Above: Margaret Vyner C 1940. Photo enlarged from a very small Gaumont British card, possibly a cigarette card, otherwise unmarked. From the author’s collection.
Margaret Leila Vyner was born in the large northern New South Wales town of Armidale, in 1914, to Robert Vyner and Ruby nee Nicholson. In the 1930s, Margaret Vyner would develop a reputation for stylish fashion and glamour, in addition to appearing in films and on stage. She remained a perennial favourite with the Australian press for many years. As an adult she was above average height, standing about 172 cms (or 5’8″), and had blue eyes and fair hair. She was well-read, witty and beautiful.
Margaret Vyner while working in Paris for Jean Patou in 1934. Table Talk (Melb) 6 Dec 1934, via State Library of Victoria.
Her father, Robert Vyner, was manager on a pastoral station near Armidale, the oldest son of Robert Thomas Vyner (1858-1930), who had built a successful pastoral dynasty after moving to the area in the 1890s. Margaret was the only child of the union and it would seem the small family had moved to inner Sydney by the early 1920s after Robert Vyner ran into financial difficulties. Margaret attended Ascham School, a private girls’ school that pioneered and still follows an innovative teaching approach known as the Dalton Plan. She then attended Miss Jean Cheriton‘s very well known finishing school “Doone” at Edgecliffe. In later years she acknowledged how much she owed Miss Cheriton. By 1930 she was performing in amateur theatricals at Doone, while newspapers presented her as an eligible young woman, doing interesting things about town, as well as modelling clothes and often with something witty to say to journalists.
By the end of 1930 she had made a remarkably easy transition into some chorus work for J.C. Williamson’s in Sydney – performing in When Knights were Bold, followed by a part as one of the chorus of “English girls” in a re-run of the popular musical Florodora – and then in Blue Roses, Hold My Hand and Our Miss Gibbs – all being performed up and down the eastern Australian coast. She was “beautiful”, “decorative”, “charming” and “vivacious” reported reviewers. Although not yet 18, she was also doing well enough to be offered advertising work for “Charmousan” powders and creams. By early 1934, on the back of all this local success, she had made the decision to travel to London and she departed at the end of March. Her biographer Kate Dunn states she left the Orsova in Naples and then made her way overland to Paris, where she was picked up as a mannequin very quickly by French fashion designer Jean Patou. Hal Porter suggested she worked her way up from “general dog’s body” for Patou whilst learning French and dressmaking at night. Perhaps both accounts are true. It was the Australian paper Smith’s Weekly that carried many of the reports of her work as a mannequin in 1934-35, Margaret being the author of many of these accounts herself. Did she really pioneer Australian women not wearing a hat to formal events? It seems possible!
Above: Margaret Vyner advertising Ardath cigarettes, c1935. Courtesy The Marriner Theatre Archive, Melbourne.
Margaret returned to Australia in December 1935, reportedly for a summer holiday. In early 1936 she won a small role in The Flying Doctor, being made by the fledgling Australian film company National Productions, directed by British actor/director Miles Mander and starring US import Charles Farrell. While some of the dialogue is well written, today there is the distinct impression the film was cobbled together in a great rush. Melbourne’s The Argus was amongst those not impressed, their reviewer commenting; “it is unlikely that Charles Farrell’s episodic wanderings in the Australian outback will appeal strongly to non-Australian audiences…”
Margaret Vyner’s short and forgettable role in the film is as an unhappy wife – Betty. Eric Colman, on the other hand, does a very memorable job as her overbearing husband.
Above: Screen grab from The Flying Doctor (1936) , showing Eric Colman (brother of Hollywood’s Ronald Colman) Charles Farrell and Margaret Vyner. This short cricket sequence is easily found online, as it also features Don Bradman in his only film role, as himself. Source; National Film and Sound Archive. (The entire film is also held by the NFSA)
Whilst in Australia, Miles Mander went out of his way to be an affable visitor, making himself available for interviews and telling the Australian press all the things they liked to hear. These included his observation that Australian men were at least twenty-five percent “better developed” physically than Englishmen. British scriptwriter J.O.C Orton added his own tribute, commenting that there was a strong belief in England that “the most beautiful girls in the world were to be found in Australia… Mary Maguire and Margaret Vyner were splendid examples of Australian girlhood.”
