John Majeroni on his Australian birth certificate, his name was also spelled Giorgio and Georgio during his lifetime. The author has used the more common Italian spelling of his name
↑2 Table Talk (Melb) 3 April 1902, P14
↑3 Eduardo Majeroni’s interesting life experiences are recounted in numerous sources including W.H. Leavitt’s Australian Representative Men. However, it is difficult to verify all of the claims made.
↑4 See Tony Mitchell’s two-part account of the 1875 Ristori tour of Australia in Australasian Drama Studies, 1995
↑5 The Argus (Melb) 30 August 1875, P6
↑6 The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 August 1875, P5
↑7 A Living Statue, 1893. State Library of New South Wales
↑8 Buffalo Morning Express, 27 March 1882, P4
↑9 Table Talk, (Melb) 3 April 1902, P14.
↑10 See Geoff Barker (2012) and contemporary reports such as The Argus (Melb) Fri 23 Oct 1891 P10
↑11 Phillip Parsons (1995) P338
↑12 Mario was apparently an outstanding athlete at Royston
↑13 Bentley had previously been associated with the Majeroni seniors
↑14 The Lorgnette (Melb) 2 May 1894 P2. Some accounts claim this play was written by Giulia Majeroni. It was a melodrama set in the future, but further records of this play do not exist
↑15 The Sportsman 27 Sept 1898, P6
↑16 Dion Boucicault left the partnership in 1896
↑17 Helen M. Van Der Poorten, ‘Brough, Lionel Robert (1857–1906)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography
↑18 Hal Porter (1965) P92
↑19 Table Talk (Melb) 15 May 1896, P13
↑20 The North China Herald and Supreme Court & Consular Gazette (Shanghai) April 18, 1898, P670
↑21 Otago Witness,(New Zealand) 22 October, 1902 P57
↑22 Fotheringham (2006) P558
↑23 Northam Courier (Western Australia) 11 March 1913, P4
↑24 She died in Melbourne but was interned next to her husband in Sydney
↑25 Elizabeth Hamilton travelled to New York and married Paul Scardon. Sadly she died in the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic
↑26 Punch (Melb) 20 December 1906, P38. Scardon, or someone closely associated with him, kept up the stream of reports from New York over the next few years, sometimes these featured the activities of the Majeronis
↑27 Perhaps producer-director Stephen Fiske had offered Giorgio a role because he had worked with Eduardo and Giulia in the late 1870s
↑28 The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 Aug 1936, P8
↑29 The Mail (Adelaide) 22 Apr 1939, P4
↑30 Motion Picture News, P16, August 24, 1912
↑31 Mervale was born in Devon, England in 1866 as Gaston Mistowski
↑32 Veronica Kelly (2011) P109
↑33 Life. Vol.64, number.1671 November 5, 1914
↑34 Interview found in several US newspapers at the time including The Nashville Globe, 11 May 1917
↑35 Geoff Mayer (2017) P.225
↑36 The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 18 Sep 1936  P14
↑37 Daily News (London) 30 April 1920, P1
↑38 J.P. Wearing (2014) P24
↑39 He was not the only Australian actor to face a battle with tuberculosis in the US. A few years later, 45 year old vaudevillian Nellie Quealy was admitted to a Saranac Lake sanatorium. She spent six years fighting the disease until she too, succumbed.
↑40 The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 Dec 1931, P4
↑41 Kevin Brownlow (1968) P378

Phyllis Warner becomes Adrienne Brune (1891-1973)

Adrienne Brune at the time she was appearing in The Three Musketeers at Drury Lane in 1930. Photo credited to Frank Davis. [1]Theatre World, June 1930, p5. Author’s collection
The Five second version

Delightful, charming and tuneful! She was a dashing Australian beauty and a popular and successful West End star in the 1920s and 1930s. Yet Adrienne Brune’s identity was always something of a mystery. Was she Phyllis Caroline Brune?[2]John Parker (1947) p344 or was it Adrienne Sordini?[3]The Football Post (Nottingham), Dec 1, 1917, p10 In fact, in Australia she had used a much simpler stage name – Phyllis Warner – which made sense as it was a contraction of her real name. Reviews of her performances were typically thus: “This charming actress, besides possessing a voice of unusually good quality, has a most attractive personality. She acts and sings gracefully whenever she is on the stage.”[4]The Era, 29 August 1925 p1 In the late 1940s she took to teaching singing and elocution. She died in London in 1973.

Actor Gabrielle Brune (1912-2005) was her daughter.

At left, Adrienne Brune at the height of her popularity, playing Resi, with George Vollarie (c1894-1971) in a long run of Waltzes from Vienna at the Alhambra theatre in 1932. Vollarie played Johan Strauss Jnr.[5]Daily Mirror (London) Feb 29, 1932 p7

Carrie Phyllis Warner was born in Herbert St, South Melbourne on 27 October 1891. The spelling of her first name Carrie – not Caroline – is quite clear on the birth document.[6]An initial misspelling of “Carry” was corrected and initialled Her father was John William Guy Warner, a chief engineer for the Australian shipping company Huddart Parker, while her mother was the popular Melbourne soprano Ada Clements.[7]See Victoria Births Deaths & Marriages documents – 1] Carrie Phyllis Warner birth certificate 29129/1891 and 2] John William Guy Warner & Ada Isabel Clements marriage certificate … Continue reading Sadly, Guy Warner was drowned at sea in July 1904. His ship Nemesis founded in a storm off the New South Wales coast – and all hands were lost.[8]The Advertiser (Adel) 13 Jul 1904, p5 It was all the more tragic because Guy Warner was only temporarily filling in for another engineer who had been too ill to travel.[9]The Argus (Melb)14 Jul 1904, p5

Ada Warner with daughter Phyllis and son Guy. Undated, Private collection.

Even today we can imagine how traumatic the sudden loss of a parent and the family’s main breadwinner would be. At the time there was no formal system of compensation – instead Ada Warner joined others in putting on a benefit concert, and shared in the very modest sums of money raised. Ada Warner supported her daughter and a young son by taking boarders into their house in East Melbourne. It is hardly surprising in these circumstances, that Phyllis was encouraged to pursue a career on stage, with all the exciting possibilities for travel and financial freedom that might result. However, what training she had we do not know, although well known Australian dance teacher and producer Minnie Everett (1874-1956) must be considered a possibility.[10]Years later she claimed to have studied at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music

Phyllis Warner on the cover of Melbourne’s Table Talk, 1910. Within a year she was in London. [11]Table Talk (Melb) July 7, 1910, p1

Eric Porter suggests that after a convent education, Phyllis Warner played “Mustard Seed” in the 1903 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.[12]Porter (1965) p172 Perhaps this is so. Phyllis Warner first appears in newspaper advertising as part of the New All-Star Company, a variety troupe performing at Adelaide’s Tivoli in 1907, when she was still aged 16.[13]The Gadfly (Adel) 18 Sep 1907, p9 A few years later, she is found in the Melbourne cast of Mrs Lee’s Lodgers, a French musical farce directed by and starring English actor Florence Baines.

Theatre Program – The Bijou Theatre presents, Miss Florence Baines in Mrs Lee’s Lodgers, 29th August, 1908.[14]State Library of Victoria

By 1909 she was under contract to JC Williamsons, being cast in the Sydney runs of the new musicals King of Cadonia and Our Miss Gibbs. In the latter, she was on stage with other talented and aspirational Australian actors, singers and dancers – including Ivy Schilling, Vera Pearce, Nellie Wilson and Fred Leslie, all of whom would try their luck overseas.[15]The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) 24 Sep 1910, p2

It was an impressive achievement for an 18 year old. And then, in February 1910 she became engaged to Thomas Habgood Hudson, variously described as an actor and an automobile engineer. He was the son of very well known actor-manager “Tommy” Thomas Pedder Hudson (1852-1909).[16]T.P. Hudson lived for some time in Adelaide and had managed Nellie Melba’s successful Australasian tour of 1902-3. He died in Bournemouth, England in 1909 The couple married in Sydney in August 1910, and a few months later, they departed for England.[17]This was Phyllis Warner’s second voyage to England. Her father had been able to arrange a trip for the family – presumably to see relatives – in 1902

Adrienne Sordini becomes Billie Browne

In 1915, an Adrienne Sordini appeared as a player in several London revues, including Follow the Frill at the Poplar Hippodrome in August.[18]The Stage, 26 Aug 1915, p18 As it transpires, this was our heroine’s first attempt at a British stage name. It is safe to assume this was inspired by the names of other popular actors of the time. Her husband’s World War One military record confirms that she was working in variety at the time he enlisted in the British Army in 1915.[19]Thomas Habgood Hudson’s British military records are available on Ancestry

Billie Browne “of Australian musical comedy fame” on the Page 1 directory of The Era, March 29, 1916.

However, it was under a new stage name – “Billie Browne” – that she first earned a reputation. Newspapers record her appearing in pantomime in 1916, when she was reported as principal girl in a Dick Whittington pantomime,[20]See Cardiff’s Western Mail, 12 Dec 1916, p2 but her real breakthrough appears to have been touring the English provinces in the popular musical comedy Betty for the George Edwardes Company. When Alfred Butt (1878-1962) toured the new musical Irene in late 1920, it was Billie Browne who again took the leading role – to some acclaim.[21]Birmingham Daily Gazette, 23 December 1920, p8

Billie Browne on tour in George Edwardes’ production of the musical comedy Betty in early 1918.[22]The Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent), Mar 30, 1918, p1 and The Coventry Graphic, 5 April 1918. NB Edwardes himself had died by this time.

In late 1917, in a convoluted account for a Nottingham newspaper, “Billie Browne” provided a fanciful explanation regarding her choices of name. She said her name really was Adrienne Sordini, and although born in Melbourne Australia, she was of Italian parentage.[23]She continued the fantasy of an Italian mother for much of her life. See for example Daily Mirror Dec 20, 1929, p11 She said an English agent had suggested the plainer name “Billie Browne.” She again explained that she had started out as the fairy Mustard Seed in an Australian production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and she had subsequently travelled all over Australasia.[24]The Football Post (Nottingham), Dec 1, 1917, p10

It seems likely that much of the subterfuge relating to her name was connected to an increasingly unhappy marriage. Although a daughter – Gabrielle May Hudson – was born of the union in early 1912, in August Hudson had started to display some strange behaviour – which would become a feature of his later life. He went missing after a swim at Southbourne’s River Stour and it was assumed he had drowned – he had left his car and clothes behind on the river bank. However, several days later he rang Phyllis from London and the search for his body was dropped.[25]See for example Evening Express(London) 13 Aug, 1912, p4 and Huddersfield Daily Examiner(Yorkshire), 14 Aug 1912, p4 Although he later served through World War One, in July 1918 he received a conviction for petty theft – stealing a wallet. Then in June 1921 he was declared bankrupt, and he was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment for fraud.[26]See accounts of Hudson’s troubles in The Daily Telegraph(London), June 13, 1921, p1 and The Citizen (London) 20 Jan 1932, p1 By this time Phyllis Carrie Hudson had had enough, and she successfully divorced him on the grounds of adultery.[27]National Archives [UK]. Divorce Court File: 6799. Appellant: Phyllis Carrie Hudson. Respondent: Thomas Habgood Hudson. Type: Wife’s petition for divorce

Adrienne Brune appears on the London stage

Theatre historians Parker [28]John Parker (1947) p344 and Wearing [29]J P Wearing (2014)The London Stage 1920-1929 p206 date the first appearance of Adrienne Brune on the London stage to the opera Polly, in December 1922, when she took the leading role of Jenny Diver. Except to note that she had previously called herself Billie Browne, her latest stage name was adopted without much public comment. In fact, the name remained with her for the rest of her career, to the extent many thought it was her real name. Polly, a sequel to The Beggar’s Opera, ran for 325 performances over ten months, first at London’s Kingsway Theatre and then at the Savoy.

National Portrait Gallery (UK) image of Adrienne Brune, by Bassano Ltd, 17 August 1923. The date suggests it was taken at the time she was performing at the Savoy Theatre in Polly, a sequel to The Merry Widow. Used under a creative commons licence.

And with her “triple qualifications – of being able to act, sing and dance,” she was a brilliant success.[30]Evening News (London) 13 Oct 1923, p6 The Sketch waxed lyrically about Polly: “It is likely to run a thousand and one nights, and it will live when all the musical comedies of the century… will be dead and forgotten… ” And of Adrienne they reported: “Miss Adrienne Brune as Jenny – piquante in French style, a glad eye, a vixen, an irresistible little courtesan, a figure as espiègle [playful] and as dainty as a bit of sevres [fine porcelain].”[31]The Sketch (London)Wednesday 17 January 1923, p32 The career of 32 year old Adrienne Brune was well and truly launched.

Adrienne Brune (centre) in Polly, 1923. [32]The Sphere, 6 Jan 1923, P8b. Photo – Illustrated London News Group

Her work in the 1920s included Ethel in Tonight’s the Night at the Winter Garden in 1924, Sonia in The Merry Widow at the Lyceum in late 1924, Pamela in Dear Little Billie at the Shaftesbury Theatre in 1925, Marian in The Apache at the Palladium in 1926 and Stella in The Girl from Cook’s in 1927. Revues and musical fantasies also featured – including roles in Noel Coward’s This year of Grace! in 1928.

Above: Webster Booth, Adrienne Brune and Lilian Davies in The Three Musketeers, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane 1930. Photo courtesy Jean Collin. Recordings of several songs from the show can be heard here.

In 1924 she married fellow actor Arthur Pusey (1896-1965). Pusey was performing on the screen as well as stage by this time, and he had made several films in Germany in the later 1920s.[33]Picturegoer’s Who’s Who, 1933, p216 At various times, Adrienne also claimed to have been in films [34]Daily Mirror, Dec 20, 1929, p11 – infers she was in German films; West Australian 28 June 1935, p10 – said film work did not appeal to her and later described in some detail a test she had taken for a talkie.[35]Football Post (Nottingham), Feb 1, 1930, p12 Unfortunately, there is no surviving evidence of her work in film today, but her voice was being recorded at this time. For example, some of her solos and duets in Polly were made being available by HMV as early as 1925.[36]Opera At Home (1925) The Gramophone Company, London. Via the Hathi Trust

Pusey and Adrienne Brune at the time of their marriage, 1924.[37]Daily Mirror (London) Sept 20, 1924, p1

Unfortunately, Pusey abandoned Adrienne in 1929, reportedly only leaving her with a note on the mantlepiece to say he was leaving. A divorce was granted in 1934.[38]The Daily Telegraph(London) Jan 12, 1934 ·p9. Also National Archives [UK] Divorce Court File: 8269. Appellant: Phyllis Carrie Pusey. Respondent: Arthur Watson Pusey. Type: Wife’s petition … Continue reading

Return to Australia in 1935

In his pioneering series of biographies for the theatre, historian John Parker documented Adrienne Brune’s ongoing career through the early years of the depression – which included leading roles in stage versions of Thackeray’s The Rose and the Ring (as Princess Angelica) and Waltzes from Vienna (as Resi).

Above: Adrienne Brune photographed in Western Australia, enroute to Melbourne for “a rest,… after spending practically all her life abroad.”[39]Sunday Times (Perth) 30 June 1935, p1

However in early July 1935 there was another change, when she travelled to Melbourne, Australia via the Orsova. There was no advance publicity heralding her return – in fact it was only when the ship arrived in Western Australia that newspapers picked up she was on board. On the shipping manifest, she gave an intended address that was her younger brother Guy’s business address in High Street, Thornbury, a suburb of Melbourne. But Guy, a motor mechanic, had died a year before, leaving a widow with three very young children. Adrienne also had no contract to perform in Australia, and only vague plans for the future were indicated. In Melbourne, in early July, she settled into the Victoria Hotel in Little Collins St. Six weeks later, on 16 August 1935, she signed a J.C. Williamson’s contract to perform in the operetta Ball at the Savoy, at a rate of £25 per week, when it opened in Brisbane.[40]J.C. Williamson’s Contract Adrienne Brune, courtesy Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne It was a good – but not exceptional salary for an experienced London performer.[41]About $AU2,800 in 2023 values Her contract shows no agent had been involved and there was no indication that the voyage to Australia had been paid for, as was the case when J.C. Williamson’s imported Hungarian actor-singer Oskar Denes (1894-1950) for the cast.[42]Also spelled Oszkár Dénes

Oskar Denes and Nellie Barnes were moving on to Melbourne, not leaving Australia as this Brisbane advert suggests. [43]Brisbane Telegraph, Sept 11,1935, p22

As it turned out, Ball at the Savoy [44]also known as Ball at Savoy ran for less than two weeks in Brisbane, closing on 11 September. Oskar Denes had also headlined the cast for its Sydney and Melbourne runs and returned to Melbourne for another season in October. Adrienne also made her way back to Melbourne but for reasons unknown, did not repeat the role – although it was an option written into her contract. Instead, some time in late October 1935, she joined a small group of first class passengers on the passenger-cargo ship Imperial Star and returned to England. She had spent four months in Australia, but had been on stage for barely two weeks. Whatever she did over that time, she somehow managed to avoid all the publicity a returned Australian actor might normally receive. Perhaps she was preoccupied helping her late brother’s family, or possibly her mother Ada Isabel Warner was still alive and needed her support.[45]A woman of the same name was repeatedly arrested for vagrancy after 1916. This woman insisted her daughter in England supported her financially. And on 12 July 1945, a woman of the same name died at … Continue reading

Her later British career

Adrienne Brune’s later career followed a path we might predict. She was no longer young enough to take the same leading West End roles, but still had a beautiful voice and a recognisable “name” that provided her with provincial work. For example, over Christmas 1937, she appeared as Principal boy (Prince Charming) in a Cinderella pantomime tour, with popular singer-comedian Billy Merson (1879-1947). Over the summer seasons she also appeared on tour, in cheerfully titled variety lineups, with titles such as Musical Memories – where her West End musical comedy credentials were celebrated – because these gave her “the ability to effortlessly play a leading role in many of the sketches and comedy interludes.”[46]Bexhill-on-Sea Observer (UK) 30 July 1938, p5

Left: Adrienne Brune advertising Phosferine all-purpose tonic in The Tatler, 2 July 1930. At right, her daughter Gabrielle Brune, as featured in The Tatler 25 Sept, 1940.

Unfortunately, in April 1940 what might have been a happy return to a major London theatre ended disastrously for Adrienne, with the revue Let’s Mix It. Joan Byford (daughter of actor Roy Byford) and her husband Harold Brewer leased the London Playhouse theatre and financed and wrote this, their own show – dubiously titled a “musical cocktail.” But it closed after just one night – The Times noting that “when the finale was announced from the stage there were cries of relief from the gallery”.[47]The Times 20 April 1940, cited in Wearing p16 One unnamed cast member acknowledged that they were completely unrehearsed. “The finale …was only given to us a few hours before the curtain was due to rise.”[48]Weekly Dispatch (London) 21 April 1940, p7

Radio performances and soon after, membership of a wartime ENSA unit, gave her some more exposure. She was well reviewed by the Stage for a character role as an operatic Viennese cook in the ENSA production of J B Priestley’s comedy How Are they at Home in late 1944.[49]The Stage (London) 21 Sept 1944, p4

Adrienne Brune advertising as a teacher in 1949. [50]The Kensington News & West London Times, Jan 28, 1949

By the end of the Second World War, Adrienne had turned to teaching elocution and singing. She died of heart failure in Queen Mary’s Hospital, Roehampton, London in January 1973. Sadly there were no obituaries to mark her passing in England or Australia.

In 1930, Adrienne’s daughter made her first appearances as a singer and dancer, using the stage name Gabrielle Brune.[51]John Parker (1947) p345 She enjoyed a long career on stage and in supporting roles on the screen. She died in England in 2005.

Nick Murphy
March 2025

References

Audios of Adrienne Brune performing

Further reading

  • Jean Collin (2025) Webster Booth’s debut in the West End.
  • Ross Laird (1996) Moanin’ low : a discography of female popular vocal recordings, 1920-1933. Greenwood Press
  • Joan Maslen, ‘Everett, Minnie Rebecca (1874–1956)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, published first in hardcopy 1996, accessed online 10 March 2025.
  • Picturegoer (1933) The Picturegoer’s Who’s Who and encyclopedia of screen today. Greycarne Books, Watford.
  • Hal Porter (1965) Stars of Australian Stage and Screen. Rigby Ltd
  • John Parker (1947) Who’s Who in the Theatre. Tenth Edition. Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons
  • J.P.Wearing (2014) The London Stage 1910-1919 : A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel. The Scarecrow Press.
  • J.P.Wearing (2014) The London Stage 1920-1929 : A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
  • J.P.Wearing (2014) The London Stage 1930-1939 : A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel. (Second Edition) Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
  • J.P.Wearing (2014) The London Stage 1940-1949 : A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
This site has been selected for preservation in the National Library of Australia’s Pandora archive

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Theatre World, June 1930, p5. Author’s collection
↑2, ↑28 John Parker (1947) p344
↑3, ↑24 The Football Post (Nottingham), Dec 1, 1917, p10
↑4 The Era, 29 August 1925 p1
↑5 Daily Mirror (London) Feb 29, 1932 p7
↑6 An initial misspelling of “Carry” was corrected and initialled
↑7 See Victoria Births Deaths & Marriages documents – 1] Carrie Phyllis Warner birth certificate 29129/1891 and 2] John William Guy Warner & Ada Isabel Clements marriage certificate 7138/1890
↑8 The Advertiser (Adel) 13 Jul 1904, p5
↑9 The Argus (Melb)14 Jul 1904, p5
↑10 Years later she claimed to have studied at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music
↑11 Table Talk (Melb) July 7, 1910, p1
↑12 Porter (1965) p172
↑13 The Gadfly (Adel) 18 Sep 1907, p9
↑14 State Library of Victoria
↑15 The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) 24 Sep 1910, p2
↑16 T.P. Hudson lived for some time in Adelaide and had managed Nellie Melba’s successful Australasian tour of 1902-3. He died in Bournemouth, England in 1909
↑17 This was Phyllis Warner’s second voyage to England. Her father had been able to arrange a trip for the family – presumably to see relatives – in 1902
↑18 The Stage, 26 Aug 1915, p18
↑19 Thomas Habgood Hudson’s British military records are available on Ancestry
↑20 See Cardiff’s Western Mail, 12 Dec 1916, p2
↑21 Birmingham Daily Gazette, 23 December 1920, p8
↑22 The Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent), Mar 30, 1918, p1 and The Coventry Graphic, 5 April 1918. NB Edwardes himself had died by this time.
↑23 She continued the fantasy of an Italian mother for much of her life. See for example Daily Mirror Dec 20, 1929, p11
↑25 See for example Evening Express(London) 13 Aug, 1912, p4 and Huddersfield Daily Examiner(Yorkshire), 14 Aug 1912, p4
↑26 See accounts of Hudson’s troubles in The Daily Telegraph(London), June 13, 1921, p1 and The Citizen (London) 20 Jan 1932, p1
↑27 National Archives [UK]. Divorce Court File: 6799. Appellant: Phyllis Carrie Hudson. Respondent: Thomas Habgood Hudson. Type: Wife’s petition for divorce
↑29 J P Wearing (2014)The London Stage 1920-1929 p206
↑30 Evening News (London) 13 Oct 1923, p6
↑31 The Sketch (London)Wednesday 17 January 1923, p32
↑32 The Sphere, 6 Jan 1923, P8b. Photo – Illustrated London News Group
↑33 Picturegoer’s Who’s Who, 1933, p216
↑34 Daily Mirror, Dec 20, 1929, p11 – infers she was in German films; West Australian 28 June 1935, p10 – said film work did not appeal to her
↑35 Football Post (Nottingham), Feb 1, 1930, p12
↑36 Opera At Home (1925) The Gramophone Company, London. Via the Hathi Trust
↑37 Daily Mirror (London) Sept 20, 1924, p1
↑38 The Daily Telegraph(London) Jan 12, 1934 ·p9. Also National Archives [UK] Divorce Court File: 8269. Appellant: Phyllis Carrie Pusey. Respondent: Arthur Watson Pusey. Type: Wife’s petition for divorce
↑39 Sunday Times (Perth) 30 June 1935, p1
↑40 J.C. Williamson’s Contract Adrienne Brune, courtesy Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne
↑41 About $AU2,800 in 2023 values
↑42 Also spelled Oszkár Dénes
↑43 Brisbane Telegraph, Sept 11,1935, p22
↑44 also known as Ball at Savoy
↑45 A woman of the same name was repeatedly arrested for vagrancy after 1916. This woman insisted her daughter in England supported her financially. And on 12 July 1945, a woman of the same name died at Beechworth’s mental hospital. However so few details appear on her death certificate there is no certainty the person is Adrienne’s mother
↑46 Bexhill-on-Sea Observer (UK) 30 July 1938, p5
↑47 The Times 20 April 1940, cited in Wearing p16
↑48 Weekly Dispatch (London) 21 April 1940, p7
↑49 The Stage (London) 21 Sept 1944, p4
↑50 The Kensington News & West London Times, Jan 28, 1949
↑51 John Parker (1947) p345

‘Rupe’ Kathner – showman, maverick, or just bad filmmaker?