Above: From The Age 3 October 1936. Although Vyner’s part was minor, her local fame saw her headlined with the two leading players in Australian advertisements for The Flying Doctor. Source Newspapers.com
At the end of April 1936, Margaret packed up and headed overseas again, this time travelling on the Matson liner Mariposa for California. She may have been encouraged by Mander to “try her luck” in Hollywood, because he appears to have told Mary Maguire andJocelyn Howarththe same thing and was about to move there himself. But Margaret Vyner didn’t stay there for long. She later explained that she had been offered a test at Universal, but said; “I‘d hate to feel I had to spend my life there … never quite sure of good parts. So I turned (the contract) down and felt even more pleased with myself for being able to resist it.” She arrived in London again in July 1936.
During 1936 she gained some attention for sometimes using Michael as a modelling name. She explained that she had done this because she didn’t want to be known in Paris as Marguerite – or some variation of Margaret. So she chose the name Michel – which soon became Michael. At about the same time, at least one newspaper suggested she was following the influence of Marlene Dietrich , who had famously dressed in masculine attire in the 1930 film Morocco. In the following photos from Australia’s The Home magazine perhaps Margaret was enjoying making a statement. She almost certainly knew it was technically still illegal for women to wear trousers in France. The law was finally removed in 2013.
Above: Margaret Vyner in The Home, Vol 18, No 8, 1937. The text accompanying claims she was on the way to La Touquet, a French seaside town. Source; National Library of Australia’s Trove.
Margaret always claimed she had seen future husband Hugh Williams perform in Australia in 1927 when he was on the final tour of the Dion Boucicault Company. The couple met in person some time in 1937 and in early 1938 they travelled together to the US with a British cast to perform in the Frederick Lonsdale play Once is Enough. They were soon in a relationship; Hugh Williams’ first marriage to Gwynne Whitby having come to an end several years before. By this time, Margaret had made an appearance in British films – including Sensation with John Lodge, Midnight Menacewith Charles Farrell again and Carol Reed‘s Climbing High. Hugh Williams’ many films of the late 1930s included Wuthering Heights, made in Hollywood in late 1938 (with Miles Mander and pretend-Australian Merle Oberon in the cast). Margaret modelled Norman Hartnell‘s fashion collection in North America at the same time it was filmed.
Above: Who would not fall in love with Margaret Vyner? This screen grab is from her first scene in a British film, Sensation (1936), with John Lodge. Ignore the ropey rear-projection. Author’s collection.
Margaret had a long tradition of providing witty commentary to the press. One famous example occurred in 1939, when after modelling clothes in the US, she told British journalists; “Americans are slaves to fashion. They blindly follow a lead without considering whether their clothes suit them. They are far less individualistic than English women.” But she could also make jokes – at her own expense. And in 1950 she described New York as “Gay, fantastic, but, oh, so expensive.” She had hoped to buy clothes while there, but found they were “expensive beyond belief. What makes it harder, is that the loveliest department stores stay open at night and lure me in while Hugh (Williams) is at the theatre”.
Margaret Vyner as Mary Stevens in Midnight Menace 1937. The man on the phone is right, it is dangerous! She soon gets captured by the (heavily accented) middle-european international arms dealers who are intent on starting a war. Author’s collection.