47 year old Rupert Kathner (playing 25 year old outlaw Aaron Sherritt) in his own film The Glenrowan Affair (1951). Football player Bob Chitty (playing Ned Kelly) can be seen at right.[1]Source of screengrab: Throwback Australia TV channel on Youtube
The Five second version
Not only did Rupert Kathner (1904-1954) slightly resemble Ed Wood (1924-1978), the well-known US director of cheap features and exploitation quickies, but he also shared at least one characteristic – a seriously inflated belief in his own ability. Trained first as an artist and sign-writer, Kathner had drifted into making films in the mid 1930s. His gift to Australian cinema history were his sensational newsreels, made in the later 1930s, several very mediocre feature films and his 1945 book, an extraordinarily bitter blast against those whose success he envied. In the late 1930s Alma Brooks (1908 -1988) became his professional and personal partner, contributing to much of his work, including several films. Kathner and Brooks are the subject of Alec Morgan’s 2006 docu-drama Hunt Angels.[2]Hunt Angels was Kathner’s stage name in his final film The Glenrowan Affair. But as Kathner’s book explains – Angels were backers of a film, and hunting for them was his task

Kathner’s son Paul (1935-2023) had a long and successful career as a set designer and artist.
Rupert Kathner, aged 23 and newly released from gaol. South Australian Police Gazette, 6 July 1927.

Interviewed in 2002 by the NFSA [3]National Film & Sound Archive, Australia, well known actor Charles “Bud” Tingwell (1923-2009) recalled Rupert Kathner amongst the Australians trying to make films in the difficult 1940s. “Rupert Kathner… was always having to battle… The theory was that he would pinch what he could buy.” he said. But Kathner was “a lovely guy.” Following Alec Morgan‘s 2006 award-winning docu-drama on Kathner, Hunt Angels,[4]The film won 3 Australian Film Institute (AFI) awards in 2006 there has been a surge of interest in him. Even if his films are – at best, unremarkable, if not just downright bad – Australians love an underdog, and in filmmaker Rupert Kathner they have another.

Born Rupert William Kaethner in South Australia in 1904, his father William was a partner in Eicke & Kaethner, coachbuilders of Parkside, Adelaide. William specialized in finishing and decorating the vehicles.[5]See The Register (Adelaide) 13 Sep 1901, p7 Rupert (he preferred “Rupe” in later life) was the oldest child born to William and his wife Grace nee Fletcher. In a 1954 obituary it was claimed young Rupert had attended Adelaide’s St Peter’s Grammar school and later trained under artist Hans Heysen (1877-1968). As with so many stories about Rupert’s life – these claims are now difficult to verify.[6]Surviving records for two of Kathner’s younger brothers Max and Francis show they attended Glenelg Primary School By the mid 1920s, Kathner was a signwriter, but unfortunately, whatever good experiences or mentoring he may have enjoyed, he was regularly coming to the attention of the police. His problems started as traffic misdemeanors, but soon moved to fraud – including several attempts to defraud pawnbrokers – gaining money by false pretences.[7]The Register (Adelaide) 25 Apr 1925 p13 And in late 1925, he was declared insolvent.

The shocking businessman

The words of the Commissioner in Adelaide’s Insolvency Court in November 1925 may have been prophetic. Although Rupert Kathner was only aged 21, Commissioner Mitchell pulled no punches. He told the young sign writer – “You are… a shocking business man. You cannot go on in life like this. If you are going into business you must conduct your affairs in a proper and business-like way. I can see from your transactions that you know nothing about business. You have acted stupidly and there is no excuse for it.”[8]The Register (Adelaide) 21 Nov 1925, p12 Unfortunately, Kathner did not learn by this experience and by early 1927 he was in gaol, after a conviction for false pretences. Perhaps, finally, he did learn his lesson. At least for a time.

By 1930, the whole Kathner family had moved to Sydney in New South Wales. Rupert’s parents and siblings all lived together in Curlewis Street, Bondi. Rupert, now recorded on electoral records as a commercial artist, lived on his own about 3 kilometres away on the other side of Bondi Junction, in View Street, Waverley. In June 1930 Rupert Kathner married Clarice Trouton, also a signwriter, and a son, Paul, was born of the union in 1935.

Entering the film industry

Portrait of Damien Parer by Rupert Kathner, c1944. National Library of Australia

In the 1930s Kathner also developed a career as a portrait and landscape artist, although over time, reviews of his art were mixed.[9]See for example, The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 15 Feb 1946, p11 and The Mail (Adelaide) 1 Feb 1947, p3 By 1935 he had also moved into set design for a local film project – The Burgomeister (1935) – Harry Southwell’s (1882-1960) filmed version of the stage play The Bells.[10]Pike & Cooper (1980) p226 and 234 Although the film was not good enough to get a commercial release, it brought Kathner into contact with others in the industry, including character actor Stan Tolhurst (1908-1983). Later that year, Tolhurst and Kathner collaborated on a short pilot for a proposed feature film called Falling for Fame, which portrayed “the phonies who came from overseas and wasted the industry’s money.”[11]Pike & Cooper (1980) p234 It was intended to feature Tolhurst and popular stage comedian Syd Beck (1898-1948). In a practice that was to typify Kathner’s approach to film production, he planted enthusiastic publicity in the press – claiming that it was all about to happen.[12]See for example Everyones, Vol.15 No.805 (6 November 1935 But the film failed to find backing and was not made. It was also at this time that Kathner wrote to The Sydney Morning Herald, complaining about the practice of importing directors and actors, and at the same time making wild claims about his own expertise – which included “15 years experience in practically every branch of the industry.”[13]See The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW) 29 Oct 1935, p6. Of course – 15 years before, he had been aged 16 – and was probably an apprentice signwriter.

Making films – Phantom Gold (1937) & Below the Surface (1938)

A Newcastle newspaper announces a showing of the film, in language typically used by Kathner.[14]The Singleton Argus,(NSW) 18 June 1937

In 1936 Kathner embarked on a new project with Stan Tolhurst – based on a topic of great public interest. Only six years before, adventurer Harold Lasseter (1880-1931) had died in central Australia attempting to relocate a fabulous gold reef he claimed he had previously found.[15]The consensus of opinion now is that the gold reef does not exist and Lasseter was a fantasist Hugh Foy (1868 -1943), the very wealthy manager of Foy’s department store in Sydney, mounted an expedition to investigate the story – or perhaps to find the reef, taking his family and several bushmen who had known Lasseter along with him. And Rupert Kathner and Stan Tolhurst also went along – to make a film of it. But the resulting movie – part record of the trip and part re-enactment of Lasseter’s demise – did not get a commercial release. In fact it was not granted registration under New South Wales’ Film Quota act, which included a provision for film quality.[16]See Weaving (2013) Appendix p31-32 It was also the subject of legal action by publishers Angus and Robertson, who claimed the film was a copyright infringement of Ion Idriess’s popular book, Lasseter’s Last Ride. According to film historians Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, Hugh Foy wisely barred any further screenings of the film.[17]Pike & Cooper (1980) p234 A 5 minute clip from the film can be seen [here] at the NFSA website. The very dry narration that accompanied it was dated filmmaking, even for the time.

Stills from the NFSA collection of photos of the making of Phantom Gold.
Left: Kathner and Tolhurst – standing behind the group and at the rear. NFSA ID – 600196-0004.
Right: Kathner filming Tolhurst – playing Harold Lasseter. NFSA ID – 600138-0005.

Below the Surface (1938) was another attempt at a feature film by Kathner and Tolhurst. But this film also failed to be registered under the Film Quota Act’s quality provision, and therefore had no commercial release. According to Pike and Cooper, the plot concerned two miners competing for a coal contract.[18]Pike & Cooper (1980) p241 Not surprisingly, the film no longer exists today.

Kathner’s Australia Today newsreels

In 1938, Kathner turned to producing newsreels – the type of short that was often shown before main film features or in specialist newsreel cinemas. As Alec Morgan notes, the two newsreel monopolies then operating in Australia; Fox-Movietone and Cinesound News – churned out a fairly consistent diet of feel-good public interest stories. Kathner saw an opening for sensational and controversial topics and produced these under the title Australia Today. In 1999, Morgan interviewed an actor named “Stanley Mount” who said he had once worked with Kathner. Mount said he believed the newsreels were a means for Kathner to fund his feature films.[19]Morgan (Nov 2006) Senses of Cinema. In Morgan’s film Hunt Angels, Stanley Mount appears in a “talking head” interview. However this is actually actor Robert Bruning

Left: Title card for an Australia Today newsreel. Note “Al Brooks” (Alma Brooks) credited as Associate Producer. Right: Kathner playing a random person attempting to identify the obscured corpse of the Pyjama Girl. Source of screengrabs: NFSA

There are at least half a dozen newsreels made by Kathner surviving in the collections of the NFSA, and a variety of clips can be seen (here). They include stories on the Pyjama Girl murder[20]the murder of Linda Agostini in 1934 remained unresolved for some years, inner city poverty, shark attacks and drug dealing. In these newsreel shorts, Kathner seemed to find his milieu. They were easily filmed, heavily dependent on re-enactments and integration of stock footage, all the time accompanied by a dramatic narration. Film historian Ina Bertrand suggests that in selecting these topics for his newsreels, Kathner was likely “employing his showman’s nose for the sensational.”[21]Bertrand (2006) p12 Working with Kathner by this time was Alma Brooks (1908 -1988). While usually introduced to modern readers as an “ex-bar maid”, her work with Kathner and events in her later life indicates a person of great ability and resourcefulness. Kathner obviously thought so too – his 1945 book is dedicated to her.

In addition to appearing in most of the newsreels, contemporary newspaper accounts variously list Alma Brooks as a film editor, script writer and sound engineer, reflecting her degree of collaboration with Kathner. Sydney’s Truth took great delight in reporting a physical altercation she had at the company office in January 1940, when an angry creditor arrived and demanded settlement of a £6 debt.[22]On this occasion, the court sided with Alma. See Truth (Syd) 21 Jan 1940, p24 Also see Note 1 regarding Alma Brooks

Left: Alma Brooks playing an anonymous mother in a newsreel dealing with slum life. Right: In another newsreel -Alma modelling clothes similar to those worn by the “Pyjama Girl”. Kathner was to claim he had received a “mysterious warning” not to proceed with work on this story. [23]Source of screengrabs: NFSA copies of Australia To-day newsreels

Making films – Wings of Destiny (1940) and Racing Luck (1941)

Wings of Destiny on release as a second feature in 1940. [24]Newcastle Morning Herald & Miner’s Advocate(NSW) 16 Sept 1940 p8

Although both of Kathner’s films made in the early years of World War 2 were released, neither are easily available for viewing today.[25]However, see plot summaries, lists of credits and comments by Simon Weaving (2013), who has watched them all The screenplay for Wings of Destiny, a 68 minute tale of German espionage in Australia, was credited to both Kathner and Alma Brooks. But Weaving notes that the film suffers from “a lack of understanding of the basic grammar of filmmaking and poor performances… Production standards are amateurish.”[26]Weaving; Survey of Australian Cinema 1938-1958 (2013) p61-3 Press reviews of the time made similar comments. The best Smith’s Weekly could find to report was that the film goes along “rather limpingly.”[27]Smiths Weekly 21 Sept 1940, p23

George Lloyd in Racing Luck. [28]Illawarra Mercury (NSW) 29 May 1942, p1

Not to be deterred by this failure, and despite the shortages and restrictions of wartime, Kathner and Brooks found some funding and embarked on another feature, eventually given the title Racing Luck, and starring two well known performers – Joe Valli (1885-1967) and George Lloyd (1897-1943). While the two comedians were able to carry the film,[29]playing two World War I veterans who use a potion to cure a ailing racehorse Weaving again notes this film’s “low production standards, continuity errors and poor direction… In one scene the Director’s call for ‘Action’ has been included.”[30]Weaving; Survey of Australian Cinema 1938-1958 (2013) p83

In mid 1941, journalist Rex Rientis visited the set of Racing Luck and provided readers of the Sydney Daily Mirror with an insight into the approach being taken. “Director Rupert Kathner and his assistant, Alma Brooks, have ‘different’ ideas [to most] about production. The actors aren’t given complete scripts, but simply an outline of the plot. Dialogue isn’t rigidly fixed, but each actor is told the sense of what he has to say, and is allowed to speak in his own idiom. ‘That’s the only way to make conversation sound completely natural’ Kathner explained.”[31]Daily Mirror (Sydney) 4 June 1941, p23 Were one not suspicious that this loose scripting was really just a means to save money, one might be tempted to describe it as cutting-edge filmmaking. It was certainly unusual for Australian films of the era.[32]Improvisation in film is usually associated with highly experienced actors and directors, working with generous budgets

A third film, about the recent siege of Tobruk [33]involving the Australian 9th Division in North Africa, April – December 1941 was planned in 1942, and Kathner felt confident enough to advertise for players and to register copyright for a script entitled The Kellys of Tobruk in early November.[34]National Archives of Australia, item 038918 Sydney’s Daily Mirror reported that the film had been cast and production had commenced – with Alma credited as the sound engineer.[35]Daily Mirror (Sydney) 29 Oct 1942, p9 The film was abandoned however, when Kathner’s company Fan Fare was taken over by Supreme Sound Systems.[36]Gaunson (2017) p199 A trail of litigation relating to investments in the film followed – fortunately for Kathner these were dismissed.[37]See for example The Sun (Syd) 19 Oct 1942, p2 and The Sun (Syd) 5 July 1944 p5

Publicity or perhaps a production still for the abandoned Kathner film on Tobruk, featuring Arundel Nixon (1907-1949) and Syd Beck.[38]The World’s News (Syd) 13 March, 1943, p15

Let’s Make a Movie!

For a short time, in the later part of World War 2, Kathner and Brooks turned to other interests.

Rupert Kathner’s book published c1945. Currawong Publishing Company.[39]State Library of Victoria

One of these was Kathner’s 100 page booklet Let’s Make a Movie! Published in 1945 as “an eye opening review on Australian film productions,” it is more of a rant than an exposé. Unfortunately, there are so few contemporary records from Australian filmmakers of this era that it’s possible the modern reader may seize on Kathner’s book and attribute greater significance to it than it really deserves. The book provided none of the provocative insights promised on the cover or in its modest publicity.[40]See The Newcastle Sun (NSW), 1 Sep 1945, p4 for example It is particularly ungracious towards successful film makers of the time, like Ken Hall (1901-1994) and Charles Chauvel (1897-1959), although kinder to aging film pioneer Raymond Longford (1878-1959) whom Kathner knew and had used as an extra. Cheaply printed, these brittle little booklets now survive only in specialist library collections.

At the end of the war, Kathner and Brooks also spent some time travelling central Australia in an ex-Army truck, with Rupert painting landscapes. These paintings formed the basis of several exhibitions that attracted press attention and presumably provided some income.[41]See for example, The Sydney Morning Herald, 15 February 1946, p7 and The Advertiser (Adelaide) 5 February 1947, p11 Characteristically, there was also talk of a series of central Australian travel films, and then, perhaps another feature film![42]The Mail (Adelaide) 8 December 1945, p3 And unfortunately, Rupert Kathner returned to his previous patterns of behaviour, writing a number of worthless cheques while travelling around, and again, attracted the attention of the Police.[43]South Australian Police Gazette, 13 November, 1946, p432 Alma was by now usually referred to in reports as “Mrs Kathner,” although the real Mrs Clarice Kathner was living far away with Kathner’s siblings and his mother Grace, at 132 Bondi Rd, Bondi, Sydney.[44]NSW Archives, Divorce papers Clarice Edna Kathner – Rupert William Kathner

Never one to be deterred, Rupert Kathner began to develop plans for another feature. In May 1947, a film of the life of poet Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833-1870) was announced,[45]Border Watch (South Australia) 3 July 1947, p10 but only a few months later Kathner’s attention turned to Benalla, where old acquaintance Harry Southwell was planning yet another film about bushranger Ned Kelly (he had already made three Kelly films – in 1920, 1923 and 1934).

Rupert Kathner (in coat) newly arrived in Benalla for Harry Southwell’s A Message to Kelly, September 1947. [46]Benalla Ensign (Vic) 5 Sept 1947, p1

Enticed to join Southwell, (or perhaps Kathner leapt at the chance) Benalla Film Productions was established with significant local investment and local footballer Bob Chitty (1916-1985) signed to star as Ned Kelly. The film’s penultimate scene – the siege of the Glenrowan Inn, was shot in early October 1947 [47]Corryong Courier (Vic) 2 Oct 1947, p5 but shortly after this Southwell and Kathner fell out – and Kathner left the project.[48]Benalla Ensign (Vic.) 21 Nov 1947, p5 Unable to find another director and having run out of money, Southwell abandoned the project altogether.[49]Pyke & Cooper (1980) p278

Sometime later, Kathner returned to the Benalla area to make his own version of a Kelly story. He could not use Southwell’s script – so he wrote his own – but he cast local celebrity Bob Chitty as Ned Kelly again.

Some of the title credits on The Glenrowan Affair – which include Kate Kelly played by “Beatrice Kay” (Alma Brooks) and Aaron Sherritt played by “Hunt Angels” (Rupert Kathner). Alma is also credited as an Associate producer.

Laboured, amateurish film-making

The Glenrowan Affair is the only one of Kathner’s feature films freely available to viewers today. Eric Reade characterises this film as “the same old Ned Kelly saga, with a new twist” – that is, Dan Kelly, one of the gang members, had survived and meets the film’s narrator.[50]Reade (1979), p137[51]The activities of the Kelly Gang c1878-1880 are well documented elsewhere, and their exploits have been the subject of numerous Australian films – including the world’s first feature film … Continue reading

In the 2002 interview for the NFSA, Charles Tingwell the film’s narrator, recalled that the era was “a battling time” for filmmakers. He added that he had recently watched the film again and “it wasn’t all that bad.”[52]NFSA, Australian Biography: Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell Of course, it is easy to pick holes in low budget films of the 1940s and 50s. But this writer is of the opinion that viewed dispassionately and outside the frame of sentimental nationalism that so often colours our view of the past, the film shapes up poorly in almost every regard. The script is woeful and wildly inaccurate and the acting wooden, the sound synchronisation and quality is poor. Makeup is also poor – particularly the disconcertingly bad false beards – while the sets – consisting mostly of farm sheds, are unconvincing. The direction and cinematography are clumsy at best.[53]See also Weaving (2013) p173 The horse-riding is, on the other hand, consistently impressive.

Screengrabs from The Glenrowan Affair.(Click to enlarge) Left: The unnamed artist/narrator (played by Kathner but voiced by Bud Tingwell) with “old Dinny” or Dan Kelly. 2nd from Left: Film title incorrectly dating the action to 1887. 3rd from Left: Kate Kelly played by Alma Brooks. Right: Ned Kelly – played by an actor in seriously oversized armour.[54]Note that the NFSA advertises this film with a photo of an actor in a different suit of armour – most likely from the abandoned Harry Southwell film

Stories of the film’s reception in Benalla – or “Kelly country” – vary. Were there really threats from Kelly sympathisers? Or roars of amused laughter during the screening? It no longer seems clear, although the film’s showing in Benalla really did raise £400 for charity. However, contemporary reviews of the film were not positive. In fact as Pike & Cooper note, most were scathing.

The film listed as a supporting picture in 1954 .[55]Lilydale Express 29 Oct 1954, p4

The Sydney Sunday Herald reported “This near-unendurable stretch of laboured, amateurish film-making is something that the developing Australian film industry will wish to forget-swiftly and finally. It is about the exploits of the Kelly gang, and seems content to assume that this Australian legend has enough appeal in itself to need less than the minimal requirements of film craft to generate excitement.[56]The Sunday Herald (Syd), 19 Aug 1951, p12

The film limped on in release, occasionally showing as a supporting picture, well after Kathner’s death in March 1954. The fact that it was not as bad as Australia’s previous Ned Kelly film of 1934 (made by Harry Southwell) is faint praise.

Although this was an era of few Australian films and the challenges were many; Ken Hall’s Smithy (1946) , Charles Chauvel’s Sons of Matthew (1949) and Jedda (1955), the Ealing studio films of 1946-1950 and the Lee Robinson-Chips Rafferty collaborations of 1953-1956 remind us what really could be achieved at the time. They are superior in every respect.

Rupert Kathner’s demise

The story that Rupert Kathner died suddenly of a brain haemorrhage has its origins in an incident in September 1950, when (he said) he had collapsed due to the strain of producing The Glenrowan Affair.[57]NSW Archives, Divorce papers, Clarice Edna Kathner Following a period in St Vincent’s hospital, he and Alma moved onto a small launch called the Alcyone, moored at Rose Bay, Sydney. He had apparently been diagnosed with hepatitis, but even while in poor health, the couple lived on the boat.[58]NSW Archives, Divorce papers, Clarice Edna Kathner In December 1952 Alma and Rupert were front page news when the Alcyone lost its rudder and drifted towards rocks in heavy seas near Mona Vale. Alcoyne was saved by Alma’s sterling efforts and those of a young constable – Alma being praised for her “heroic part in the dramatic ocean rescue.” Rupert had been too unwell to help.[59]The Sun (Syd) 27 December 1952, p1 & 2 and Truth (Syd), 28 Dec 1952, p2

Alma Brooks and Rupert Kathner after the dramatic ocean rescue in December 1952. [60]The Sun (Syd) 27 December 1952, p1 & 2

In February 1953, Kathner’s long suffering wife Clarice sought and gained a judicial separation, although she still lived in Bondi with Kathner’s mother Grace and his youngest brother George. In court she alluded to the trouble she had with her husband after “his association with a woman called Alma”[61]Daily Telegraph (Sydney) 14 Feb 1954, p46, although the court documents simply stated he had abandoned her. Clarice was granted a judicial separation on 9 March 1954 [62]She did not want a divorce as this would conflict with her religious beliefs, but three weeks later Kathner died of chronic nephritis and uraemia (kidney disease) at Cairns Base Hospital.[63]The film Hunt Angels suggests he was taken by a shark and then claims he died of a brain haemorrhage. Neither claim is true His brother George informed for the death certificate, which contained no mention of Alma.[64]Queensland Death Certificate, Rupert William Kathner, 1954/2/1433

Kathner’s obituary in the Cairns Post listed his many achievements – both real and imagined. Undoubtedly, he would probably have been very pleased by the claim that “his book on motion picture making … is now accepted as a text book on the craft by younger producers.”[65]Cairns Post (Qld) 5 April 1954, p3

Note 1: The later life of Alma Brooks

Alma at the time of her court appointment in Cairns.[66]Brisbane Telegraph 9 Oct, 1954, p3

Following Rupert’s death in March 1954, Alma found a role as a court bailiff in Cairns.[67]This position meant she served court summonses Queensland newspapers gave the appointment generous coverage because she was reported to be Australia’s first ever, female bailiff. Her previous experience as a pioneer in the film industry was also acknowledged – she had, it was claimed, previously been “the British Commonwealth’s only woman sound recording technician… artist and technician in her own motion picture…company.”[68]Cairns Post (Qld) 8 Oct 1954, p7 Although Alma and Rupert never married, she consistently used his surname after his death in 1954. Apparently known to friends as “Kath” Kathner, she died in Queensland in 1988.

Nick Murphy
February 2025

References

Feature Films:

Newsreels – Australia Today @ NFSA including

Documentary

  • Hunt Angels (2006). Writer- Director Alec Morgan (Winner of the 2006 AFI Award for Best Documentary, Best Cinematography in a Documentary and Best Visual Effects)
    Available on Amazon Prime and Youtube.

Collections

  • South Australia: Births, Deaths & Marriages. Birth Certificate: Rupert William Kaethner, 1904
  • South Australia: Police Gazette – various dates
  • New South Wales State Archives. Divorce papers: Clarice Edna Kathner &  Rupert William Kathner, 1953-4
  • Queensland: Births, Deaths & Marriages. Death Certificate: Rupert William Kathner, 1954/c/1433

Text

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

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Source of screengrab: Throwback Australia TV channel on Youtube
↑2 Hunt Angels was Kathner’s stage name in his final film The Glenrowan Affair. But as Kathner’s book explains – Angels were backers of a film, and hunting for them was his task
↑3 National Film & Sound Archive, Australia
↑4 The film won 3 Australian Film Institute (AFI) awards in 2006
↑5 See The Register (Adelaide) 13 Sep 1901, p7
↑6 Surviving records for two of Kathner’s younger brothers Max and Francis show they attended Glenelg Primary School
↑7 The Register (Adelaide) 25 Apr 1925 p13
↑8 The Register (Adelaide) 21 Nov 1925, p12
↑9 See for example, The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 15 Feb 1946, p11 and The Mail (Adelaide) 1 Feb 1947, p3
↑10 Pike & Cooper (1980) p226 and 234
↑11, ↑17 Pike & Cooper (1980) p234
↑12 See for example Everyones, Vol.15 No.805 (6 November 1935
↑13 See The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW) 29 Oct 1935, p6.
↑14 The Singleton Argus,(NSW) 18 June 1937
↑15 The consensus of opinion now is that the gold reef does not exist and Lasseter was a fantasist
↑16 See Weaving (2013) Appendix p31-32
↑18 Pike & Cooper (1980) p241
↑19 Morgan (Nov 2006) Senses of Cinema. In Morgan’s film Hunt Angels, Stanley Mount appears in a “talking head” interview. However this is actually actor Robert Bruning
↑20 the murder of Linda Agostini in 1934 remained unresolved for some years
↑21 Bertrand (2006) p12
↑22 On this occasion, the court sided with Alma. See Truth (Syd) 21 Jan 1940, p24
↑23 Source of screengrabs: NFSA copies of Australia To-day newsreels
↑24 Newcastle Morning Herald & Miner’s Advocate(NSW) 16 Sept 1940 p8
↑25 However, see plot summaries, lists of credits and comments by Simon Weaving (2013), who has watched them all
↑26 Weaving; Survey of Australian Cinema 1938-1958 (2013) p61-3
↑27 Smiths Weekly 21 Sept 1940, p23
↑28 Illawarra Mercury (NSW) 29 May 1942, p1
↑29 playing two World War I veterans who use a potion to cure a ailing racehorse
↑30 Weaving; Survey of Australian Cinema 1938-1958 (2013) p83
↑31 Daily Mirror (Sydney) 4 June 1941, p23
↑32 Improvisation in film is usually associated with highly experienced actors and directors, working with generous budgets
↑33 involving the Australian 9th Division in North Africa, April – December 1941
↑34 National Archives of Australia, item 038918
↑35 Daily Mirror (Sydney) 29 Oct 1942, p9
↑36 Gaunson (2017) p199
↑37 See for example The Sun (Syd) 19 Oct 1942, p2 and The Sun (Syd) 5 July 1944 p5
↑38 The World’s News (Syd) 13 March, 1943, p15
↑39 State Library of Victoria
↑40 See The Newcastle Sun (NSW), 1 Sep 1945, p4 for example
↑41 See for example, The Sydney Morning Herald, 15 February 1946, p7 and The Advertiser (Adelaide) 5 February 1947, p11
↑42 The Mail (Adelaide) 8 December 1945, p3
↑43 South Australian Police Gazette, 13 November, 1946, p432
↑44 NSW Archives, Divorce papers Clarice Edna Kathner – Rupert William Kathner
↑45 Border Watch (South Australia) 3 July 1947, p10
↑46 Benalla Ensign (Vic) 5 Sept 1947, p1
↑47 Corryong Courier (Vic) 2 Oct 1947, p5
↑48 Benalla Ensign (Vic.) 21 Nov 1947, p5
↑49 Pyke & Cooper (1980) p278
↑50 Reade (1979), p137
↑51 The activities of the Kelly Gang c1878-1880 are well documented elsewhere, and their exploits have been the subject of numerous Australian films – including the world’s first feature film in 1906. Three of the gang including Dan Kelly were killed in a shootout with Police in June 1880. Ned, leader of the gang, was captured and executed in November 1880. They are most famous for constructing protective suits of armour
↑52 NFSA, Australian Biography: Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell
↑53 See also Weaving (2013) p173
↑54 Note that the NFSA advertises this film with a photo of an actor in a different suit of armour – most likely from the abandoned Harry Southwell film
↑55 Lilydale Express 29 Oct 1954, p4
↑56 The Sunday Herald (Syd), 19 Aug 1951, p12
↑57, ↑58 NSW Archives, Divorce papers, Clarice Edna Kathner
↑59 The Sun (Syd) 27 December 1952, p1 & 2 and Truth (Syd), 28 Dec 1952, p2
↑60 The Sun (Syd) 27 December 1952, p1 & 2
↑61 Daily Telegraph (Sydney) 14 Feb 1954, p46
↑62 She did not want a divorce as this would conflict with her religious beliefs
↑63 The film Hunt Angels suggests he was taken by a shark and then claims he died of a brain haemorrhage. Neither claim is true
↑64 Queensland Death Certificate, Rupert William Kathner, 1954/2/1433
↑65 Cairns Post (Qld) 5 April 1954, p3
↑66 Brisbane Telegraph 9 Oct, 1954, p3
↑67 This position meant she served court summonses
↑68 Cairns Post (Qld) 8 Oct 1954, p7

63 Aussie films & where to watch them

Above: A very impressive action still taken during the filming of Charles Chauvel’s The Rats of Tobruk (1944), with the sand dunes at Sydney’s Cronulla substituting for the Libyan desert. Photographed on 7 September 1943. Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Courtesy ACP Magazine Ltd. Original image is here

A Directory of 63 Australian feature films

* This is a list of Australian feature films that you can access – in most cases online – and mostly, at no cost.
* At the time of writing – January 2025, all the links are live. Films are listed in rough order of release! However, the list is not definitive, and sadly, a number of films that are known to survive are not even available for purchase!
*  Garry Gillard’s list of all Australian films can be consulted at the Australian Cinema website. The National Film & Sound Archive (NFSA) website and Andrew Pike & Ross Cooper’s 1980 book are referred to throughout.[1]

1. The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906)

2. Thunderbolt (1910)

  • @ NFSA channel on Youtube [Watch here]

    Comment: Another film on the popular topic of bushranging. It starred and was directed by the prolific John “Jack” F Gavin (1874-1938) – who churned out several other bushranger films in 1910-1911, before some state governments brought in a ban on such films. About 25 minutes of this film survives. See Garry Gillard’s synopsis of Gavin’s career here at The Australian Cinema website. Ina Bertrand’s article on his professional and personal partner, scriptwriter and actor Agnes Gavin (1872-1948), can be read at the Women Film Pioneers Project. [2]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 14-15

3. The Romantic Story of Margaret Catchpole (1911)

  • @ NFSA channel on Youtube [Watch here]

    Comment: Directed by Raymond Longford (1878-1959), this was his second film as director – a familiar tale of the convict making good in Australia. Leading players included his professional and personal partner Lottie Lyell (1890-1925). About 25 minutes of the film survives. As NFSA curator Paul Byrnes notes, this film helped establish Lottie Lyell as a popular star. [3]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 30-32 Of passing interest, 1911 was the busiest year for Australia film production. It is telling that this is the only survivor.

4. The Hero of the Dardanelles (1915)

5. The Woman Suffers (1918)

  • @ NFSA shop $ [Buy here]
  • @ Kanopy [Watch here with library card]
  • @The Administrator Channel on Youtube [Watch here]

    Comment: “The woman suffers… while the man goes free.” A melodrama of seduction and betrayal, it was written and directed byRaymond Longford and Lottie Lyell, who was also leading player. It was their thirteenth collaboration. Paul Byrne’s notes on the film can be read here – he describes it as one of the most significant Australian silent features. About two thirds of the film survives. It did good business – although it was banned in New South Wales after a six month run – for reasons never fully explained, but presumably through pressure from rival cinema interests.[4]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 102-103

6. The Sentimental Bloke (1919)

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  • @ Classic Old Australian films channel at Internet Archive [Watch here]

    Comment: Raymond Longford’s film is regarded as a classic – one of the country’s greatest silents.[5]Pike & Cooper (1980) p121-122 Based on C.J. Dennis’ (1876-1938) verse novel, it starred popular stage comedian Arthur Tauchert (1877-1933) as the bloke and Lottie Lyell as Doreen. It was such a popular release in Australia and in Britain that it sparked several more films – Ginger Mick (1920) and The Dinkum Bloke (1923). The entire film survives.

7. The Man from Kangaroo (1920)

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    Comment: Producer EJ Carroll (1868-1931) brought a US team to Australia to make a series of films. The team included director Wilfred Lucas (1871-1940) and his wife, scriptwriter Beth Meredyth (1890-1969). Australian athlete Snowy Baker (1884-1953) starred as the boxer turned Minister, in this variation of a Western. Popular US actor, Brownie Vernon (1895-1948) took the leading female role.[6]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 126-128 Not surprisingly, the influence of Hollywood filmmaking, particularly of westerns, was commented on at the time. Graham Shirley’s notes on the film can be read here.

8. Robbery Under Arms (1920)

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    Comment: Directed by and starring Kenneth Brampton (1881-1942), this was based on Rolf Boldrewood‘s (1826-1915) 1880s novel, and made at a time when Bushranging films were still discouraged or simply banned. (Only a few years before the NSW Chief Secretary had rejected another script based on this book with the comment “I fail to see that any good…. will be served by reproducing… the bad old days.” [7]Pike & Cooper (1980) p135-6 ) Most of the film has survived.

9. On Our Selection (1920)

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    Comment: Raymond Longford’s film was his own interpretation of the Steele Rudd stories. Longford dispensed with the country bumpkin interpretations of Dad and Dave that had become popularised thanks to the stage versions and pointedly rejected the impression created “that our backblocks are populated with a race of unsophisticated idiots” – as he felt were portrayed in Beaumont Smith’s Hayseeds series.[8]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 132-134 Paul Byrnes article on the film is here.

10. The Breaking of the Drought (1920)

  • @ Classic Old Australian films channel at Internet Archive [Watch here]
  • @ Pelciulas Mudas/ Silent cinema channel on Youtube [Watch here]

    Comment: Director Franklyn Barrett’s (1873-1964) drought scenes were severe enough to worry politicians, who feared the depiction of a savage drought would harm the standing of the nation, if shown overseas. Adapted from a stage play and extolling the virtues of an honest living made in the country as opposed to the lazy life of the city, the film was moderately well received in Australia. Trilby Clarke (1896-1983) took the leading role as Marjorie. She left a year later to pursue opportunities in the US and UK. [9]Pike & Cooper (1980) p131 Paul Byrne’s notes on the film can be read here.

11. Silks and Saddles (1921)

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    Comment: Directed by John K Wells (1886-1953), who had arrived in Australia with Wilfred Lucas. US actor Brownie Vernon took the lead role in what appears to have been her final film. Pike & Cooper characterise this as a “racecourse melodrama,” and it was released in the US with the title Queen of the Turf. [10]Pike & Cooper (1980) p138-9 The entire film survives.

12. ‘Possum Paddock (1921)

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    Comment: Kate Howarde’s (1864-1939) Possum Paddock was her own film of her own popular play, making her the first woman to write and direct an Australian feature film. Ina Bertrand’s survey of her life can be read at the Australian Dictionary of Biography, and at the Women Film Pioneers project. Leading player Leslie Adrien was her daughter (real name Florence De Saxe, 1884-1951). About 40 minutes survives of this, Howarde’s only film.

13. The Life Story of John Lee, or The Man They Could Not Hang (1921)

  • @ The Vault channel on You Tube [Watch here]

    Comment: The true story of John Lee, a man who survived several execution attempts, apparently had a strong appeal to Australians, even though the events all took place in England. A popular play, it was made as a film three times in Australia – in 1912, in 1921 and 1934. Pike & Cooper explain that Director Arthur Sterry and Frederick Haldane toured the 1912 version accompanying it with a pious lecture. It was such a great success that in 1921 they remade the film – a “new expanded version” .[11]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 49-50, 147 Then, in 1934, Raymond Longford made a third (sound) version.[12]Pike & Cooper (1980) p220. Unfortunately Longford’s version seems to be lost or at least unavailable

14. A Girl of the Bush (1921)

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    Comment: This film by Franklyn Barrett casts the action around the heroine – the Squatter’s daughter – played by New Zealand actor Vera James (1892-1980). With its picturesque scenes of honest rural life juxtaposed against the corruption of the city, it was a familiar narrative. Comic relief was offered by aged townspeople and several Chinese workers (one of whom – Sam Warr – really was Chinese). The entire film survives.[13]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 140-141

15. Painted Daughters (1925)

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    Comment: Directed by F. Stuart-Whyte (1877-1947), whose intention was to “construct bright, snappy, amusing productions, such as might find favour in all parts of the world,” for Australasian films.[14]Pike & Cooper (1980) p163-164 There are indeed, plenty of scenes of bright young people of the era, driving shiny cars, dancing, swimming and having fun at fashionable Sydney homes, set against a melodrama of love lost and won. Numerous Sydney tyros were deliberately selected for the cast – including Phyllis Barry (1908-1954), Billie Sim (1900-1980), Fernande Butler (1897-1972) and Marie Lorraine (1899-1982). About 50 minutes of the film survives.

16. Those Terrible Twins (1925)

17. Around the Boree Log (1925)

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    Comment: Directed by Phillip K Walsh in the Goulburn area of New South Wales, using local talent, it was based on the poems of John O’Brien (Father Patrick Hartigan) (1878-1952). Pike & Cooper describe it as a “sentimental journey through Australian bush society,” but because of its Catholic- Irish sentiments it was treated with caution by distributors and had limited success.[15]Pike & Cooper (1980) p166 It survives in its entirety.

18. The Moth of Moonbi (1926)

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    Comment: Pioneer director Charles Chauvel‘s (1897-1959) first film survives – at least in part. Chauvel had previous experience on Snowy Baker films and had spent several years working in Hollywood. He based this feature on a newly published novel, filming some of it in difficult terrain in Queensland. The plot concerns a country girl who squanders her inheritance in the big city, before returning, wiser, to the country, to marry a stockman. In real life, leading actors Marsden Hassall and Doris Ashwin later married, but they did not appear in another film. [16]Pike & Cooper (1980) p167

19. Greenhide (1926)

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    Comment: Chauvel’s second film was a reverse of the plot of his first. Elsie Sylvaney (1898-1983) played the high society city girl who visits a cattle station, and after some adventures, falls in love with “Greenhide Gavin”, the station manager.[17] Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 175-6 Elsie (later Elsa) Sylvaney married Chauvel in June 1927 and became his constant collaborator. The Chauvels struggled to get the film released, frustrated by the dominant cinema block booking system, and they took to hawking the film to country cinemas themselves. In 1928 they took prints of their two films to the US, but without success – as sound films were rapidly becoming popular. The Chauvels returned to filmmaking in 1933 with In The Wake of the Bounty. Ina Bertrand’s article on Elsa Chauvel is here at the Women Film Pioneers Project.

20. For the Term of His Natural Life (1927)

21. The Kid Stakes (1927)

22. The Far Paradise (1928)

23. The Romance of Runnibede (1928)

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    Comment: Recently (2025) made available by the good folks at the Administrator channel. Starring US actor Eve Novak (1898-1988) and directed by US director Scott R Dunlap (1892-1970). Dunlap’s arrival was delayed so some scenes were directed by Novak’s husband William Reed (also see headline photo above) Pike & Cooper describe this as a “Hollywood formula movie designed for overseas audiences, with maps and explanatory title about Australia…” made in the enthusiastic rush after For the Term of His Natural Life. [19]Pike & Cooper (1980) p184-5 [Caution – contains dated and offensive stereotypes of indigenous Australians]

24. The Birth of White Australia (1928)

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    Comment: The Birth of White Australia was discovered intact in the 1960s, at Young, NSW, where it was filmed. It was an attempt by Phillip K Walsh to make “a panoramic view of Australian racial history,” again using local talent.[20]Pike & Cooper (1980) p191 Although it reflected common prejudices of the era, it had no commercial screenings after its local premiere and Walsh made no more films. [Caution – the film’s crude and racist content and clunky production values makes it very heavy going for modern viewers]

25. The Devil’s Playground (1928)

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    Comment: Accurately described as being riddled with South Sea island cliches, this was largely an amateur effort by a Sydney film club, and filmed on nearby beaches. This scene (at right), of heroine Naneena (Elza Stenning) about to be beaten by the wicked Morgan (Petrie Potter) caused the film to be rejected by the censor and thus it had no release.[21]Pike & Cooper (1980) p194 Sydney lifeguards donned blackface to play islanders – which helps to make this film even less palatable for audiences today. Director/scriptwriter Victor Bindley did not make any other films.

26. The Cheaters(1929-30)

  • @ Classic Old Australian Films channel at Internet Archive [Silent version – Watch here]
  • @ The Administrator channel on Youtube [includes 3 surviving sound clips – Watch here]

    Comment: This crime melodrama was completed as a silent in 1929, but with the arrival in cinemas of sound, the McDonagh sisters added some sequences with sound to improve the film’s commercial chances. [22]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 201-2 Unfortunately, the sound quality was primitive and the audience reaction mixed.[23]Andree Wright (1986) Brilliant Careers, Women in Australian Cinema, Chapter 3 The sound footage can be heard in this talk by Graham Shirley: The McDonagh Sisters and ‘The Cheaters’ . In 1932 the McDonagh sisters made an anti-war film called Two Minutes Silence. That is now a lost film and it was their last. [24]It was also the last feature film to be directed by a woman in Australia until Gillian Armstrong (b.1950) directed My Brilliant Career almost 50 years later

27. Diggers (1931)

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    Comment: Directed by Frank W.Thring (1882-1936), this 60 minute comedy was largely based on Pat Hanna’s popular “digger” stage act. Hanna (1888-1973), the leading player, was very unhappy with Thring’s editing, and thereafter directed his own films. Thring had imported the latest RCA sound equipment to make this film – reflecting his ongoing efforts to establish a viable Australian film industry. The film was released in November 1931 and survives today.[25]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 205-6

28. Showgirl’s Luck (1931)

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  • @ Classic Films channel on Youtube [Watch here]

    Comment: Often cited as Australia’s “first talkie” this musical was directed by Norman Dawn and starred his wife Susan Denis (Katherine Dawn 1896-1984) Dawn had returned to Australia in October 1929 with plans to make sound films in Australia. The plot concerns the making of an Australian talkie, “from which was hung as many musical numbers as could be worked in.” [26]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 206-8 But trade reviews were poor – and the sound-on-disc technology he had used was already being superseded. With sound transferred to optical, it was finally released in December 1931. However, Dawn soon abandoned Australia. The film remains interesting for Dawn’s use of special effects.

29. On Our Selection (1932)

  • @ Classic Old Australian films channel at Internet Archive [Watch here]
  • @ The Administrator channel on Youtube (Introduced by David Stratton) [Watch here]

    Comment: Ken G Hall’s(1901-1994) first sound feature film was a great success – it broke all house records when it opened at Sydney’s Capitol Theatre. It was based on the popular stage version of On Our Selection, made famous by Bert Bailey (1868-1953), who also produced the film and starred as “Dad Rudd.” It differed markedly from Raymond Longford’s 1920 version, with Hall “stressing the characters’ ability to fight back against adversity,” which struck a chord with Depression era audiences. [27]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 208-210 As David Stratton states in the introduction (to the Administrator channel copy) the film combined comedy and melodrama, mercilessly satirising city dwellers as opposed to the honest characters of “the bush.” On the back of this great success, Cinesound Productions was established. There were three successful sequels made – Grandad Rudd (1935), Dad and Dave Come to Town (1938) and Dad Rudd, M.P. (1940)

30. His Royal Highness (1932)

31. Diggers in Blighty (1933)

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    Comment: Pat Hanna again used stage material and actors from his Famous Diggers troupe for this, his own production. In direction, Hanna was assisted by Raymond Longford who also briefly appeared as a German spy. As Pike & Cooper point out, the pace is slow, with stock footage of London used to provide some context of “Blighty.” The film also has a slight claim to fame in that it was the first screen appearance by future actor Peggy (later Mary) Maguire (1919-1974). The 14 year-old sat in the background in just one office scene, giggling at Hanna’s antics – apparently Hanna provided her with little direction. This may also be the first Australian film to give a speaking role to an Indigenous actor, who plays another soldier.

32. Harmony Row (1933)

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    Comment: Another Efftree film production directed by Frank W Thring, and again starring popular comedian George Wallace. The plot concerns the humorous adventures of Wallace as a policeman, on a tough beat called Harmony row. Leonard, a child street singer, was played by Bill Kerr (1922-2014) – then known as Willie Kerr, in his first screen role of a very long career.[29]Pike & Cooper (1980) p213

33. In the Wake of the Bounty (1933)

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    Comment: This was Charles Chauvel’s first sound film, and the first of a series of projected travel films. Chauvel faced great difficulties filming at Pitcairn Island and then, further challenges with the censors on his return to Australia. This was also the first film for young Errol Flynn (1909-1959), who turned in a very wooden performance as Fletcher Christian in the dramatized scenes.[30]Pike & Cooper (1980) p214

34. The Squatter’s Daughter (1933)

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    Comment: Ken Hall’s second film for Cinesound was another great success – it did very well and returned its money in Australia and New Zealand. Hall’s difficulty in developing the script is described in Paul Byrnes’ notes. The plot revolved around Joan Enderby’s efforts to save the family sheep station[31]Australian term for large pastoral lease or property from a wicked neighbour. Enderby was played by young Australian actor Jocelyn Howarth (1911-1963) who moved to the US in 1936 and adopted the stage name Constance Worth. Apart from the film’s startlingly realistic bushfire scenes, of interest is the long introduction written by then Prime Minister Joseph Lyons, reminding us again that politicians often attached great importance to cinema depictions of Australia. [32]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 215-6 The entire film survives.

35. The Hayseeds (1933)

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    Comment: Beaumont Smith had previously made six (silent) Hayseed rural family comedies, but this final offering may have been an attempt to cash in on the success of Hall’s On Our Selection, with some musical numbers added for good effect. As usual in this genre, simple but honest country people are the heroes while city dwellers are ridiculed – in this case the monocle wearing Mr Townleigh and his family – who later befriend the Hayseeds. Dad Hayseed was played by Cecil Kellaway (1890-1973), the first of many film roles in his long career. [33]Pike & Cooper (1980) p218

36. The Silence of Dean Maitland (1934)

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    Comment: Based on a novel by Maxwell Gray and subsequently a play, this had been filmed twenty years before by Raymond Longford. It became another success for Ken Hall and Cinesound, who used visiting British actors John Longden (1900-1971) and Charlotte Francis (1904-1983) in the leading roles. In supporting roles were Jocelyn Howarth and John Warwick (1905-1972). The melodrama concerned “a clergyman who denied responsibility for the pregnancy of his lover and death of her father.” [34]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 218-9 This is a shortened version.

37. A Ticket in Tatts (1934)

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    Comment: This was another Frank W Thring film featuring George Wallace. As Paul Brynes writes, this film was again based on existing material that Wallace had developed for the stage. The underwhelming plot drifts through a number of largely unrelated sequences but concerns a horse race and some crooks who wish to drug “Hotspur”, the cup favourite.[35]Pyke & Cooper (1980), pp 218-9 Paul Byrnes suggests that “Thring was a director of meagre talents, although he often worked with the best of Australia’s theatrical performers.” [36]Soon after this film was completed, Thring began work on Sheepmates, but this project was soon abandoned. A few outtakes from Sheepmates can be seen here.

38. Clara Gibbings (1934)

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    Comment: One of the last films from Frank W.Thring‘s Eftee productions, this had been a successful stage play – with a familiar “rags to riches” plot. London pub proprietor Clara Gibbings discovers she is the daughter of an Earl. The happy ending is that, disillusioned with “society,” Clara moves to Australia. But even the inclusion of popular musical comedy star Dorothy Brunton (1890-1977) in the title role could not save the film, which looks exactly like the filmed stage play it was. Pike & Cooper note that after a three week run in Melbourne, it simply disappeared. [37]Pike & Cooper (1980) p221 Eric Reade rightly observed that the film was overloaded with dialogue, but at least it provided welcome relief from Steele Rudd films. [38]Reade (1979) History & heartburn, Harper & Row. p96-7

39. Strike Me Lucky (1934)

  • @ The Administrator Channel on Youtube [Watch here]

    Comment: Uploaded recently (2025) by the good folks at the Administrator Channel on Youtube, this film is significant in many ways. It was the only film made by very popular Australian stage comedian Roy Rene (1891-1954), and yet director Ken Hall and Rene himself, regarded it as a failure. Rene said he “found it too hard trying to be funny to no one. [meaning in a studio] You need the stimulus of an audience when you’re used to one…” [39]Rene cited in Pike & Cooper (1980) p221

40. Heritage (1935)

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    Comment: This was Charles Chauvel’s very ambitious panorama of colonial history. In the opinion of Paul Byrnes at the NFSA it was intended to be a “thunderous endorsement of the pioneer mythology of Australia”. But the film was not well cast – Franklyn Bennett (1904-1975) was an amateur while Peggy Maguire was just 16 years old – and Chauvel’s script often seemed more like a tiresome lesson on colonial history, with key characters delivering very serious lectures about Australia’s wonderful prospects. The film was not a success in Australia or internationally, but it did win the £2,500 Commonwealth film prize for that year – from a very small pool. Pike & Cooper point out that as a result of the experience, Chauvel’s backers turned to “material with wider international appeal.” [40]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 224-226 The entire film survives.
    . 

41. Rangle River (1936)

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    Comment: This film was based on an original story by writer of numerous US Westerns, Zane Grey (1872-1939), with a script treatment written by Charles and Elsa Chauvel. Rangle River also partly owes its existence to New South Wales’ short-lived efforts to have an Australian film quota – a requirement that a certain number of films exhibited had to be Australian-made. As with The Flying Doctor(1936) it was made with significant US input, including director Clarence Badger (1880-1964), principal technicians and leading man Victor Jory (1902-1982). The plot concerns the heroine, played by Margaret Dare (1912-1999) returning to her father’s cattle station, while the evil neighbour attempts to shut them down by damming up the Rangle River and depriving them of water. The film has since gained some unintended notoriety, based on its US release name Men With Whips, and due to the climatic stock-whip fight between the two leading protagonists.[41] Pike & Cooper (1980) p232 The entire film survives.

42. It Isn’t Done (1937)

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    Comment: NFSA curator Paul Byrnes describes 1937 as a golden year for Cinesound Pictures, who now had developed an efficient business model – with backing by Greater Union Theatres, an efficient production unit, and Ken Hall‘s competent direction of competent actors. In this case, a story was provided by stage actor Cecil Kellaway (1890-1973) who was starring in his first film, while newcomer Shirley Ann Richards (1917-2006) took an ingenue role. The plot concerns an Australian farmer Hubert Blaydon (Kellaway) who inherits a title and an English baronial estate. Blaydon decides he prefers life in Australia and contrives to lose the title, while his daughter Patricia (Richards) marries the next heir.[42]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 232-3 The entire film survives.

43. Tall Timbers (1937)

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    Comment: As Pike & Cooper point out, the climax of this Ken Hall Cinesound picture, a “timber drive” (where trees on a mountain slope fall and knock down more in their path) had to be modelled after two attempts to do it in real life failed. The plot involves a race between rivals to fulfil a timber contract. As Paul Byrnes notes, the film was very much in the style of a classic silent melodrama , but it made money for Cinesound. Shirley Ann Richards again featured. [43]Pike & Cooper (1980) p235 The entire film survives.

44. Lovers and Luggers (1937)

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    Comment: Ken Hall’s film featured imported US actor Lloyd Hughes (1897-1958) in this adventure film of pearl diving on Thursday Island. As Paul Byrnes comments, Ken Hall always regarded this as one of his best films. In addition to its technical competence, the strong supporting cast, including Shirley Ann Richards, Elaine Hamill (1911-1981), Alec Kellaway (1897-1893) ensured it did well at the box-office. In the US it was titled Vengeance of the Deep.[44]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 235-6 The entire film survives.

45. Gone to the Dogs (1939)

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    Comment: Ken Hall had filmed Let George Do It with George Wallace in 1938, which had been another success for Cinesound.(Unfortunately, so far this writer has not found a copy anywhere to watch) This second Cinesound outing with Wallace had the benefit of talented co-star Lois Green (1914-2006), a singer and dancer for JC Williamsons. Gone to the Dogs is about the then popular past time of dog racing – George Wallace‘s character having invented a tonic that makes dogs run faster. The main song and dance number of the film is a highlight.[45]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 242-3 The entire film survives.

46. Dad and Dave Come to Town (1939)

  • @ The Administrator channel on Youtube [Watch here]

    Comment: For the third of Cinesound’s Dad and Dave series, Ken Hall moved the story from its usual rustic country setting to a modern city, where Dad Rudd (again played by Bert Bailey) inherits a women’s fashion store. Shirley Ann Richards played his sophisticated adult daughter Jill, who ends up running the business, after thwarting efforts by a rival firm to shut them down. The film was a great success in Australia and in Britain, where it was released as the Rudd Family Goes to Town. [46]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp240-1 Also in the supporting cast was a very young Peter Finch (1916-1977). The entire film survives.

47. Seven Little Australians (1939)

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    Comment: Perhaps it is a good thing to end this directory with a film that failed at the box office, to balance any impression of continual success. Ethel Turner’s (1870-1958) novel had been written in 1894 and was well known to Australians. But according to Pike & Cooper, this 1939 film was rambling and crudely made.[47]Pike & Cooper (1980) p244. Director Arthur Greville Collins (1896-1980) had experience as a director of plays in the UK and on several US films in the mid 1930s. Funding came from Sydney businessman Edward H O’Brien, who apparently initially planned more films. Almost certainly the poor reception for this film – both at the box office and critically – helped him come to this decision not to do this. And yet despite the poor reception, Collins settled in Australia, and directed one more film in 1949.

48. Dad Rudd MP 1940

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    Comment: Made available to us in 2025 by the good folk at youtube’s Administrator channel, this film from Cinesound has long been hard to find. It is the last feature film made by Ken Hall before the studio closed down because of the war. As Pike & Cooper point out, rather than being another comic rustic pioneer story from Steele Rudd, this was a “small town family comedy” in the style of the popular Andy Hardy series, with Dad Rudd now “a bastion of middle-class morality.” The film was a financial success and was released in Britain.[48]Pike & Cooper (1980) p249

49. Forty Thousand Horsemen 1940

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    Comment: Charles Chauvel’s (1897-1959) World War One epic proved to be a great commercial success. Chauvel had been interested in making a film based on the exploits of his uncle General Sir Harry Chauvel (1865-1945) and the Australian Light Horse, for some time. The desert fighting and the famous charge of the Light Horse at Beersheba were spectacularly re-created in the sand dunes at Cronulla, and even with the passage of time, the action impresses. The three lead players – Grant Taylor (1917-1971), Chips Rafferty (1909-1971) and Pat Twohill (1915-1989), presented Australian soldier-larrikin characters – a stereotype still familiar today. As Pike & Cooper note, “the nationalist sentiment glorifying Australian manhood … clearly hit the right note in 1941.”[49]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp253

50. The Rats of Tobruk 1944

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    Comment: When Charles Chauvel began shooting his second war film, the siege of allied forces in Tobruk was still very fresh in Australian minds. Less than two years before, the exploits of the 9th Australian Division in leading the defence of the port city from surrounding German and Italian forces had gripped the public imagination. As in Forty Thousand Horsemen, Chauvel again used the exploits of three Australian servicemen to drive the plot, and again two of the heroes are killed in action.[50]Chauvel also used Chips Rafferty and Grant Taylor again Adding to the realism, Chauvel effectively integrated contemporary newsreel material with the film. And as Paul Byrnes at the NFSA writes – the fighting depicted in The Rats of Tobruk is “graphic… and convincingly chaotic.”[51]Pike & Cooper (1980) p257

51. Smithy 1946

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    Comment: Six years after Dad Rudd MP, Ken Hall (1901-1994) returned to directing, with Smithy, a bio-pic about Australian aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith (1897-1935). It was not a Cinesound film, but was entirely funded by Columbia Pictures, whose film hire revenue had been frozen in Australia by wartime restrictions. Featuring radio stars Ron Randell (1918-2008) and Muriel Steinbeck (1913-1982), the film was another success for Hall., although it was his last feature film. Unfortunately, the head of Columbia, Harry Cohn (1891-1958), had no intention of making more films in Australia. Smithy was also severely cut for US release – Pike & Cooper suggest this was to disguise the fact the film had been made in Australia. [52]Pike & Cooper (1980) p265-266

52. A Son is Born 1946

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    Comment: Eric Porter’s(1911-1983) melodrama was an interesting choice for a first film. As Pike & Cooper note, the largely humourless plot was “novelettish” with two very surly and unappealing central characters (Peter Finch and Ron Randell).[53]Pike & Cooper (1980 p266 Made on a very tight budget, it still manages a high degree of sophistication and is notable for its cast of leading Australian players of the era – Muriel Steinbeck, Peter Finch, Ron Randell, Jane Holland, Kitty Bluett and John McCallum.

53. The Overlanders 1946

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    Comment: Harry Watt’s(1906-1987) film was both influential in the development of Australian cinema and extremely successful commerically. It had started as a wartime propaganda concept by the Australian government and had been referred by the British Ministry of Information to Michael Balcon (1896-1977), Head of Ealing studios. He assigned the project to Watt, who travelled to Australia and developed the script, about a massive wartime cattle-drive. The film was completed after the war’s end – and as Paul Byrnes writes, it was “a film of great quality, made with uncompromising authenticity, about a strongly Australian subject.”  Pike & Cooper note that the film presented Chips Rafferty’s character as the essential Australian man, while Daphne Campbell (1924-2013) portrayed one of the most vivid of Australian bush heroines.[54]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 267-8

54. Bush Christmas 1947

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    Comment: Ralph Smart (1908-2001) had worked on Ealing’s The Overlanders. As Pike & Cooper note, the film was the first to be produced by the Rank Organisation’s Children’s Entertainment Film Unit. Smart wrote the script, which followed a simple formula – a group of five children as the key protagonists, on a quest to get a prized horse back from a group of thieves. The children, competent in bush craft (thanks to one of their number, an Aboriginal boy called Neza), are victorious in the end. The film was a triumph – a great success in Britain and Australia.

55. Always Another Dawn 1949

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    Comment: The first of three films made by Tom McCreadie (1907-1992) who with brother Alec, formed the production company Embassy Pictures. This was a wartime melodrama written by New Zealand born writer Zelma Roberts (1915-1988), set on an Australian navy destroyer. It featured Charles Tingwell (1923-2009) and Guy Doleman (1923-1996) in leading roles. Unfortunately the film was indifferently reviewed and it only had a short run in Australian cinemas. Perhaps the combat death of Tingwell’s character was too much of a painful reminder of the recent conflict for post-war audiences. A cut-down version was released in the UK in 1949.[55]Pike & Cooper (1980) p 270

56. Eureka Stockade 1949

57. Into the Straight 1949

58. Sons of Matthew 1949

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    Comment: Charles Chauvel’s film was based on two books about a pioneering Queensland family by Bernard O’Reilly (1903-1975). The script was by Maxwell Dunn (1895-1963) and Gwen Meredith (1907-2006). The film suffered delays in production, in part due to arduous location filming in one of Queensland’s worst ever wet seasons. As Pike & Cooper note, the lengthy production revealed “Chauvel’s passionate urge to risk any cost and hazard in expressing his deeply nationalistic vision of people in their struggle to conquer the most hostile of terrains.”[56]Pike & Cooper (1980) p273-275 The film eventually recouped its costs with the help of release in the UK and US. It also launched the careers of Michael Pate (1920-2008), Dorothy Alison (1925-1992) and others.

59. The Kangaroo Kid 1950

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    Comment: The third of Tom McCreadie’s films was made with an even clearer eye to international distribution. In this case McCreadie used US director Lesley Sleander (1900-1979) (famous for directing Westerns). Four Leading players were imported from Hollywood, including Jock Mahoney (1919-1989) and Veda Ann Borg (1915-1973). As Pike & Cooper point out, very little distinguished the film as Australian – notably the occasional close-ups of Australian wildlife. Only two locals had roles of substance – Alec Kellaway (1894-1973) and Guy Doleman. [57]Pike & Cooper (1980) p276. Thus the film might just as well have been made in the US. Location work was done in the old mining town of Sofala in New South Wales. This was the end of the McCreadie’s involvement in feature film production.

60. Bitter Springs 1950

61. The Glenrowan Affair 1951

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    Comment: This is the only feature film by director Rupert Kathner(1904-1954) that is easily available today, and it is best understood by first watching Alec Morgan’s very entertaining 2006 docu-drama about Kathner, Hunt Angels.[59]Hunt Angels was a stage name used by Kathner – he has a small role as Aaron Sherritt in the film The genesis of The Glenrowan Affair was actually with Harry Southwell (1881-1960) in 1947, Southwell having directed three previous versions (1920, 1923 and 1934) of the Ned Kelly story. But Southwell left the project after falling out with Kathner – who took over the project. It is easy to find fault with the film today – it is bad in almost every respect – the oversized Ned kelly armour shown here being only one example. “A typical review in the Sunday Herald 19 August 1951, commented that Kathner seemed ‘content to assume that this Australian legend has enough appeal in itself to need less than the minimal requirements of filmcraft.’ ” [60]Pike & Cooper (1980) p278

62. King of the Coral Sea 1954

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    Comment: Chips Rafferty and Lee Robinson (1923-2003) had collaborated to make the successful film The Phantom Stockman in 1953. This, their second collaboration, was again a success – both overseas and in Australia. Filmed on Thursday Island, the plot concerns an illegal immigration racket and pearl diving. [61]Pike & Cooper (1980) p285 It was the first film for Rod Taylor (1930-2015), who travelled to Hollywood to further his career in 1955. Robinson and Rafferty collaborated again on Walk into Paradise in 1956 .

63. Jedda 1955

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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 7-9
↑2 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 14-15
↑3 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 30-32
↑4 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 102-103
↑5 Pike & Cooper (1980) p121-122
↑6 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 126-128
↑7 Pike & Cooper (1980) p135-6
↑8 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 132-134
↑9 Pike & Cooper (1980) p131
↑10 Pike & Cooper (1980) p138-9
↑11 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 49-50, 147
↑12 Pike & Cooper (1980) p220. Unfortunately Longford’s version seems to be lost or at least unavailable
↑13 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 140-141
↑14 Pike & Cooper (1980) p163-164
↑15 Pike & Cooper (1980) p166
↑16 Pike & Cooper (1980) p167
↑17 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 175-6
↑18 Pike & Cooper (1980) p178
↑19 Pike & Cooper (1980) p184-5
↑20 Pike & Cooper (1980) p191
↑21 Pike & Cooper (1980) p194
↑22 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 201-2
↑23 Andree Wright (1986) Brilliant Careers, Women in Australian Cinema, Chapter 3
↑24 It was also the last feature film to be directed by a woman in Australia until Gillian Armstrong (b.1950) directed My Brilliant Career almost 50 years later
↑25 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 205-6
↑26 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 206-8
↑27 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 208-210
↑28 Pike & Cooper (1980) p211
↑29 Pike & Cooper (1980) p213
↑30 Pike & Cooper (1980) p214
↑31 Australian term for large pastoral lease or property
↑32 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 215-6
↑33 Pike & Cooper (1980) p218
↑34 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 218-9
↑35 Pyke & Cooper (1980), pp 218-9
↑36 Soon after this film was completed, Thring began work on Sheepmates, but this project was soon abandoned. A few outtakes from Sheepmates can be seen here.
↑37 Pike & Cooper (1980) p221
↑38 Reade (1979) History & heartburn, Harper & Row. p96-7
↑39 Rene cited in Pike & Cooper (1980) p221
↑40 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 224-226
↑41 Pike & Cooper (1980) p232
↑42 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 232-3
↑43 Pike & Cooper (1980) p235
↑44 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 235-6
↑45 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 242-3
↑46 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp240-1
↑47 Pike & Cooper (1980) p244.
↑48 Pike & Cooper (1980) p249
↑49 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp253
↑50 Chauvel also used Chips Rafferty and Grant Taylor again
↑51 Pike & Cooper (1980) p257
↑52 Pike & Cooper (1980) p265-266
↑53 Pike & Cooper (1980 p266
↑54 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 267-8
↑55 Pike & Cooper (1980) p 270
↑56 Pike & Cooper (1980) p273-275
↑57 Pike & Cooper (1980) p276
↑58 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 275-6
↑59 Hunt Angels was a stage name used by Kathner – he has a small role as Aaron Sherritt in the film
↑60 Pike & Cooper (1980) p278
↑61 Pike & Cooper (1980) p285

Fernande Butler (1897-1972) Actor & model from Normandy

Above: Fernande Butler in Beaumont Smith’s film Joe (1924). Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Hood collection. (Enlarged) Although unnamed in the collection, she is named in the same photo in Sydney’s Sunday Times in August 1924.[1]Sunday Times (Sydney) 3 Aug 1924, p20
Marie Lorraine and Fernande Butler in the 1924 film Joe. (NFSA website)
The Five Second Version
How Fernande Nicolle from Normandy, France, ended up a model and actor in Sydney, Australia is a fascinating story. The Australian War Memorial estimates that 13,000 Australian soldiers married while serving overseas during World War One, and that 5,600 returned with English brides. However, the fact some Australians married French women is also well documented.[2] Coulthart (2016) p302-5 This essay concerns one of those French war brides, Fernande Butler (nee Nicolle), who gained some brief fame as a Sydney model and appeared in five Australian silent films between 1922 and 1925. She departed Australia quite suddenly and without publicity. She apparently did not continue as an actor or model, and never recorded anything about her life in Australia. She died in France in 1972.

Fernande Marie Marguerite Nicolle was born in Houlgate, Normandy, France in June 1897. Her birth certificate indicates that her father Hilaire was a house painter – not a noted landscape painter as a later Australian newspaper report suggested.[3]Smith’s Weekly (Syd) 1 Sept 1923, p23 Her father died when she was quite young, and for reasons no longer known, she was sent to board at the Convent of the Sisters of Providence in Hampstead, London, England.[4]She was one of two French students listed as students of the boarding school in the 1911 UK census

Marriage to Lionel Butler in 1918

Fernande’s ability with the English she learned at school almost certainly explains subsequent events. Following the outbreak of World War One in 1914, her mother Delphine Morin ran a cafe in Rouen, where Fernande also worked.[5]Table Talk,(Melb) 7 Sept 1922, p12 & Goulburn Evening Post, (NSW) 14 Sept 1922, p5 One can understand why this would have been a popular destination for Australian soldiers – with the owner’s pretty daughter speaking fluent English to them. It was here that Fernande met Lionel Richard Butler, a Sergeant in the Australian Army (AIF). The couple married in Rouen on January 5, 1918.[6]A certified extract of the marriage certificate is included with Butler’s AIF records, now held by the National Archives of Australia. Butler was recorded with the wrong first name – … Continue reading

Not Lionel and Fernande, but another marriage in France in January 1918. Australian Captain Harry Hartley and Simone Marie Pecourt at the Church of Saint-Firmin, Vignacourt, France. Unusually, Hartley did not return to Australia but made a life in France with Simone.[7]Australian War Memorial Collection. P10550.115

Born in Fulham, London in 1889, Butler had only been living in Australia for a few years when war broke out in August 1914, and he was amongst the first wave of enlistments into the AIF.[8]Australian Imperial Forces Probably because he had previously served in the London Regiment’s 28th Battalion, he was given a non-commissioned rank as corporal almost immediately. By mid 1916 the AIF was in France and Butler had been promoted to Sergeant, now serving at the AIF headquarters at Rouen.[9]National Archives of Australia military records for Lionel Richard Butler, SERN 380

Despite the war’s end in November 1918, Fernande and Lionel had to wait twelve months for a “family boat,” in order to be repatriated with other married Australian soldiers and their wives – and they did not arrive in Australia until January 1920.[10]On the requisitioned ship SS Lucie Woermann While waiting, Lionel Butler took a course in commercial art in London.[11]Butler’s family still lived in London, however he chose to return to Australia

Modelling in Australia 1920+

Fernande in Smith’s Weekly [12]Smith’s Weekly, (Syd) 1 Sept 1923, p23

It seems that on arrival in Australia, Fernande and Lionel may have struggled in deciding what to do and where to live. Although Lionel had previously been a travelling salesman for the Singer Machine company, and had shown an interest in commercial art – in November 1920 he applied for a soldier settlement grant. This would have granted him land to establish a fruit farm in southern New South Wales. But he was apparently unsuccessful or didn’t go through with his dream of farming, which may have been a blessing, as many ex- soldiers failed as farmers after World War One.[13]New South Wales Archives NRS-14544-1-[6/14937]-[210] | BUTLER, Lionel Richard; Service No. 380 – Sergeant, 4th LH [Light Horse]

Quite soon after however, Fernande became the focus of considerable public attention. She was painted by well known Australian artist Norman Carter (1875–1963), and the portrait was entered in the Archibald Prize competition in 1922.

Fernande Butler by Norman Carter, 1922 [14]New England Regional Art Museum

As a portrait of a young Frenchwoman who had married an Australian in the recent war, it was probably a refreshing change of subject from the middled-aged “men of distinction,” who so often dominated the Archibald prize at the time. The Australasian thought the painting “charming” – one of Carter’s “most finished pieces of work.” Their reviewer felt the artist had captured “something gay and spirituelle that lights the whole composition.”[15]Australasian (Melb) 16 Sept 1922, p39 The painting did not win the Archibald Prize, but it was a finalist.(A portrait of Professor Harrison Moore, the Dean of Law at the University of Melbourne won the prize in 1922)[16]See Art Gallery of NSW, Archibald Prize Finalists, 1922

Fernande Butler in a beauty competition run by The Green Room Magazine, 1 May 1923. [17]Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales. 1 May 1923

By 1923, Fernande had become a celebrity model for Sydney’s Grace Brothers department store. (Sunday Times (Syd),14 October 1923, p3)) She also appeared in advertisements for cosmetics – notably Mercolized Wax, a popular skin-whitener. The Dearborn company employed many young Australian women who were on stage or in film to advertise their products.

Fernande in Australian advertisements for Dearborn’s Mercolized Wax. At Left, The Home, June 1 1924. At Right, The Home March 1, 1926

Breaking into film 1922

Fernande Butler appeared in at least five Australian films in the mid 1920s. Reports suggested that she came to the attention of filmmakers thanks to a vivacious personality and striking looks, which is quite likely to be true. Records in the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) catalogue confirm she was in the cast of Lawson Harris’ melodrama A Daughter of Australia (1922) and Raymond Longford & Lottie Lyell’s The Dinkum Bloke (1923) – probably in very minor roles. She then took more important supporting roles in two films for Beaumont Smith in 1924 – Joe, loosely based on characters from Henry Lawson stories, and the slapstick Hullo Marmaduke, a vehicle for popular stage comedian Claude Dampier. Unfortunately none of these films survive, but her prominent role in Joe is confirmed by the surviving production photos held by the Mitchell Library.

Fernande Butler (centre) with two unnamed players in Beaumont Smith’s lost film Joe (1924). This was also Isabel McDonagh’s first film (as Marie Lorraine). Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Hood collection.

A partial print of Fernande’s last known film, F. Stuart Whyte’s Painted Daughters (1925) does survive, although it is not currently available for viewing in Australia. By the time she appeared in this, we know that Fernande had already begun to be coached by leading Sydney dance teacher Minnie Hooper, and voice tutor Signor de Alba, obviously with an eye to a career on stage.[18]Everyones (Syd), 15 August 1923 But for reasons we no longer know, this did not happen.

Above: Fernande Butler (left) in a scene from Painted Daughters (1925). Author’s Collection

Return to France

Sometime in late 1925 or early 1926, Fernande returned to France. We can speculate, but there really is no evidence to indicate what dramatically changed her life, again. Clues may exist in other writings of the time. Playwright Betty Roland wrote the play The Touch of Silk in 1927. It concerned a young French woman Jeanne, who married an Australian soldier at the end of World War One. She joins him on a drought-ravaged farm near a remote Australian country town – struggling with the mean-spiritedness of some of the townspeople, with his shell shock and her culture shock.

We know that Fernande’s marriage failed, but there are no Australian divorce records or sensational newspaper reports to confirm this – she simply disappeared from Australian records, with an annotation in Lionel’s repatriation records stating she had returned to France.[19]Sometime in the late 1920s, Lionel Butler met a new partner, but they did not formally marry. He died in Tasmania in 1958 We known nothing of Fernande’s later life in France. One cannot help wondering how she fared in German-occupied France during World War Two. And was she on hand to welcome English-speaking Allied troops in Normandy in 1944? Fernande briefly reappeared in the historical record as the informant when her mother died in Rouen in 1946. She died at Dives-Sur-Mer, in Normandy in 1972, an event noted in the margin of her birth certificate. She apparently never married again, and had no children.

Note 1
The NFSA website currently claims that Fernande Butler died in 1983 and was alternatively known as Fernande Philomine Jouglet. This is not correct.

Nick Murphy
November 2024

References

  • Text
    • Ross Cooper (1976) Beaumont Smith Filmography, Cinema Papers, March-April 1976, p332-333 via University of Wollongong, Archives Online.
    • Ross Coulthart (2016) The Lost Diggers. Harper Collins
    • Garry Gillard (2018-2019) Australian Cinema. Painted Daughters
    • McKenzie, Kirsten. Journal of Women’s History; Baltimore Vol. 22, Iss. 4, (Winter 2010): “Being Modern on a slender income: ‘Picture Show’ and ‘Photoplayer’ in early 1920s Sydney”. 114-136, 329.
    • Andrew Pike & Ross Cooper (1980) Australian Film 1900-1977. Oxford University Press.
    • Hal Porter (1965) Stars of Australian Stage and Screen. Rigby
    • Betty Roland (1927) The Touch of Silk (play) Currency Press, Sydney, 1974.
    • Andrée Wright (1986) Brilliant Careers. Women in Australian Cinema. Pan
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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Sunday Times (Sydney) 3 Aug 1924, p20
↑2 Coulthart (2016) p302-5
↑3 Smith’s Weekly (Syd) 1 Sept 1923, p23
↑4 She was one of two French students listed as students of the boarding school in the 1911 UK census
↑5 Table Talk,(Melb) 7 Sept 1922, p12 & Goulburn Evening Post, (NSW) 14 Sept 1922, p5
↑6 A certified extract of the marriage certificate is included with Butler’s AIF records, now held by the National Archives of Australia. Butler was recorded with the wrong first name – Leonard. However, his SERN or Army service number – 380 – correctly identifies him
↑7 Australian War Memorial Collection. P10550.115
↑8 Australian Imperial Forces
↑9 National Archives of Australia military records for Lionel Richard Butler, SERN 380
↑10 On the requisitioned ship SS Lucie Woermann
↑11 Butler’s family still lived in London, however he chose to return to Australia
↑12 Smith’s Weekly, (Syd) 1 Sept 1923, p23
↑13 New South Wales Archives NRS-14544-1-[6/14937]-[210] | BUTLER, Lionel Richard; Service No. 380 – Sergeant, 4th LH [Light Horse]
↑14 New England Regional Art Museum
↑15 Australasian (Melb) 16 Sept 1922, p39
↑16 See Art Gallery of NSW, Archibald Prize Finalists, 1922
↑17 Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales. 1 May 1923
↑18 Everyones (Syd), 15 August 1923
↑19 Sometime in the late 1920s, Lionel Butler met a new partner, but they did not formally marry. He died in Tasmania in 1958

Billie Sim (1900-1980) – beauty, acting & Mercolized wax

Billie Sim in one of her many appearances to advertise beauty products, 1927, Mason Leighton photo.[1]The Home (Aust) 1 December 1927, P54
The Five Second Version
New Zealand-born Billie Sim (sometimes Sims) spent only ten years in Australia before heading to the US to seek acting work. She appeared in four films in Australia (possibly) – presenting as an enthusiastic, sporty, outdoors loving girl, which aligned so well with a popular stereotype of the modern Australian woman: “In addition to possessing a screen face, which is remarkable in its resemblance to Pola Negri, she swims like a fish and delights in ‘stepping on the gas’ whenever she strikes a tempting stretch of good road.“[2]Daily News (Perth) 27 Feb, 1925, p6 But it seems that by the time she was settled in Hollywood, the attraction of being an actor had passed. Instead she married and left the business behind. But for almost ten years she was one of the faces used by Dearborn Limited to sell beauty products in Australia, regularly appearing on advertisements for their “Mercolized Wax”, a skin lightening product, long after her last film.
Billie Sim (right) and sister Bea (left) in one of few relatively unposed photos. Taken on a Hawaiian beach with famous swimmer-surfer Duke Kahanamoku (1890-1968) (centre) in July 1931. [3]The Fresno Bee (Cal) Jul 19, 1931, p23

Lillie Vincent Sim from New Zealand

Billie Sim was not an Australian by birth, although press reports of the 1920s often suggested she was. She was born Lillie Vincent Sim in Whanganui, New Zealand on January 25, 1900, the first child of Robert David Sim, a tailor, originally from England, and Lillie Alice nee Mulinder, a woman from Patangata. Unusually, even for the time, the Sims did not register Lillie’s birth or that of her two sisters Thelma and Beatrice, until 1919.[4]New Zealand Birth Lillie Vincent Sim, certificate 1919/4687 There may be many reasons for this anomaly. A possible reason is that her parents did not marry until 1915, which was just before Robert joined the New Zealand Army. The birth of brother George had been registered however.

Billie Sim moved to Sydney Australia sometime in the early 1920s. It is not clear when she adopted “Billie” as a preferred or stage name, or what her adolescent interests were. One New Zealand report later claimed she had gained early stage experience with the Wanganui Amateurs.[5]Sun (Auckland) 22 June 1927, p13 However, this writer has found no evidence that Billie had any significant stage experience at all.

Breaking into films

Interviewed in early 1925, Billie Sim told journalists that motion picture acting had always been her “one ambition.” In this ambition, she was hardly alone. Hollywood’s studio system and all that it entailed had become a dominant force in feeding Australian cinemas, and the phenomenon of the movie actor as a celebrity was well established. Kirsten McKenzie has demonstrated how trade and fan magazines – including Australian ones – helped create and feed the illusion that a career in movies was achievable. As Mckenzie also notes, in 1920 alone, Australia’s population of 5 million attended cinemas 68 million times. [6]McKenzie (2010)

In the 1925 interview, it was explained that Billie, “in order to get acquainted with stars and their methods… applied for a staff position with a leading Sydney theatre, and got it.” Presumably this meant working as an usher, a job so many other hopefuls took.[7]See for example, Judy Kelly (1913-1991) “Then came Louise Lovely’s screen testing season, and Billie emerged with flying colors.”[8]Daily News (Perth) 27 Feb, 1925, p6 Andrée Wright’s 1986 account of women in Australian cinema confirms that Billie came to public notice courtesy of returned Hollywood star Louise Lovely’s(1895-1980) A Day in the Studio, a live performance act where members of an audience were invited on stage and filmed – at her direction.[9]Wright (1986) p26-7

Louise Lovely toured an act through Australia that she had developed in the US, where audience members were tested and filmed on stage. They could see themselves on the big screen a week later.[10]The Sun (Syd) 12 Sept 1924, p3

Billie later claimed she had roles in the Australian films Hullo Marmaduke (directed by Beaumont Smith and released in November 1924), a silly-ass comedy starring Claude Dampier and The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (directed by Arthur Shirley and released in February 1925). The second of these was a drama based on the popular novel by Fergus Hume. Unfortunately neither film survives today, but historians Andrew Pike & Ross Cooper confirm her involvement in the latter film.[11]Pike & Cooper (1980) p161 She must have appeared as an extra or supporting artist in these films, as surviving reviews do not mention her.

In early 1925, Billie began work on Australasian films’ Painted Daughters. Director F. Stuart-Whyte deliberately selected “types from the general public who will be suitable for the screen,” including several from Louise Lovely’s tests.[12]Pike & Cooper (1980) p164 Stuart-Whyte’s intention was “to construct bright, snappy amusing productions, such as find favour all over the world,”[13]Stuart-Whyte cited in Pike & Cooper (1980) p163 moving beyond the filmmaking that so often revelled in “Australian atmosphere.” Contemporary reviews were mixed. Historian Garry Gillard has characterized Painted Daughters “as a romantic melodrama about high society and the ‘flapper’ generation.”[14]Gillard, 2018-2019

In addition to Billie and Marie Lorraine (1899-1982), in the cast were up and coming actors Fernande Butler (1897-1972), Phyllis Du Barry (1908-1954) and Lucille Lisle (1908-2004), who later went on to successful careers in the US and Britain.

Painted Daughters (1925). Image from the collections of the National Film & Sound Archive. Pike & Cooper identify Phyllis Du Barry at left, and Marie Lorraine at the top. Billie Sim has not been identified. Postcard in the author’s collection.
Advertising in 1926 [15]Swan & Canning Times (WA), 24 Dec 1926, p7

Late in 1925, Billie took a leading role in Tall Timber, another Australasian production, directed by actor Dunstan Webb. Again, this film has long since disappeared, but newspaper reviews of the time were generally positive about this melodrama of a young ne’er-do-well who redeems himself and wins the girl (Billie – now in a leading role) by honest work in a timber town. The film was released in Australia in August 1926, and later in Britain.[16]Pike & Cooper (1980) p174

Thus by late 1926, Billie’s reputation as a home-grown movie star was well established. “A keen lover of the outdoors, she can change a tyre quicker than …a [mechanic],” reported Sydney’s Truth.[17]Truth (Syd), 22 Aug 1926, p6 Across the country in Western Australia, she was described as “one of Sydney’s most popular actresses, her work on the legitimate stage and before the camera having won her distinction… She is considered one of the smartest frockers…and sheer charm of personality and general graciousness have made her popular… “[18]Sun (Kalgoorlie) 6 March 1927, p6

Billie’s movements as a performer remain somewhat unclear following Tall Timbers. In November 1926 newspapers reported Billie in a “stage turn” in support of singer Alfred O’Shea, part of a mixed program supporting the film Romola.[19]Truth (Syd) 28 Nov 1926, p11 Over the next few years there were rumours of other film projects – claimed roles in an upcoming comedy with Compton Coutts, and in a French film made in New Caledonia. Unfortunately, none of these can be verified. However, Billie was in demand for other reasons – providing advice on cosmetics and beauty, and was associated with one product in particular.

Billie and the Mercolized Wax

In December 1924, Billie Sim made her first appearance extolling the virtues of Mercolized Wax. This was a skin-lightening product made and distributed by Dearborn Limited. As James Bennett has pointed out on his website devoted to cosmetics and skin, “Mercolized Wax” was a trademarked name, not a chemical term. Thus when today’s reader sees Billie with the product in numerous newspaper advertisements on the National Library of Australia’s Trove – it is not immediately clear she was advertising. As Bennett further explains, Mercolized Wax contained mercury compounds, which even in 1912 had been identified as poisonous.[20]See for example, the American Medical Association report of 1912 cited by Bennett It is unlikely Billie had any awareness of this, and nor would the other Australian women advertising the product – Phyllis Gibbs, Fernande Butler, Gladys Moncrieff and Madge Elliot.

The Home (Aust) 1 December 1927, P54
(Click to enlarge image)
Art in Australia. (Aust)1 December 1924, p5
(Click to enlarge image)

The reader at the time must have been confused about how this product was meant to beautify, as the claims seemed to vary so much. Did it help the skin “shed worn out tissue” (left above) or did it give “a weather proof coating to the skin”? (right above)

The concepts of screen beauty and stardom were already well established by the time Billie was seeking work in films. Advertisers, cinema chains and newspaper editors fed this fantasy with a constant stream of film star narratives and competitions, whilst manufacturers sold cosmetic products that would beautify the consumer. These also helped to maintain the fiction that film stardom was available to everyone – and “you” might be next – if only you tried.[21]See McKenzie (2010)

Fashionable faces of the time. Starlets of Painted Daughters selling Mercolized Wax in 1925. [22]The Australian Women’s Mirror, 31 March 1925

The 1927 Miss New Zealand Competition entrant

In June 1927 Billie returned to New Zealand to take part in a “Miss New Zealand” competition. Typical of popular competitions run by cinemas, magazines and newspapers of the era, the stated intention was to find “a screen type, not just a beauty, but a talented girl, who by application, may make make a name for herself…”[23]Sun (Auckland) 1 April 1927, p1 Prizes included a return fare to Los Angeles and a “studio engagement” with MGM, all worth £900. The competition began in April 1927, with endless newspaper items, including photos of participants and reports of provincial voting for semifinalists.[24]The voting coupons printed in papers would have left the competition wide open to being gamed In the end, despite Billie’s experience in Australian films, 17 year old Dale Austen won. The competition had taken six months. See Note 1 below regarding Dale Austen.

Back in Australia, Billie took an interest in watching the studio filming of For the Term of His Natural Life (1927) with its large budget and leading US players, but there were no more roles for her. She continued to appear in Dearborn’s advertising and it may have been at this time that she appeared on Sydney radio 2UE with beauty tips. In early 1928 it was announced she was engaged to a visiting US businessman, although this did not eventuate.[25]Truth (Syd)18 Mar 1928, p11

Hollywood – much overrated

In early May 1931, Billie and her sister Beatrice departed for the US on the SS Sierra. After a two month stay in Hawaii, where Billie generated much attention as “Australia’s foremost film star,”[26]Honolulu Star-Advertiser, June 8, 1931 p3 they arrived in Hollywood.

Billie wrote home of her impressions. She had previously given advice to acting hopefuls through the pages of Sydney’s own film fan magazine, Photoplayer. According to Billie, Hollywood was “much over-rated” – suggesting it looked much like any other city.[27]Bailey’s Weekly (WA) 21 Nov 1931, p3 Her sister Beatrice provided a more detailed account, that mentions Billie was successfully tested by MGM, and that the girls spent much of their time with old Sydney friend Phyllis Du Barry.[28]Du Barry had only recently arrived in Hollywood and had shortened her surname to Barry Beatrice’s report seems to infer Billie quickly lost interest in acting as a career. Instead, in July 1932, Billie married Charles E Leahy, a General Motors executive from New York, and promptly moved to the US east coast.

It would be wrong to assume that all those enthralled by movies in the 1920s and 30s, and who managed to get to Hollywood, ended up wanting to stay there. Dale Austen (see below) had returned home to New Zealand after six months. Only a few years later, Janet Johnson also left quickly, recalling that “Hollywood made me feel such a fish out of water” while Margaret Vyner also felt proud that she had the strength to turn down a studio contract.

Billie still advertising Mercolized Wax in Australia in 1933. [29]The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 7 sept 1933, p13

Billie died in New York state in December 1980 as Lillie Miller, having married a second time in 1947. Her face continued to appear on Australian advertisements for Mercolized Wax until at least 1934. The fashion for skin-lightening cosmetic products continues to this day.

Note 1. Dale Austen (1910 – 2005)

[30]Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1928-Jan 1929), p113

Dale Austen was born Beatrice Dale Austen in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1910. After winning the Miss New Zealand competition she travelled to the US via the SS Aorangi in January 1928.[31]The Los Angeles Times, Jan 27, 1928 p29 She had one credited role in Hollywood – in the Tim McCoy film The Bushranger.[32]The film was set in Australia, but filmed in Hollywood – very much in the Western movie style She returned to New Zealand in May 1928. Once home, she appeared as a celebrity guest at cinemas, as well as performing in Rudall Hayward’s (1900–1974) The Bush Cinderella – and in at least one “community short” – A Daughter of Dunedin. [33]Nga Taonga, The audiovisual archive of Aotearoa New Zealand has both these films preserved and available online. https://www.ngataonga.org.nz/ She had moved to Australia by 1933, where she married Robert Ivan Nicholson, a research Chemist. Before she died in 2005, she was interviewed several times about her experiences making films in Hollywood and with New Zealand pioneer filmmaker Rudall Hayward. She observed that Hollywood “seemed a frantic and wild merry-go-round; I wanted a more lasting and stable happiness.”[34]Dale Austen, quoted by Diane Pivac, 2012 New Zealand International film festival program

Nick Murphy
October 2024

References

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

Film

This website has been selected for archiving and preservation by the National Library of Australia

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 The Home (Aust) 1 December 1927, P54
↑2, ↑8 Daily News (Perth) 27 Feb, 1925, p6
↑3 The Fresno Bee (Cal) Jul 19, 1931, p23
↑4 New Zealand Birth Lillie Vincent Sim, certificate 1919/4687
↑5 Sun (Auckland) 22 June 1927, p13
↑6 McKenzie (2010)
↑7 See for example, Judy Kelly (1913-1991)
↑9 Wright (1986) p26-7
↑10 The Sun (Syd) 12 Sept 1924, p3
↑11 Pike & Cooper (1980) p161
↑12 Pike & Cooper (1980) p164
↑13 Stuart-Whyte cited in Pike & Cooper (1980) p163
↑14 Gillard, 2018-2019
↑15 Swan & Canning Times (WA), 24 Dec 1926, p7
↑16 Pike & Cooper (1980) p174
↑17 Truth (Syd), 22 Aug 1926, p6
↑18 Sun (Kalgoorlie) 6 March 1927, p6
↑19 Truth (Syd) 28 Nov 1926, p11
↑20 See for example, the American Medical Association report of 1912 cited by Bennett
↑21 See McKenzie (2010)
↑22 The Australian Women’s Mirror, 31 March 1925
↑23 Sun (Auckland) 1 April 1927, p1
↑24 The voting coupons printed in papers would have left the competition wide open to being gamed
↑25 Truth (Syd)18 Mar 1928, p11
↑26 Honolulu Star-Advertiser, June 8, 1931 p3
↑27 Bailey’s Weekly (WA) 21 Nov 1931, p3
↑28 Du Barry had only recently arrived in Hollywood and had shortened her surname to Barry
↑29 The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 7 sept 1933, p13
↑30 Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1928-Jan 1929), p113
↑31 The Los Angeles Times, Jan 27, 1928 p29
↑32 The film was set in Australia, but filmed in Hollywood – very much in the Western movie style
↑33 Nga Taonga, The audiovisual archive of Aotearoa New Zealand has both these films preserved and available online. https://www.ngataonga.org.nz/
↑34 Dale Austen, quoted by Diane Pivac, 2012 New Zealand International film festival program

John Sherman (1910-1966) Actor, writer & furrier

Above: screengrab of John Sherman as “Digger” in The Hasty Heart (1949). The role brought him some immediate publicity but no lasting career.[1]Source of screengrab – cinema Trailer for The Hasty Heart, youtube
The Five Second Version
While a furrier by trade, John Sherman earned his acting chops in Sydney’s New Theatre in the mid 1930s. Following war service he travelled to Britain to pursue acting, like so many other aspiring Australians. An early highlight of his career was as a supporting role in the popular filmed version of the play The Hasty Heart (1949), which starred Richard Todd and Ronald Reagan. A foray into Hollywood was less successful and he returned again to Britain – where radio and television roles gave way to scriptwriting, including three films. In 1958 he returned to Australia for good. He wrote for TV, radio and film, before an early death from lymphomatosis. Tall, generous, good humoured and optimistic, not long before his death he told his good friend Lloyd Lamble “Oh yeah – I’ve been a bit crook, but she’ll be apples. I’ll be OK again soon.”

Life in Australia

John Sherman in late 1942, at the time he joined the Royal Australian Air Force. [2]National Archives of Australia

Born Solomon Sherman in Carlton, an inner suburb of Melbourne, Australia, on 2 June 1910, [3]Sherman apparently believed he had been born on the same day in 1911, as he stated this on his military application. However the Victorian Births, Deaths & Marriages record is quite unequivocal. … Continue reading he was the second child of Erome (Joseph) Sherman, a tailor, and Sara nee Levine, likely refugees from Tsarist Russia. Joseph and Sara had married in Cape Town, South Africa in December 1905, where their first child Minnie was born. They came on to Australia around 1909, where Joseph set up a tailor’s shop in Lygon Street, Carlton.

By 1930, the family had moved on – to High Street, in Melbourne’s southern suburb of Prahran, where Solomon, his brother Leon and his two sisters Minnie and Annie joined their father in running the business. The two boys became expert furriers.[4]Lloyd Lamble (1990) The Strutting and the Fretting p279-283 We know a little more of John Sherman from his Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) application in 1942. This reveals that he had attended Elwood High School until he was 15, and was also fluent in Hebrew or Yiddish,[5]The RAAF paperwork states he speaks “Jewish” could speak some German and Polish, and make himself understood in Russian – an impressive list of language skills.[6]National Archives of Australia: John Sherman, Royal Australian Air Force enlistment November 1942. Service Number – 72271 Sometime around 1935, Australian electoral rolls indicate that family patriarch Joseph moved yet again, to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, while Annie, Leon and John (as Solomon now called himself) appear to have set themselves up as tailors in Bondi.[7]This writer has seen suggestions that Solomon and John Sherman were two different children. However, the 1971 death certificate of Joseph Erome Sherman is clear. He had four children – who are … Continue reading

Joseph Sherman operating in Katoomba, NSW.[8]The Blue Mountains Advertiser (Katoomba) 9 Sept 1949, p2

Political activism

At about the same time, John Sherman and his brother Leon became very active in the newly established Worker’s Art Club (WAC) in Sydney. WAC’s politics were firmly of the left, and it maintained formal and informal associations with the Communist Party of Australia. As a member of a emigre European Jewish family, John Sherman’s world view was undoubtedly coloured by the family’s own experiences and an acute awareness of the rise of fascism in Europe.

Sherman’s radical politics are reflected in his poem for the Worker’s Weekly in April 1938, entitled Hang out your Swastika, Chamberlain. The poem is a critique of Britain’s foreign policy in Europe and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in particular. It read, in part;

So hang out your swastika, Chamberlain.
For the tens of thousands that have died in Spain.
For the babes and the crippled that you have slain.
For your betrayal of a democratic cause!
For all these crimes and more
You have earned this mark of shame.
Bowing and scraping before Berlin’s decrees.
You give them gold, unhindered action,
That they smash the cause of peace

And all the while you prate, with high sounding phrases
Of England’s democratic soul, of England’s justice.
But your lies, your hypocritical ravings have no truth with us,
We who are the masses,
Who still fight and struggle
For what we know is right.
For the unity of the workers,
For the smashing of your fascist terror
We fight.

This appeared well before the ‘Munich Agreement’ and Chamberlain’s ‘Peace for our time’ announcement in September 1938.[9]Worker’s Weekly,(Syd) 19 April 1938, p3 Over time, Sherman was a regular correspondent to newspapers – on the arts, acting and politics.

Through the WAC, which soon became the New Theatre, Sherman also came in contact with many of Australia’s young idealistic socialists – including writer Betty Roland (1903-1996), actor-director Victor Arnold (1905-1982) and actor Lloyd Lamble (1914-2008). However, as academics Phillip Deery and Lisa Milner note, for the New Theatre, “artistic liberalism remained as important as political commitment.”[10]Deery and Milner (2015), p115 This was reported even at the time – in 1939 Sydney’s Daily Telegraph wrote that “leftist propaganda and dramatic values [were] neatly blended in Betty Roland’s Are you ready Comrade?“[11]Daily Telegraph (Sydney) 20 March 1939, p8 Sherman took one of the leading roles in this play. The Ausstage database, which is not definitive, notes a dozen New Theatre performances by John Sherman between 1936 and 1939. The New Theatre History wiki contains a number of photos of John and Leon performing.

John Sherman and Victor Arnold in the 1938 New Theatre production of Bury the Dead, an anti-war play by US playwright Irwin Shaw.[12]Daily Telegraph (Syd) 28 March 1938, p11

In 1940, Sherman took an uncredited role in Ken G Hall’s (1901-1994) Dad Rudd MP, the last of four popular films based on the “Rudd” family characters.[13]These were, in turn, lifted from Steele Rudd’s humorous books of Australian rural life In the later part of 1942 Sherman was announced as part of Rupert Kathner’s proposed feature film to be made about the recent siege of Tobruk. Despite being a recent event of the war, it came to nothing.[14]Daily Mirror (Syd) 29 Oct 1942, p9 Instead, John Sherman joined the Royal Australian Air Force.

Wartime service

RAAF records list John Sherman’s career as a radio announcer at the time of his enlistment in November 1942.[15]National Archives of Australia NAA: A9301, 72271. Note – Adding to the confusion about his birthdate, his file has been incorrectly titled by the NAA with a birthdate of 6 Feb. However, … Continue reading Other accounts confirm that before enlisting he had been a performer with Sydney’s 2UW Radio Theatre.[16]Sydney Morning Herald, 2 July 1950, p4

Leading Aircraftman (LAC) John Sherman, Wireless Mechanic, and Flight Lieutenant C. J. Amos, on a stage constructed at Aitape, New Guinea, c.1945. Australian War Memorial

Sherman served as a Leading Aircraftman/wireless mechanic, mostly with 100 squadron RAAF – on Goodenough Island and later in New Guinea. While at Aitape in New Guinea, he arranged entertainments and built a stage for performances, although details of these have not survived. He was demobilised in 1945.

On stage in London and a role in The Hasty Heart

After several years in radio and stage managing at Sydney’s Minerva Theatre, in May 1947 Sherman headed for Britain. Most available sources state that he worked his passage, and Sherman himself said he spent five months “peeling potatoes on a tramp steamer.”[17]The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 July 1950, p4 He was not alone in seeking work in London at the time – other Australian actors who travelled then included – Allan Cuthbertson, Gwenda Wilson, Joy Nichols, Dorothy Alison and Patti Morgan. In Britain he apparently found work first as an extra – possibly in the film Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948). But as many would observe, it was hard work – luck and dogged persistence with the agents seemed to have been required. [18]In 1965, The Canberra Times carried a long article on the struggle many Australian actors had faced in post-war London. But this was also true for aspiring British-born actors as well. See The … Continue reading

Sherman’s breakthrough was getting an audition with Sir Ralph Richardson (1902-1983), which won him a modest supporting role in Richardson’s version of the play Royal Circle, a comedy by Romilly Cavan (b 1914).[19]The Stage, 25 March, 1948, p6 It toured, then arrived in the West End in April. On the basis of Richardson’s reputation, expectations were high. But the play was not a success and it closed after only five weeks at Wyndham’s Theatre. One of Richardson’s very few failures, it was reportedly booed on its first night and was reviewed indifferently by newspapers.[20]Evening Standard (London) 30 April 1948, p6 It must have been a disappointment.

In November 1948, on the eve of giving up and returning to Australia, Sherman tested for and won the part of “Digger” in the British-American film The Hasty Heart. There is evidence that the role was offered to other Australians, including Allan Cuthbertson – who had declined it, being worried that if he took it, he would be typecast for only Australian roles thereafter.[21]Patricia Rolfe, The Bulletin (Aust) 8 June 1963, p22

In addition to leading players Richard Todd and Ronald Reagan – shown at right, The Hasty Heart featured (left to right) Ralph Michael as “Kiwi”, Sherman, Howard Marion-Crawford as “Tommy” and Orlando Martins as “Blossom” [22]Screenland, January 1950

Based on a popular play by John Patrick (1905-1995), the action is set at the end of the Second World War. Six allied soldiers are still convalescing in a military hospital. Much of the important dialogue takes place between Sister Parker (Patricia Neal), “Yank” (Ronald Reagan) and “Lachie” (Richard Todd playing a Scot). Sherman’s character “Digger,” is an Australian soldier, played with a laconic style that seems in the manner of Australian Chips Rafferty (1909-1971), who had recently earned good press in The Overlanders (1946) and whom Sherman resembled.

The following two examples of dialogue spoken by Sherman are worthy of note because they illustrate a less distinctive Australian accent, one often spoken in the nation’s seaboard cities, but which, to this day, rarely appears in cinema.

In this clip “Digger” (Sherman) comments to the others on the bravery of Basuto soldiers
Here, “Digger” offers “Lachie” a book to read. Lachie rejects the gift. [23]Sound grabs from the author’s copy. Available from network/studio canal

By July 1950 he was back in Australia and The Hasty Heart was released in cinemas at about the same time. This now brought him good publicity, and amongst his comments he advised young Australian actors to get experience overseas, as he had. Overseas artists were not necessarily better, he said, “but they were different, and acting with them broadened the experience.”[24]The Herald (Melb) 5 July 1950, p11

“The world’s loveliest girls are Australians” Reporting of the comments of returned Australian actors was often so unreliable it is difficult to know whether Sherman really made this claim at all.[25]The Age (Melb) 8 July 1950, p3

While in Australia he took the part of the sheriff in JC Williamson’s musical Oklahoma, which toured through New Zealand, earning a modest salary of £25 per week.[26]JC Williamsons contract, 14 June, 1950. Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre, Melbourne But in 1951 he took passage for the US, to try his luck in Hollywood.

Trying his luck, again

Californian newspapers announced his presence working in several Hollywood films in 1951-52. These stories all have the appearance of being planted by an agent – for example the following report from early 1952 – “John Sherman, top Australian actor, has drawn a featured role in Les Miserables (1952), marking his debut in a Hollywood film.”[27]Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, 24 Jan 1952, p21 But in the end, this role was uncredited. At best, a few of these roles were as a “featured extra” – such as the character John Billington, in Plymouth Adventure (1952).

Lloyd Lamble left several stories about John Sherman for posterity – which appeared in Lamble’s unpublished 1994 autobiography. One of these anecdotes might explain why Sherman made so little headway in Hollywood, whilst friends like Michael Pate (1920-2008) were doing so well.[28]The Sun (Syd) 17 August, 1952, p50 Lamble suggested that John Sherman’s radical politics caught up with him in McCarthy-era USA. It is quite plausible – given that so many with even moderately liberal political pasts found working in Hollywood in the early 1950s impossible.[29]The anecdote Lamble tells is that Sherman proposed a war-victory toast to Joseph Stalin – much to the displeasure of his US hosts Whatever the reason, he arrived back in London in November 1952.

In later life Lamble was embarrassed by his own past as a radical young actor and remade himself as a conservative, but he was genuinely fond of Sherman and they remained friends in later life. However, some of his memoirs about Sherman are difficult to accept at face value. The story that Sherman hung a London agent out of the window of his office – date unknown – after an offensive anti-Semitic remark, holding him only by his ankles, four floors above Charing Cross Road, is one such amusing but probably unreliable memoir.[30]Lloyd Lamble (1990) The Strutting and the Fretting p279-283

John Sherman with Greer Garson. The context is unknown. The photo is inscribed to Sherman’s parents and family and dated, November 1953. London. Courtesy hat-archive – www.hat-archive.com via Flickr.com

In London again, Sherman turned increasingly to scriptwriting, although he occasionally still appeared in guest roles on television and on radio.[31]The Mail (Adelaide)18 Dec 1954 p60 He provided the scripts for several TV programs and at least three British B movies in the late 1950s – Menace in the Night (1957), Black Gold (1957) and Jackpot (1960). In late 1955 he married non-performer Irene Rankin, and in January 1958 the couple packed up and travelled to Australia on the P&O ship Strathnaver. The move was a permanent one.

Sherman as the wicked Signor Diabolo, in a 1956 episode of the British TV series The Count of Monte Cristo entitled “The Devil’s Emissary” [32]screengrab from The Mailman channel on youtube, where the whole episode can be seen

In Australia after 1958

In Australia, television was now well established, and despite the much smaller industry and population to service, there was still a demand for experienced writers. Sherman was soon acting again in radio, and adapting stories for broadcast. As Sherman’s IMDB entry shows, he was also writing original material – for the TV series The Magic Boomerang and The Adventures of Seaspray, and the 1965 film Funny Things Happen Down Under.

Not everything was a success. Sherman was also associated with a failed attempt to make a film about nineteenth century explorers Bourke and Wills with a friend, producer-director William Sterling (b1926). Years later Sterling recalled that “after several thousand feet, the sound equipment broke down (and) the money ran out… The film languished on a shelf, until it was finally made into a documentary.” [33]The Bulletin (Aust) 6 Jan 1973, p24. When released the film was entitled Return Journey and Sherman was credited as Producer.

Sherman’s last appearance on screen was in one episode of the TV series Whiplash, an imaginative Australian historical adventure made in 1961-2, that has been described as an “Australian-western.” Produced with an eye to the US market, the series starred US actor Peter Graves as Chris Cobb, owner of Cobb & Co, a gold-rush era stage coach company, in a series of thirty-minute adventures.[34]Cobb & Co really existed, and was really established by American Freeman Cobb, but there the similarity ended

Sherman as Elkins, in “The Actress” an episode of the Australian frontier TV series Whiplash, 1961. [35]screengrab from the Bernice Jiminez channel on youtube. NB the episode has been mis-titled.

Although aged only in his mid 50s, Sherman was now struggling with lymphomatosis. However, despite his increasing frailty in later years, Lloyd Lamble could recall his good humour and generosity when he visited him in Melbourne. “Oh yeah – I’ve been a bit crook, but she’ll be apples. I’ll be OK again soon.”[36]Lloyd Lamble (1990) The Strutting and the Fretting p283 John Sherman died in March 1966, at his home in East Bentleigh, aged 57. He had no children, and this writer has found no Australian newspaper obituaries on his passing.

Leon Sherman remained a furrier all his life, and was active with Sydney’s New Theatre until late 1969. He died in 2007.

Nick Murphy
September 2024

References

Film and TV

Primary sources

  • Victoria Births Deaths & Marriages
    Birth Certificate 7641/1910 : Solomon Sherman, 2 June 1910
    Death Certificate 6371/66 : John Sherman, 26 March 1966
    Death Certificate 4042/71: Erome Sherman, 20 February 1971
  • South African Marriage certificate (via Family search)
    Marriage Certificate, Capetown #306, Joe Sherman and Sara Levin, 28 December 1905.
  • National Archives of Australia
    NAA: A9301, 72271 SHERMAN JOHN. Service Number – 72271. Date of birth – 06 Feb 1911(Sic) Place of birth – CARLTON VIC. Place of enlistment – SYDNEY. Next of Kin – SHERMAN JOSEPH

Text

  • Phillip Deery and Lisa Milner (2015) “Political theatre and the state. Melbourne and Sydney 1936-1953” in History Australia. Vol 12, No 3, December 2015.
  • Lloyd Lamble (c1990) The Strutting and the Fretting. First draft of autobiography. Unpublished. Private collection.
  • Lloyd Lamble (c1994) Hi diddle dee dee, An Actor’s Life for Me. Final draft of autobiography. Unpublished. Australian Performing Arts collection. Also at National Library of Australia.
  • David McKnight and Greg Pemberton, “Seeing Reds” The Age (Melb), Good Weekend Magazine (insert) P35+
  • Lisa Milner (Ed) (2022) The New Theatre. The people, plays and politics behind Australia’s radical theatre. Interventions Inc
  • Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper (1980) Australian Film 1900-1977. Oxford University Press/AFI
  • Hal Porter (1965) Stars of Australian Stage and Screen. Rigby Ltd

New Theatre History Wiki – Various articles on the history of the New Theatre and players, including John and Leon Sherman, and some photographs.

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 Source of screengrab – cinema Trailer for The Hasty Heart, youtube
↑2 National Archives of Australia
↑3 Sherman apparently believed he had been born on the same day in 1911, as he stated this on his military application. However the Victorian Births, Deaths & Marriages record is quite unequivocal. See Solomon Sherman Birth Certificate 17484/1910
↑4 Lloyd Lamble (1990) The Strutting and the Fretting p279-283
↑5 The RAAF paperwork states he speaks “Jewish”
↑6 National Archives of Australia: John Sherman, Royal Australian Air Force enlistment November 1942. Service Number – 72271
↑7 This writer has seen suggestions that Solomon and John Sherman were two different children. However, the 1971 death certificate of Joseph Erome Sherman is clear. He had four children – who are named on the document. The explanation is that John dropped Solomon as a name
↑8 The Blue Mountains Advertiser (Katoomba) 9 Sept 1949, p2
↑9 Worker’s Weekly,(Syd) 19 April 1938, p3
↑10 Deery and Milner (2015), p115
↑11 Daily Telegraph (Sydney) 20 March 1939, p8
↑12 Daily Telegraph (Syd) 28 March 1938, p11
↑13 These were, in turn, lifted from Steele Rudd’s humorous books of Australian rural life
↑14 Daily Mirror (Syd) 29 Oct 1942, p9
↑15 National Archives of Australia NAA: A9301, 72271. Note – Adding to the confusion about his birthdate, his file has been incorrectly titled by the NAA with a birthdate of 6 Feb. However, proceeding documents correctly record it as 2 June – ie 2/6 not 6/2
↑16 Sydney Morning Herald, 2 July 1950, p4
↑17 The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 July 1950, p4
↑18 In 1965, The Canberra Times carried a long article on the struggle many Australian actors had faced in post-war London. But this was also true for aspiring British-born actors as well. See The Canberra Times (ACT) 24 Apr 1965, p9
↑19 The Stage, 25 March, 1948, p6
↑20 Evening Standard (London) 30 April 1948, p6
↑21 Patricia Rolfe, The Bulletin (Aust) 8 June 1963, p22
↑22 Screenland, January 1950
↑23 Sound grabs from the author’s copy. Available from network/studio canal
↑24 The Herald (Melb) 5 July 1950, p11
↑25 The Age (Melb) 8 July 1950, p3
↑26 JC Williamsons contract, 14 June, 1950. Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre, Melbourne
↑27 Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, 24 Jan 1952, p21
↑28 The Sun (Syd) 17 August, 1952, p50
↑29 The anecdote Lamble tells is that Sherman proposed a war-victory toast to Joseph Stalin – much to the displeasure of his US hosts
↑30 Lloyd Lamble (1990) The Strutting and the Fretting p279-283
↑31 The Mail (Adelaide)18 Dec 1954 p60
↑32 screengrab from The Mailman channel on youtube, where the whole episode can be seen
↑33 The Bulletin (Aust) 6 Jan 1973, p24.
↑34 Cobb & Co really existed, and was really established by American Freeman Cobb, but there the similarity ended
↑35 screengrab from the Bernice Jiminez channel on youtube. NB the episode has been mis-titled.
↑36 Lloyd Lamble (1990) The Strutting and the Fretting p283

Billie Carlyle (1902-1991) – Of Claude Dampier & Mrs Gibson*

Claude Dampier and Billie Carlyle, in The Adventures of Algy, with, at right, Eric Harrison. A Beamont Smith film, 1925. Photo from the Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne.
*Mrs Gibson was an imaginary character in their act.
The Five second version
Twenty-three years after the death of comedian Claude Dampier, his third and final professional and personal partner and an Australian by birth, Billie Carlyle (1902-1991), wrote a memoir entitled Claude Dampier, Mrs Gibson and Me. Self-published and less than 120 pages in length, it provides selected insights into the couple’s life together. However, as is often the case with celebrity memoirs, there are problems in relying too heavily on this one source. There is, for example, compelling evidence that Billie’s unhappy early adulthood coloured some decisions of her later life.[1]See Richard Fotheringham’s 2024 biography of another actor of the same era, Jenny Howard (1902-1996), for a deeper analysis of the extent of these difficulties

Billie (born Doris Ann Davy in South Australia) had started out in variety in 1924. She met Claude on the set of the Australian film The Adventures of Algy (1925). Her collaboration on stage with Claude began soon after, when she became his “feed” – the sensible person whose comments helped set up his jokes. “Petite and sparkling,” Billie was the perfect foil for Claude Dampier’s loud, boorish, lumbering fool or “Professional idiot” character.[2]Daily Telegraph (UK) 1 August 1991 Working in Britain after 1927, Billie and Claude became regulars on BBC radio and Claude an occasional character actor in films. Their collaboration lasted into the early 1950s.

Before Billie Carlyle died in England in 1991, she left a selection of the couple’s personal records to the Australian Performing Arts Collection in Melbourne, Australia.

Above: Billie Carlyle in late 1924.[3]Everyone’s (Aust) 29 Oct, 1924, p40
Left: The author’s well-thumbed copy of Billie Carlyle’s 1978 book. One can only admire her determination to write, publish and sell it. Right: Billie Carlyle, c 1925-6. Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre, Melbourne

The background – Claude Dampier comes to Australia in 1910

British comedian Claude Dampier (1878-1955) was 24 years Billie Carlyle’s senior, and was already well established in Australia when she met him in 1925.

He was born Claude Connolly Cowan in London in 1878. He had married fellow British performer Irene Vere (1889-1968)[4]Birth name Eileen Geraldine Thompson in April 1907. The couple had arrived together in Australia on the Orontes in October 1910, with their one year old daughter, Dorothy Dampier (1909-2002).[5]The Register (Adelaide) 12 Oct 1910, p5 They had been contracted to tour Australia with Edward Branscombe’s company, usually known as the Red Dandies. Over the next seven years Claude and Irene appeared on Australasian stages, often presenting original material – monologues, songs and dances, sometimes to remote audiences in small country halls or even in open-air settings. In February 1911, Adelaide’s Evening Journal assured readers that “The Dandies were in splendid form… Mr. Claude Dampier’s delightful absurdities were a feature of the entertainment. Though he is exceptionally funny, he never descends to vulgarity. His items included Singers and Talkers and The Poet… The clever soubrette, Miss Irene Vere, met with her usual favourable reception in songs, which included Mandy’s Christening, The Merry month of May, and Sympathy.”[6]Evening Journal (Adelaide),13 Feb 1911, p2 Billie Carlyle was to claim that one of the first live shows she ever saw in Adelaide was the Dandies featuring Claude Dampier.[7]Carlyle,1978, p1 Perhaps it was this one.

Claude Dampier and his wife and first stage partner, Irene Vere. c1912. Kura Heritage Collections Online, Auckland Libraries. New Zealand. [8]The New Zealand Graphic and Ladies Journal, 10 July 1912, p.22

After almost seven years work in Australia and New Zealand, in early February 1917 Claude and Irene departed for South Africa, where they performed for similarly appreciative colonial audiences. But in late 1919, Irene left Claude, and South Africa, and returned to England to pursue a career on her own.

Irene Vere announces her return to England in 1919 [9]The Stage (London) 19 Dec 1919

Claude teams with Hilda Attenboro.

Claude Dampier returned to Australia from South Africa in September 1921. With him was a new professional partner he had met in South Africa – Hilda Attenboro (1896-1980). [10]Her stage name was also sometimes spelled Attenborough. She had been born in England in 1896 as Alice Hilda Sweet. Of interest, she had appeared in at least three silent films in South Africa in 1918 Hilda was introduced to the Australian press as Claude’s “stage assistant”, however there is no doubt the couple were also romantically involved. In March 1923 in Hawthorn, Victoria, a daughter was born of the union.[11]Victorian Birth Certificate Number 13524 / 1923, 23 March 1923 Dampier and Attenboro claimed on the birth certificate that they had married in Pretoria in 1920, however no records of such a marriage exist.[12]The marriages of South Africa’s white population during this era can be found on Familysearch.com. In these records we can see Hilda had actually married performer Thomas Henry Daniels in South … Continue reading In fact, Dampier and Irene Vere did not divorce until April 1928.[13]National Archives (UK) Divorce Court file J 77/2445/6307 Appellant: Eileen Geraldine Violet Keith Cowan

Claude Dampier and Hilda Attenboro in late 1921, newly arrived in Australia from South Africa.[14]Critic (Adelaide) 7 December 1921, p10 They appeared on the Tivoli circuit, in an act that lasted about 30 minutes.

Most importantly, on his return to Australia, Claude Dampier’s act appears to have evolved. He was now a consistent exponent of the silly ass, Johnnie-type humour,[15]Sunday Times (Sydney)16 Oct 1921, p3 a stereotype of the upper-class, English-twit character that Australians could immediately identify and laugh about. A few weeks after their arrival, Sydney’s Sunday Times was quite explicit about Claude’s character: “One sees in him a creature of birth but no brains, and his well-bred inanities become excruciatingly funny because one feels that they are possible… that somewhere or other in the cold, old country there may be a person who looks like and behaves like this long-nosed idiot of the cheerful grin.“[16]Sunday Times (Sydney) 27 Nov 1921, p17

As Clay Djubal notes, Claude went on to perform with several troupes in the early 1920s, including Pat Hanna’s (1888-1973) Famous Diggers.

Undated post-war cartoon by Frank Dunne. The English officer bears an uncanny resemblance to Claude Dampier’s character – which had become a well established stereotype in Australia, and continues to this day.
The Australian War Memorial

During 1924 Dampier appeared in a film for Beaumont Smith (1885-1950), featuring his well established stage character. Hullo Marmaduke saw Dampier playing an English “remittance man” [17]The Oxford reference guide describes a remittance man as typically a disgraced man of good position or family who has been sent abroad by his family and whose payments depend on his remaining there who seems to have been born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth and a monocle firmly screwed in his eye.[18]The Advertiser (Adelaide) 15 Dec 1924, p11

Claude Dampier as “the perfect ass” in Hullo Marmaduke (1924) [19]Everyone’s (Aust) 19 Nov 1924, p11

The success of this encouraged Beaumont Smith to make a second film with Dampier the following year – entitled The Adventures of Algy. On this film a young Australian actress named Billie Carlyle also had a role. Fortunately, this film has survived.

The Title card and trick opening shot of Beaumont Smith’s The Adventures of Algy (1925). Dampier turns and makes his famous grotesque monocled leer to the camera. [20]This film survives but is difficult to source. These screen grabs are from the documentary A History of Australian Cinema, Part Two, The Passionate Industry 1920-1930, available from Umbrella … Continue reading

Billie Carlyle and Claude, 1925-1955

“MRS. DORIS KELLY. WHO IS MISSING. Mrs. Kelly left on January 16 for a holiday in the eastern States, but for six weeks no news has been received from her.”[21]Mail (Adelaide) 1 March 1924, p5

Billie Carlyle was the stage name of Doris Ann Nesida Kelly nee Davy, a twenty-three year old from Adelaide when she got her big break in The Adventures of Algy. Of her childhood we know almost nothing, except that her birth certificate suggests her father George was in sales, and we know that she had an older brother. Her 1978 memoir actually begins with her as a 21 year old catching a train to Melbourne, determined to make a career on stage – she provided no commentary about her childhood or what sparked her interest in performing. In fact, behind the cheerful story in her well – manicured memoir, her entree to acting really had a very tragic background. Births, Deaths and Marriages records from South Australia show that while aged only 18, she had married returned serviceman Harold John Kelly – in May 1920. In October 1921 she had given birth to a girl, but sadly the child had died in early 1923.[22]The Chronicle (Adelaide), 15 Oct 1921, p31 and The Express (Adelaide) 4 January 1923, p3 Quite possibly suffering severe depression, in early 1924 she went on “a holiday” to Australia’s eastern states, but after six weeks, her husband reported her as a missing person. We know this because newspapers on the Australian east coast carried the story and some even published her photo. South Australian Police also listed her as a missing person.[23]See for example –Daily Standard (Brisbane) 27 Feb 1924, p2 and The Chronicle (Adelaide) 1 Mar 1924, p50

A week later she was found in Melbourne. Doris reassured Police she was safe and had somewhere to stay, but said she would not be returning to Adelaide. She said she wanted to pursue a career on the stage.[24]The Sun (Sydney) 9 Mar 1924, p2 And extraordinarily, given the circumstances, she did. Just seven months later, Everyone’s magazine was able to report that “a bright career” was predicted for her.[25]Everyone’s (Aust) 29 Oct, 1924, p40

Billie with D B O’connor in the town of Tumut in December 1924.[26]The Tumut Advocate and Farmers & Settlers’ Adviser (NSW) 16 Dec 1924 p5

Records confirm that in early 1924 Doris, now calling herself Billie Carlyle, found work with comedian Wally Reynolds [27]in her memoirs she recalls him as “Wally Peterson” at St Kilda’s Lyric Theatre in a variety called Hullo People – reported to be full of “good clean humour.” She then joined D. B. O’Connor’s troupe, which toured through smaller Australian towns, as they made their way from Melbourne to Sydney, performing The Merry Widow and Are You a Mason?

Cropped photo of Billie Carlyle from her collection, dating to about the time she met Claude, c1925. Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre, Melbourne.

As noted, Billie met Claude Dampier on the set of the film The Adventures of Algy. The film opened on 20 June 1925 [28]Pike & Cooper (1980) p164-165 and several enthusiastic newspapers predicted that Billie would soon become one of the “best screen actors ever produced by Australia.”[29]Mirror (Perth) Sat 8 Aug 1925, p7 This was doubtless just newspaper chatter, and it should be noted that Claude’s partner at the time, Hilda Attenboro, was also in the film.[30]Clay Djubal provides a precis of the film’s plot here

Rare production stills from The Adventures of Algy. Left to right: Claude Dampier, Billie Carlyle at Sydney’s The Gap, and New Zealand actress Bathie Stuart (1897-1987), with unidentified Māori extras. Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre, Melbourne.

With the release of the film, Claude took to performing at some of the screenings, adding a 40 minute live act – at first with Hilda and then, from mid -1926, with Billie. Billie recalled that she met Claude’s estranged partner Hilda, before she took over touring with Claude, to support screenings of The Adventures of Algy.[31]Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate (NSW) 3 May 1926, p6 Billie’s memoir explains that Hilda and Claude separated because their relationship was “explosive,” although she avoided making reference to their private relationship, or their child.[32]Carlyle 1978, p12

This act was called The Deputy Pianist. Billie played “a long suffering artist performing with an incompetent pianist.” Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre, Melbourne.

It is clear from Billie’s memoirs that she co-wrote much of the material they performed, although at the same time, her on-stage role with Claude became the straight person, or “feed” in the act. In a short, undated obituary for Claude held by the Australian Performing Arts Collection, Billie explained that Claude would continually rework his material, “practically to the last minute.” Her published memoir also provides evidence of her many efforts to record amusing conversations with Claude – things that they could then work up to use on stage. The following example illustrates their banter:[33]Carlyle 1978, p35

Billie: [Handing Claude a letter on stage] I am sorry, a gentleman asked me to give you this just before we came on stage.
Claude: Well open it and see what it says. It might be important...
B: It's from a Reporter
C: Reporter?
B: Now don't tell me you don't know what a Reporter is... 
C: Oh you mean one of those fellows that go around letting off reports?
B: Not exactly. He is a man that goes around finding things out.
C: Oh! You mean a nosey parker! What does he want to know?...
B: He said he'd like a photograph. Have you got one?
C: Well yes. Here's a photo of me and my friend Mrs Gibson bathing.
B: Ah. What's this...round thing sticking out of the water?
C: Oh that's part of Mrs Gibson. See that? That's a bit of seaweed. I'm behind that.

Mrs Gibson became a running joke of their act. The character would often be worked into a routine, and sometimes a member of the audience would be mistaken as Mrs Gibson. Billie Carlyle dates the genesis of the character to August 1926, in a performance in New Zealand. Billie claims the couple were later briefly banned by the BBC after an ad-libbed line where Claude claimed he was going to “squeeze Mrs Gibson’s oranges.” [34]Carlyle 1978, p43-44

The Unprofessional Photographer. One of Claude and Billie’s acts. Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne.

A snapshot of their UK careers

In February 1927, Claude and Billie took passage on the Orsova for England. It is not really clear from Billie’s memoir why they decided to make this move at this time. Of course, many young performers wanted to try their luck in Britain, but Claude was now 48, and had been living and performing in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa for 17 years, in an act he had successfully refined for colonial audiences. Claude was now completely forgotten in England, and he warned Billie that they would both “have to start out from scratch.”[35]Carlyle, 1978, p21 Billie Carlyle recalled that it took seven years for Claude to establish himself again in Britain – to be listed at the top of a bill, as he had been in Australia.[36]Carlyle, 1978, p29.

Billie and Claude, perhaps on their way to England. The Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne.

Billie’s memoir states that it was around the time of Claude’s divorce from Irene that she became romantically involved with him – in England – in 1927-28. She said that she had gradually fallen in love with him.[37]Carlyle, 1978, p20-21

The transition to performing in Britain was not without its challenges and it is likely that what was successful in Australia and South Africa did not immediately work on the British stage. Billie managed only one performance with Claude at London’s Victoria Palace Theatre in April 1927, before being briefly replaced by Irene Vere for a few days – either due to illness[38]The Stage (London) 14 April 1927, p13 or perhaps it was because a Manager insisted on the change.[39]Carlyle, 1978, p18-20. However, her own account of this is ambiguous Contrary to her claim in the memoir that she and Claude never got a poor review, early reviews of their act were variable. One British paper suggested Dampier’s “act should be scrapped and quickly. His patter is so over deliberate and it drags and his chatter with Miss Carlyle and himself is old stuff… No, Mr. Dampier we cannot let you get away with this act. You can do much better.” [40]Unnamed British paper cited in The Leader (Perth) 15 Jul 1927, p3 Revised and improved, their act gained better reviews as they toured British towns.[41]Nottingham Evening Post (UK) July 16, 1927 p4

Programs listing Claude and Billie’s act, from (left) London’s Holborn Empire in 1929 and (right) the Victoria Hotel at Sidmouth, Devon, in 1947. (click image to enlarge) The Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne.

Claude and Billie first appeared on radio in 1934, and as Billie’s memoir notes, this dramatically changed their fortunes, soon making them a headline act. The BBC’s database lists over 200 radio and TV performances by Claude Dampier, often featuring Billie as his feed. The radio programs of the mid 1930s included Variety, Radiolympia, Music Hall and Mrs Gibson’s Guesthouse – all of which included performers who were best known for their stage acts. Although tastes were changing and live vaudeville was in decline, variety-themed shows remained a feature of broadcasting well into the era of television. Claude’s last regular appearance appears to have been in the radio comedy series Up the Pole between 1947 and 1952, with Jimmy Jewel (1909-1995) and Ben Warriss.(1909-1993)

Claude’s first major film in Britain, Radio Parade of 1935 (1934), was produced by the prolific Walter C Mycroft (1890-1959), and was cobbled together using established stage acts, with a thin storyline carrying the narrative along – a style of British “musical” that was really a series of variety acts – apparently very popular in the 1930s. Claude went on to join a number of familiar, usually eccentric, character actors who popped up from time to time in British films of the 1930s.[42]The IMDB lists at least one short involving Claude Dampier from the early 1930s, but further details of Claude Deputises (1931) are elusive Billie also appeared in a handful of Claude’s films in the 1930s, in very minor roles.

Claude Dampier as the eccentric piano tuner in Radio Parade of 1935 (1934)Screengrab from the Oldnews (and new) channel on Youtube.

Billie Carlyle explained in her memoirs that – as one would expect – the couple’s friendships grew from professional associations on the stage, radio and in films. Will Hay, Jack Hyton, June Clyde and Zasu Pitts all became close friends.

Billie and Claude occasionally appeared on live television after 1936. Regrettably, very few examples of pre-war British television survive today, however this advertisement from the Radio Times lists Billie and Claude as part of a series of variety acts presented on TV under the banner of a “Western (Wild West) Cabaret.”

A 1939 BBC TV broadcast.[43]Radio Times (UK) 11 June 1939, p16

Despite Billie’s assessment that working with the wartime entertainments Unit (ENSA) was frustratingly awkward, they joined in morale-boosting war work alongside so many other British entertainers – at fund-raising appearances and openings. An example of a BBC Workers Playtime performance from 1943 can be heard here.

The burdens of Billie Carlyle

It is commonly stated that Billie and Claude married in the UK in the late 1920s or early 1930s, and indeed Billie’s own memoirs infer this. Although it is of much less importance to many people today, there is, in fact, no evidence in the British marriage databases of the couple marrying at any time. In late 1937 Harold John Kelly finally sought a divorce from Billie.[44]The Advertiser (Adelaide) 6 March 1938, p32 Surprisingly, the divorce documents in the New South Wales Supreme Court referenced only Harold’s missing wife Doris Ann Kelly, whom Harold said he “could not find.” The documents made no mention of Billie Carlyle the actress, who had appeared in a popular Australian film, or of Claude Dampier the well-known comedian.

In this writer’s opinion, it is quite likely that this divorce [45]the era of no-fault divorce in Australia was still decades away was a result of some agreement between Billie in England, and Harold, a part-time labourer then struggling to make a living in Katoomba, New South Wales. The petition emphasizes Harold’s poverty, states that he had a new partner and that they had five children to support.[46]New South Wales State Archives. Divorce papers Harold John Kelly and Doris Ann Kelly.NRS-13495-15-250-2203/1937 It could be concluded that the unhappy early marriage and the death of her child was an onerous burden that Billie had carried for fifteen years.

Coincidentally – or perhaps not; in December 1937, at the same time the divorce was being filed in New South Wales, Billie and Claude left England for a holiday touring the United States.[47]Carlyle 1978, pps46-56 At the time, entry to the US required a great deal more personal information to be presented than most countries. The SS Aquitania‘s passenger list of 15 December 1937, showed Doris Ann Davy, a 34 year old unmarried Australian-born actress, and Claude Cowan, a 59 year old married English actor, on board. Today, it is very difficult to believe the divorce action and the holiday trip to the US were not connected – timed to limit any potential embarrassment to Billie and Claude. But if this was the case, Billie and Claude need not have worried. There was no bad publicity, and the New South Wales Supreme Court granted Harold Kelly a decree nisi in June 1938.

On their return from the US on the Queen Mary, Claude Dampier and Billie Carlyle used their stage names for UK entry, and Claude now claimed to be only 49. [48]Sunderland Daily Echo & Shipping Gazette, 1 March 1938 p1

Billie Carlyle after Claude’s death

Claude Dampier died of complications arising from pneumonia in early 1955. He was 76. While this meant Billie no longer had a stage partnership, she did not disappear. She continued to maintain her show-biz relationships, and appeared a few more times at special commemorative events and reportedly on radio quiz shows.[49]Daily Telegraph (UK) 1 August 1991 Finally, in the mid 1970s, she returned to visit Australia, perhaps to see her brother again, after almost 50 years. In retirement in the UK, she painted, learned to type and wrote and self-published her memoirs – leaving her voice at the forefront of the Claude Dampier story. She also wrote several works of fiction – that were not published.[50]These were Delora’s Dilemma and Answers for Anne – the latter being an unusual work – written in 1985, it concerns the rape of the protagonist, Anne, and a series of very complex … Continue reading

In the 1980s Billie decided to leave a heavily curated selection of the couple’s collection of scrapbooks, programs and photographs to the newly established Australian Performing Arts Collection in Melbourne, Australia.

Billie Carlyle at home in 1981. [51]The Australian Women’s Weekly, 6 May 1981, p11

Billie and Claude had no children together, however Claude’s daughter Dorothy by Irene Vere became a performer and visited Australia for at least one long tour in 1937.

The daughter of Claude and Hilda Attenboro grew up and raised a family in Australia.

Billie Carlyle died in England in July 1991. She had re-married in 1961.

Dorothy Dampier in Australia in 1937. She was sometimes known as Dorothy Vere.[52]The Wireless Weekly. (Aust) 25 June 1937, p7

Nick Murphy
September 2024

References

Thanks

  • Claudia Funder and the staff at the Australian Performing Arts Collection, Art Centre, Melbourne, who arranged my access to the Billie Carlyle & Claude Dampier Collection

Births, Deaths & Marriages documents

  • South Australia Births Deaths & Marriages
    Birth certificate: Doris Ann Nesida Davy, 10 Feb 1902 (The middle name looks like Rosida on the birth certificate)
    Marriage certificate: Doris Ann Nesida Davy and Harold John Kelly 15 May 1920
  • Victoria Births Deaths & Marriages
    Birth Certificate: Marjorie Sheldon Cowan, 22 March 1923.
  • National Archives (UK)
    Divorce papers (Court minutes) Eileen Geraldine Violet Keith Cowan and Claude Connolly Cowan, 1927-1928. J 77/2445/6307
  • Museums of History NSW – State Archives Collection
     Divorce papers Harold John Kelly and Doris Ann Kelly.NRS-13495-15-250-2203/1937.
  • HM Passport office, General Register office (UK)
    Claude C Cowan & Eileen Geraldine Thompson, Marriage Certificate, 30 April 1907.
    Claude C Cowan, Death Certificate, 1 January 1955.
    Billie Carlyle-Blake, Death Certificate, 23 July, 1991.

Text

  • Richard Anthony Baker (2013) Old Time Variety. Pen & Sword Books.
  • Billie Carlyle (1978) Claude Dampier Mrs Gibson & Me. Billie Carlyle
  • Clay Djubal at the Australian Variety Theatre Archive
    The Adventures of Algy (2017)
    Claude Dampier     (2018)
    Edward Branscombe (2013)
  • Richard Fotheringham (2024) “Autobiography as publicity: the case of Jenny Howard” in Australian Journal of Biography and History, No 8, 2024, Australian National University
  • Andrew Pike & Ross Cooper (1980) Australian Film 1900-1977. Oxford University Press.
  • Frank Van Straten (2003) Tivoli. Thomas C Lothian
  • Adrian Wright (2020) Cheer Up! British Musical Films 1929-1945. The Boydell Press.

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

Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography

Encyclopaedia of South African Theatre, Film, Media and Performance (ESAT)

Audio & Film

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 See Richard Fotheringham’s 2024 biography of another actor of the same era, Jenny Howard (1902-1996), for a deeper analysis of the extent of these difficulties
↑2, ↑49 Daily Telegraph (UK) 1 August 1991
↑3, ↑25 Everyone’s (Aust) 29 Oct, 1924, p40
↑4 Birth name Eileen Geraldine Thompson
↑5 The Register (Adelaide) 12 Oct 1910, p5
↑6 Evening Journal (Adelaide),13 Feb 1911, p2
↑7 Carlyle,1978, p1
↑8 The New Zealand Graphic and Ladies Journal, 10 July 1912, p.22
↑9 The Stage (London) 19 Dec 1919
↑10 Her stage name was also sometimes spelled Attenborough. She had been born in England in 1896 as Alice Hilda Sweet. Of interest, she had appeared in at least three silent films in South Africa in 1918
↑11 Victorian Birth Certificate Number 13524 / 1923, 23 March 1923
↑12 The marriages of South Africa’s white population during this era can be found on Familysearch.com. In these records we can see Hilda had actually married performer Thomas Henry Daniels in South Africa in August 1918, and by whom she already had another child
↑13 National Archives (UK) Divorce Court file J 77/2445/6307 Appellant: Eileen Geraldine Violet Keith Cowan
↑14 Critic (Adelaide) 7 December 1921, p10
↑15 Sunday Times (Sydney)16 Oct 1921, p3
↑16 Sunday Times (Sydney) 27 Nov 1921, p17
↑17 The Oxford reference guide describes a remittance man as typically a disgraced man of good position or family who has been sent abroad by his family and whose payments depend on his remaining there
↑18 The Advertiser (Adelaide) 15 Dec 1924, p11
↑19 Everyone’s (Aust) 19 Nov 1924, p11
↑20 This film survives but is difficult to source. These screen grabs are from the documentary A History of Australian Cinema, Part Two, The Passionate Industry 1920-1930, available from Umbrella Entertainment/Film Australia
↑21 Mail (Adelaide) 1 March 1924, p5
↑22 The Chronicle (Adelaide), 15 Oct 1921, p31 and The Express (Adelaide) 4 January 1923, p3
↑23 See for example –Daily Standard (Brisbane) 27 Feb 1924, p2 and The Chronicle (Adelaide) 1 Mar 1924, p50
↑24 The Sun (Sydney) 9 Mar 1924, p2
↑26 The Tumut Advocate and Farmers & Settlers’ Adviser (NSW) 16 Dec 1924 p5
↑27 in her memoirs she recalls him as “Wally Peterson”
↑28 Pike & Cooper (1980) p164-165
↑29 Mirror (Perth) Sat 8 Aug 1925, p7
↑30 Clay Djubal provides a precis of the film’s plot here
↑31 Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate (NSW) 3 May 1926, p6
↑32 Carlyle 1978, p12
↑33 Carlyle 1978, p35
↑34 Carlyle 1978, p43-44
↑35 Carlyle, 1978, p21
↑36 Carlyle, 1978, p29.
↑37 Carlyle, 1978, p20-21
↑38 The Stage (London) 14 April 1927, p13
↑39 Carlyle, 1978, p18-20. However, her own account of this is ambiguous
↑40 Unnamed British paper cited in The Leader (Perth) 15 Jul 1927, p3
↑41 Nottingham Evening Post (UK) July 16, 1927 p4
↑42 The IMDB lists at least one short involving Claude Dampier from the early 1930s, but further details of Claude Deputises (1931) are elusive
↑43 Radio Times (UK) 11 June 1939, p16
↑44 The Advertiser (Adelaide) 6 March 1938, p32
↑45 the era of no-fault divorce in Australia was still decades away
↑46 New South Wales State Archives. Divorce papers Harold John Kelly and Doris Ann Kelly.NRS-13495-15-250-2203/1937
↑47 Carlyle 1978, pps46-56
↑48 Sunderland Daily Echo & Shipping Gazette, 1 March 1938 p1
↑50 These were Delora’s Dilemma and Answers for Anne – the latter being an unusual work – written in 1985, it concerns the rape of the protagonist, Anne, and a series of very complex and implausible relationships
↑51 The Australian Women’s Weekly, 6 May 1981, p11
↑52 The Wireless Weekly. (Aust) 25 June 1937, p7

The Bennettos – the talented sisters from Fitzroy

Ethel Bennetto as she appeared in the Egyptian ballet of the revue Time, Please in June-July 1918. [1]The Green Room magazine, 1 June, 1918, P2. Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales Melbourne newspapers of the time reported this scene was altered or “censored” at the request of Police. It appears not to have bothered Ethel at all.[2]The Herald (Melb) 12 Jul 1918, p1
The Five Second version
Alice Bennetto (1885-1970) and her younger sister Ethel (1889-1985) both built successful careers on stage in Australasia in the early twentieth century. Typical of the working-class, inner-city children who joined Pollards Lilliputian Opera Company, they were talented singers and dancers. and their speciality was the ever popular comic opera and variety – that audiences were so familiar with. In 1919, Ethel appeared in the now lost film Does the Jazz Lead to Destruction? before marrying a New Zealand doctor and retiring from the stage. About the same time, Alice became a personal and professional partner of popular Scottish-born comedian Elton Black (James McWhinnie)(1881 -1948), performing with him for the next twenty years and finally marrying him in 1939. Both women died in New Zealand.

Alice and Ethel growing up in Fitzroy

Alice Bennetto and Ethel Bennetto on tour in Manila and enroute to North America – with Pollards Lilliputian Opera Company c1903.[3]Enlarged from a photo in the Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne

Architectural Historian Miles Lewis has observed that by the end of the nineteenth century, “the inner suburbs in general, and Fitzroy in particular, were occupied not by people who aspired to be there, but by people who could not get out.”[4]Lewis (Ed) 2012, P63 It is likely that an apprenticeship to Pollards Lilliputian Opera Company was recognised by Fitzroy families as one means of social mobility, of “getting out.” In the case of three families who, in the late 1890s, lived in Kerr Street, Fitzroy, getting out, thanks to Pollards Lilliputian Opera, is what happened. Most of the Trott family – originally resident at No 56 Kerr St – left Australia in company with successful daughters Daphne and Ivy in 1907, re-establishing themselves in Seattle.[5]They had been living in King William Street when they departed Australia, leaving one married daughter behind 16 year old Oscar Heintz from No 84 Kerr St did not return with the Pollards troupe at all after the 1904-07 tour, instead settling in Portland, Oregon, where, with the help of the YMCA, he made a successful (non-theatrical) life for himself. His younger performing brother Freddie later moved back to the US in hopes of building a career, but met with little success. The subject of this account, the Bennetto girls, also moved away from Kerr Street Fitzroy after experience with Pollards.

Kerr St Fitzroy in 2024. In the late 1890s, No. 84 (red door on the left) housed the Heintz family, No 76 (centre of photo) the Bennettos, and No 56 (the white building in the right far distance) was home to the Trott family. Children of all these families joined the Pollards.[6]No 86, the home of William Bennetto, now demolished, was to the left of the photo

Alice (1885-1970) and Ethel (1889-1985) Bennetto were born in the inner Melbourne suburbs, the children of bricklayer Arthur Bennetto (1857-1909) and his wife Sarah nee Montague (1862-1920). Arthur, who was the Australian-born son of Cornish goldrush immigrants, moved his family around various rental properties in the Fitzroy and Carlton areas, until settling into Kerr Street, Fitzroy. His unmarried brother William (1859-1895), a carpenter and builder, who might possibly have been a business partner, also lived and worked in Kerr St until his early death in 1895.

The Bennetto girl’s uncle William advertising in 1889, at the height of Melbourne’s building boom.[7]Jewish Herald (Vic) 16 Aug 1889 p3

Like many of the children who travelled overseas with Pollards Lilliputian Opera Company, we have only vestiges of information about the home life of the Bennetto girls.

In 1908, at age 46, Alice and Ethel’s mother Sarah gave birth to another daughter – Violet. But a year later, their father Arthur died at the family home at 76 Kerr Street. The girls and their brothers almost certainly attended school number 111 in nearby Bell Street, Fitzroy. Irene Goulding (1888-1987), a friend of Alice Bennetto, is known to have attended the Bell Street school, and like the Bennetto girls, she left at a young age to join Pollards. Interviewed near the end of a long life, Irene could still recall that her favourite teacher at Bell Street did not approve of her leaving school for a life of touring with Pollards.[8]Regrettably, all records regarding this important early Melbourne school have been lost or destroyed by the Education Department. The 1985 interview with Irene Goulding is held by the Performing Arts … Continue reading

Fitzroy girls with the Pollards: Alice Bennetto (Right front), with friend Irene Goulding standing behind her (Right rear). Also shown are Pollards proprietor Nellie Chester, left front, and Alice McNamara, left rear. c1900 [9]Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne


Alice and Ethel had four brothers, none of whom joined Pollards, and several of whom struggled to find a direction in life. On occasion the Bennetto boys were in trouble with the law, and two of them were rejected as medically unfit for military service in World War One. Oldest brother Thomas William Bennetto (1883-1943) blamed his poor education for not remembering details of his military service when he applied for a fresh copy of his discharge papers in 1937.[10]See his National Archives of Australia military file, p28 Whatever benefit the Pollards experience had brought his sisters, it apparently had not extended to him.

Alice and Ethel with the Pollards

Alice Bennetto first travelled with Charles Pollard and Nellie Chester’s Pollards Lilliputian Opera Company in 1899. Alice is listed returning from South Africa in February 1900 on the passenger manifest of the Salamis. In July 1900 both Alice and Ethel were listed as members of the next Pollards troupe, appearing on the manifest of the Pilbarra, arriving in Western Australia from Melbourne, while on their way to the “Far East.” Thus, the girls began touring overseas with the Pollards, at ages 14 and 11.

Alice and Ethel Bennetto, c1900-3, while with the Pollards. Irene Goulding at right, Nellie Chester in the foreground.[11]Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne

It was Alice Bennetto who the Pollards chose to sing Nearer My God to Thee at a special memorial service held in Honolulu in October 1901, following the assassination of US President William McKinley. The Pollards Lilliputian Opera Company were on their way to North America at the time. She was the company’s leading player, a newspaper reported.[12]The Honolulu Republican, 1 Oct 1901, p1

Despite the Pollards popularity, not all audiences felt comfortable at the sight of children acting in adult roles in comic opera. In 1907, one correspondent for the Hong Kong Daily Press asked readers: Pollard’s Lilliputians are children, but their performance is anything but childish… That shrimp of a maiden …who portrays a woman many times divorced, how are we to regard her? [13]The Hong Kong Daily Press, 27 December 1907, p17

Comic operas, such as The Belle of New York, included lyrics like this:[14]The Victoria Daily Times (Victoria BC), 26 June 1913, p5

Teach me how to kiss dear,
Teach me how to squeeze,
Teach me how to sit upon your simple Celtic knees.
Teach me how to coo dear, like a turtle dove,
Teach me how to fondle you,
Oh teach me how to love.

Today, many would have mixed feelings about the appropriateness of some comic operas for child performers, but as this writer has noted elsewhere, Pollards repertoire reflected the dominant tastes of the time (or at least, some people’s taste). On the goldfields of Kalgoorlie for example, a reviewer for the Kalgoorlie Miner felt comfortable writing; Miss Alice Bennetto, as The Belle of New York, whose gradual diminution of costume during the evening suggests awful possibilities if the play were prolonged by another act.[15]Kalgoorlie Miner (WA) 23 July 1900, p8

Alice and Ethel Bennetto (red dots) with Pollards Lilliputian Opera Company, c1903. [16]Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne

Alice and Ethel went on three Pollards overseas performance tours together –

  • July 1900 to April 1901,
  • September 1901 to October 1902 and
  • January 1903 to April 1904.

All of these Pollards tours ended up in the US and Canada, where the company was so popular – except on the US east coast, where the Gerry Society’s efforts to keep child performers off the stage were successful.[17]“The Gerry Society” was the popular name for the very influential New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Alice also went on the very long tour of September 1904 to February 1907, as a supervising adult and likely also as one of the troupe’s singing/dancing mistresses. By 1904 she was almost 20 years old and could no longer pass as a juvenile or Lilliputian, and while her name is on the shipping manifest entering Vancouver in March 1905 with the Pollards, it is not found in surviving programs.[18]A potted version of Alice’s career was given to News (Adelaide), 1 May 1924, p2 Back in Fitzroy, perhaps tiring of the long tours overseas, Ethel Bennetto instead joined Tom Pollard’s branch of the Pollards company – that toured locations in Australasia.[19]The Evening Star (WA) 9 Feb 1906 p3 Joining her were Minnie and May Topping, neighbours from 49 Fitzroy Street, Fitzroy who, had also previously been with Charles Pollard and Nellie Chester’s troupe in North America. Perhaps they too, were tired of long periods away from family and friends.

Alice and Ethel’s Australasian careers – 1910s

 Left: Alice in Table Talk (Melb) 6 Jan 1910 p23. Courtesy Australian Performing Arts Collection.
Right: Ethel in 1909, while with Meynell and Gunn’s Opera Company. [20]Table Talk (Melb) 29 April 1909, p22

Following the Pollards tours, both Alice and Ethel built careers on the Australian stage. Their experience was common to other capable and aspiring young Australian actors at the time – Enid Bennett, Dorothy Cumming, Gwen Day Burroughs, Cyril Ritchard, Clyde Cook, Dorothy Brunton, W.S. Percy, and others. The Bennetto girls met and worked with many of these performers. They also benefited by patronage of experienced performers – Alice nominated singer and actress Florence Young (1870-1920), for whom she understudied, as a positive influence on her career, although she also noted that Young was always unwilling to disappoint fans by not appearing, even when ill.[21]News (Adelaide) 1 May 1924, p2

The sisters employment was very much dominated by JC Williamson’s, the Australasian theatre monopoly – and a surviving JC Williamson’s contract for Alice listed her 1916 salary as a modest £6 per week, whilst on tour. On a few occasions the Bennettos were in the same productions – for example they both appeared together in Meynell & Gunn’s production of The Belle of Mayfair [22]a burlesque version of Romeo and Juliet, in Auckland, in June 1909 and in The Arcadians in Melbourne in 1915.

Alice Bennetto and Lillian Lea singing in the 1909 panto Babes in the Wood. The Argus (Melb) 28 Dec 1909 p7 [23]National Library of Australia

The AusStage database shows an almost continuous body of work for both women in Australia in the 1910s, mostly comprising musical comedy and panto. However, newspaper reports show an endless series of less well documented variety performances were also a feature.

As Elisabeth Kumm has noted, dramatic changes were already under way in the Australian theatre scene when war broke out in 1914. The trend to concentrated ownership continued, but after a dip in attendances, demand for entertainment returned, and became such that during the war years some 200 new plays were performed in Melbourne alone.[24]Kumm, 2016 Frank Van Straten notes that the Tivoli circuit turned to big, imported revues at this time.[25]Van Straten, (2003) p53-57 War also meant there were fewer British stars available, and while US actors filled some of the gap, more Australian actors were given opportunities to impress. It is in this environment that the Bennetto girls flourished. Although never leading stars of the stage, they were increasingly profiled and often received good reviews.

Left: Ethel Bennetto helps advertise Cohen & Son’s new swimsuit. Theatre Magazine, 1 Feb 1916 [26]Theatre Heritage Australia digital Collection Right: Ethel Bennetto on the cover of Green Room magazine, while performing in the revue Time, Please in August 1918. , Perhaps she was channeling Annette Kellerman in the new film Daughter of the Gods (1916).[27]State Library of NSW, Mitchell Library

In 1918, Melbourne’s Table Talk magazine acknowledged the change in wartime when it reported:
Alice Bennetto, one of the principals in The Rajah of Shivapore at the Princess, is a young Australian who has already had a lot of stage experience but not much chance to shine. Now she scintillates, for she not only looks beautiful and acts appealingly, but proves herself. the possessor of a light soprano voice of delightful quality and charm. Yet with all these gifts she has had to tarry long in the chorus. The most successful favourites we have ever had on our light opera stage have been Australian.[28]Table Talk (Melb) 21 Feb 1918, p9

Ethel Bennetto’s 1919 film

In 1919 Ethel appeared in a comedy film entitled Does the Jazz Lead to Destruction? With her in this was Sydney dancer George Irving.[29]not the well known US film director with the same name, as the IMDB currently claims Unfortunately other details of the film are unknown to us now because -it is long considered lost. Advertising on its limited release suggests it may have been a comedy short, made to be a part of a mixed-bill variety program, with Jazz-themes.

Does the Jazz Lead to Destruction (1919) with Ethel and George Irving.[30]The Picture Show, 2 August 1919, p13. Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW

Following this, Ethel joined the Sydney Tivoli Revue company for a New Zealand tour. And then, in 1920, she rather suddenly married well-known Auckland medico Theodore Endletsberger (1869-1931).[31]Born in Austria in 1869, Endletsberger had arrived in New Zealand in about 1906. He had been interned during the First World War, but had since built a successful practice By March 1920, Ethel had retired completely from the stage, and following the death of Sarah Bennetto in Fitzroy, 11 year old Violet, the youngest member of the Bennetto family, had come over to live with the couple in New Zealand. Auckland’s affluent suburb of Mount Eden would have been a stark contrast to King William Street in Fitzroy.

Alice Bennetto and Elton Black after 1919

Alice was interviewed several times in the 1920s. One brief interview from 1924 published in an Adelaide paper under the title Confessions – actresses unburden their souls suggests Alice had a very dry sense of humour – a tantalising glimpse of the real person. Asked what her “ideal man” was, Alice’s answer was – He doesn’t exist. Her favourite word was not in the dictionary. Of the stage, she responded that it was a decent way of making a living and of her greatest joy – she said it was singing for my salary. Her most awkward moment was when I crack on a top C. [32]News (Adelaide) 14 Jan 1924, p6 Despite the witty commentary about a lack of ideal men, Alice had already met someone she would spend the next thirty years with.

Left: Alice Bennetto in the comic opera The Rajah of Shivapore in Melbourne in early 1918. [33]Table Talk, 7 Feb 1918, p22
Right: Elton Black in 1923. [34]The Critic (Adelaide) 21 Nov 1923, p11

Sometime in late 1918 or 1919, Alice Bennetto met and became a professional and personal partner of comedian Elton Black (1881-1948) (real name James McWhinnie) – although the exact context of how this happened now seems lost. At the time Elton Black was already married to pioneer actor, director and writer Kate Howarde (1864-1939).[See Note 1 below]

Elton and Alice in a variety lineup in Brisbane, 1923.[35]Daily Standard (Qld) 19 Sept 1923, p2

Amongst the earliest collaborations between Elton Black and Alice Bennetto was Walter Johnson’s “Town Topics Company”. This was the pantomime Robinson Crusoe, performed in December 1919. Elton Black’s script for this survives in the Nat Phillips papers, at the Fryer Library at the University of Queensland. Even in its incomplete state, it is an fascinating example of how successful variety acts were stitched together, with handwritten corrections over the typed manuscript.

Alice Bennetto spent most of the next three decades performing with Elton Black. Clay Djubal’s research into the professional life of Elton Black also gives a survey of just how busy and successful they were as a partnership.[36]See his article on Elton Black at the Australian Variety Theatre Archive, here Their acts varied, but their speciality was increasingly the “Scottish comedian” act, in the style of Harry Lauder. Alice was his foil, a “Highland lassie.”

While performing with Elton and Billy Maloney (1895-1957) for the Town Topics Company, Alice was asked what made for success in vaudeville. She answered;
it has to be a pot-pourri of every thing of the best. Singing, dancing, comedy, and frocking. I always make a great point of the last mentioned, because it helps every item. I put all my money into my stage clothes, and we are fortunate in having an expert wardrobe mistress… I’m sure you will love the costumes they wear in Mr. Maloney’s number, Yes, we have no bananas – pink and grey silk paisley.[37]The Advertiser (Adelaide) 29 Nov 1923, p11

In September 1924 Alice and Elton arrived together in England on the SS Euripides, (apparently after several months spent in South Africa). For the next 20 months they performed successfully in Britain. While Alice was recognised for her own talents, one newspaper having described her as a charming musical-comedy-revue heroine, [38]Dundee Evening Telegraph,15 September 1925, p10, it was especially the Scotch comedian and his “Heilan’ Lassie” act that drew attention. They arrived home on the SS Runic in May 1926.[39]News (Adelaide) 11 May 1926, p1

Elton Black and Alice Bennetto advertising in London’s The Stage, soon after arriving in Britain.[40]The Stage (London) 6 Nov 1924, p10

Elton and Alice lived together as a couple for many years, with Auckland, New Zealand as their base from the late 1920s. However, it was only after Kate Howarde’s death in 1939, that they finally married.[41]Alice Catherine Bennetto & James McWhinnie, New Zealand Marriage Certificate – 1939/2568 The couple continued to work together almost until Elton’s death in 1948, including on some radio variety programs (in both Australia and New Zealand).

Elton Black’s Community Entertainers performing through regional Western Australia in 1935[42]The Mirror (Perth) 30 Nov 1935, p22

As Clay Djubal’s research suggests, by the 1930s it would seem their repertoire found more consistent audiences in provincial and regional settings. Live variety had adapted to the arrival of silent and then sound films, but perhaps more conservative audience tastes also helped companies touring variety survive longer in regional areas than the larger cities. Amongst Alice and Elton’s final shows was a live version of the popular radio show Chuckles with Jerry, on tour in New Zealand in 1947.

Left: Alice and Elton in a variety lineup in New Zealand in 1939 and at right, in a radio-themed lineup in 1947.[43]Auckland Star, 9 August 1939, p22, and Bay of Plenty Beacon, 11 April 1947, p1

Following Elton Black’s death in 1948, Alice Bennetto’s performances also came to an end. She died at Auckland’s Cornwall Hospital in early 1970. Ethel also died in Auckland, in 1985. Theodore Endletsberger had died in 1931 and Ethel had remarried in 1939.

Note 1: Elton Black & Kate Howarde c1904 – c1919

Elton Black had arrived in Australia in the early 1900s. He married Kate Howarde (1864-1939)[44]Born Catherine Clarissa Jones, her name at the time was Catherine De Saxe. Her first husband William Henry De Saxe had died in July 1902 at Port Adelaide in February 1905. A few months later, the couple departed for North America, and later Britain – where they sometimes performed together, before returning to Australia in 1909. The Kate Howarde Company toured Australia and New Zealand until about 1914, and Elton Black’s career appears to have been often intertwined with hers. In 1914 Kate Howarde settled into producing weekly rep at Balmain’s National Theatre. As Ina Bertrand notes, at least some of their performances were original works by Kate Howarde – The White Slave Traffic (1914) and Why Girls Leave Home (1914). While Elton Black was first and foremost a comedian, at times he took on character roles with the company. They toured again in 1918 – in regional Victoria, at the end of which Elton Black made a very late attempt to join the Australian Army, under his stage name. He was rejected as medically unfit, and late October 1918 was too late to make a difference anyway. His relationship with Kate Howarde seems to have come to an end at about this time.

Kate Howarde’s ‘Possum Paddock as a film. Theatre Magazine, 1 December 1920, p54. At right is Leslie Adrien, Kate’s daughter.

Creative and busy to the end of her life, Kate Howarde went on to direct a film version of her very popular play ‘Possum Paddock in 1919, becoming the first woman to write and direct an Australian feature film. See Ina Bertrand’s survey of her life at the Australian Dictionary of Biography, and the Women Film Pioneers project. She died in Sydney in 1939.

Nick Murphy
July 2024

References

Australian Performing Arts Collection, Art Centre, Melbourne

  • Alice Bennetto contract with JC Williamsons
  • Irene Smith (Goulding) interview by Sally Dawes, 1985

Births, Deaths & Marriages documents

  • Victoria
    • Alice Catherine Bennetto, Birth Certificate, 5 Oct 1885
    • William Bennetto, Death Certificate, 25 Sept 1895
    • Ethel Bennetto, Birth Certificate, 22 December 1889
    • Arthur Bennetto, Death Certificate, 8 June 1909
    • Sarah Bennetto, Death Certificate, 3 April 1920
  • New Zealand
    • Ethel Bennetto & Theodor Endletsberger, Marriage Certificate 1920 -1920/5541
    • Alice Catherine Bennetto & James McWhinnie, Marriage Certificate 1939 – 1939/2568
    • Ethel Endletsberger & Andrew Kyle, Marriage Certificate 1939 – 1939/295
    • James McWhinnie, Death Certificate, 2 August 1948 -1948/30008
    • Alice Catherine McWhinnie, Death Certificate, 22 January 1970 -1970/25618
  • Australian Marriage Index 1788-1950 (Via Ancestry)
    • James Macwhinnie (sic) and Catherine De Saxe, Marriage Certificate, 2 Feb 1905, Port Adelaide, South Australia

Other Websites

  • Fitzroy Research Melbourne – Ongoing research into the history of Fitzroy buildings. Rachel Axton
  • Women Film Pioneers Project
    Bertrand, Ina. “Kate Howarde.” In Jane Gaines, Radha Vatsal, and Monica Dall’Asta, (eds) Women Film Pioneers Project. New York, NY: Columbia University Libraries, 2013. 
  • Australian Variety Theatre Archive
    Clay Djubal: “Elton Black.” 3 April 2021. Accessed online 5 July 2024.
  • Funny As: The Story of New Zealand Comedy
    Peter Downes interview

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

Text

  • Cutten History Committee – Fitzroy History Society (1989) Fitzroy : Melbourne’s first suburb. Hyland House, South Yarra.
  • Elisabeth Kumm: “Theatre in Melbourne 1914-18; the best the brightest and the latest.“ The La Trobe Journal, No 97, March 2016.
  • Miles Lewis (Ed) Brunswick Street lost and found : proceedings of a seminar at Fitzroy. 20 May 2012. Available from Fitzroy History Society pages here.
  • Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper (1981 and 1998): Australian film, 1900-1977 : a guide to feature film production. Oxford University Press.
  • Frank Van Straten (2003) Tivoli. Thomas C Lothian
  • Margaret Williams (1983) Australia on the Popular Stage 1829-1929. Oxford University Press
This site has been selected for preservation in the National Library of Australia’s Pandora archive

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 The Green Room magazine, 1 June, 1918, P2. Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
↑2 The Herald (Melb) 12 Jul 1918, p1
↑3 Enlarged from a photo in the Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne
↑4 Lewis (Ed) 2012, P63
↑5 They had been living in King William Street when they departed Australia, leaving one married daughter behind
↑6 No 86, the home of William Bennetto, now demolished, was to the left of the photo
↑7 Jewish Herald (Vic) 16 Aug 1889 p3
↑8 Regrettably, all records regarding this important early Melbourne school have been lost or destroyed by the Education Department. The 1985 interview with Irene Goulding is held by the Performing Arts Collection
↑9, ↑11, ↑16 Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne
↑10 See his National Archives of Australia military file, p28
↑12 The Honolulu Republican, 1 Oct 1901, p1
↑13 The Hong Kong Daily Press, 27 December 1907, p17
↑14 The Victoria Daily Times (Victoria BC), 26 June 1913, p5
↑15 Kalgoorlie Miner (WA) 23 July 1900, p8
↑17 “The Gerry Society” was the popular name for the very influential New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
↑18 A potted version of Alice’s career was given to News (Adelaide), 1 May 1924, p2
↑19 The Evening Star (WA) 9 Feb 1906 p3
↑20 Table Talk (Melb) 29 April 1909, p22
↑21 News (Adelaide) 1 May 1924, p2
↑22 a burlesque version of Romeo and Juliet
↑23 National Library of Australia
↑24 Kumm, 2016
↑25 Van Straten, (2003) p53-57
↑26 Theatre Heritage Australia digital Collection
↑27 State Library of NSW, Mitchell Library
↑28 Table Talk (Melb) 21 Feb 1918, p9
↑29 not the well known US film director with the same name, as the IMDB currently claims
↑30 The Picture Show, 2 August 1919, p13. Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW
↑31 Born in Austria in 1869, Endletsberger had arrived in New Zealand in about 1906. He had been interned during the First World War, but had since built a successful practice
↑32 News (Adelaide) 14 Jan 1924, p6
↑33 Table Talk, 7 Feb 1918, p22
↑34 The Critic (Adelaide) 21 Nov 1923, p11
↑35 Daily Standard (Qld) 19 Sept 1923, p2
↑36 See his article on Elton Black at the Australian Variety Theatre Archive, here
↑37 The Advertiser (Adelaide) 29 Nov 1923, p11
↑38 Dundee Evening Telegraph,15 September 1925, p10
↑39 News (Adelaide) 11 May 1926, p1
↑40 The Stage (London) 6 Nov 1924, p10
↑41 Alice Catherine Bennetto & James McWhinnie, New Zealand Marriage Certificate – 1939/2568
↑42 The Mirror (Perth) 30 Nov 1935, p22
↑43 Auckland Star, 9 August 1939, p22, and Bay of Plenty Beacon, 11 April 1947, p1
↑44 Born Catherine Clarissa Jones, her name at the time was Catherine De Saxe. Her first husband William Henry De Saxe had died in July 1902