Above: Margaret Vyner appearing in person at Henry Morgan’s in Montreal. The Montreal Gazette, 14 April 1939. Via Newspapers.com
Unfortunately, back in Australia, Margaret’s parents marriage came to a very public end in the late 1930s, and the divorce and subsequent arguments over support payments were dragged out in excruciating detail in almost every Sydney newspaper. Robert Vyner was an oil company salesman by 1938, and apparently he felt hard pressed to support ex-wife Ruby, as well as his new wife Irma. In May 1940, Ruby scraped together enough money for a fare and sailed to England on the Strathnaver, on what was the ship’s final voyage before being converted to a troopship. Like Margaret, she never returned.
Above: The Australian Women’s Weekly, 18 March 1939. A stunning photo of Margaret Vyner at the height of her popularity. Via National Library of Australia’s Trove.
Margaret and Hugh Williams married on 21 June 1940. Kate Dunn’s quite moving collection of wartime letters between the couple (Always and Always, Wartime Letters of Hugh and Margaret Williams) gives some idea of the depth of their devotion. Dunn’s book also reproduces a well known photo from the wedding. In it, the couple appear to glow in a burst of sunlight, having apparently just stepped out of a darkened chapel. Margaret wrote of the wedding; “It was such a desperate time for England and France but so glorious for Hugh and Margaret.” Hugh (or Tam as he was nick-named) was already in uniform and the British had just evacuated most of their army from Dunkirk. These were very dark days for Britain.
Left: An artist’s (fairly accurate) impression of Margaret Vyner’s wedding dress, as reported by the US paper The McComb Daily Journal, Mississippi, 6 August 1940. Perhaps it got such widespread publicity because it was seen as unusual. Via Newspapers.com
Margaret Vyner’s and Hugh Williams’ wartime letters provide an extraordinary insight into the stress of war on a newly married couple, who were deeply in love and had much in common. Hugh Williams somewhat reluctantly joined the British Army in 1939, because he felt it was the right thing to do. For the next five years he and Margaret lived largely separate lives, as did so many wartime couples. It is a testament to Margaret Vyner’s character that she maintained a cordial relationship with Williams’ first wife Gwynne Whitby, and helped care for the two daughters of that marriage, while maintaining her own career and driving cars for the home service. In 1942 she and Hugh welcomed their own son, Hugo and in 1946, another son, Simon. A third child, Pollyanna was born in 1950.
Kate Dunn, Hugh Williams’ granddaughter and editor of their wartime correspondence, comments on how difficult the postwar period was for the young family. By 1946 Hugh Williams found he had lost his currency, and he struggled to re-establish himself on the stage and screen. Margaret was also making fewer appearances. In 1950, Hugh was declared a bankrupt and to deal with the crisis, the couple decided to turn to writing their own plays. Their partnership was, fortunately, a great success with audiences. Their first play was Plaintiff in a Pretty Hat and eight more followed. Two were made into films – The Grass is Greener (1960) and TheFlip Side (1967), while the musical Charlie Girlran for over 2,000 performances at London’s Adelphi Theatre. Their success as a writing team restored their fortunes.
Journalist Lynne Bell, reporting from London for The Sydney Morning Herald in early December 1969 (and ironically, only a few days before Williams sudden death), observed that despite some criticism of their work, “…the Williams’ ingredients of love and marriage, within a safe middle-class structure, continue to draw the crowds.” Bell noted that during 1967, three of their plays were running in the West End at the same time. Hugh’s obituary in The Guardian stated that their plays “though not fashionable, angry or sordid, gave civilized pleasure and had a great deal of theatrical skill”.
Margaret Vyner died in October 1993. Beyond their own body of work, Margaret and Hugh’s legacy has also been through a creative dynasty shared with their children and many of their grandchildren. Simon Williams is an actor, as was Polly Williams (1950-2004). Hugo Williams is a poet and writer. Grand children Tam Williams, Amy Williams and Kate Dunn, are actors and great-granddaughter Lily Dizdar is a director and writer.
Above: Margaret Vyner’s signature c 1939. Author’s collection.
Note 1 Before meeting Hugh Williams, the press associated Margaret Vyner romantically with several men. The question of a romance with Charles Farrell was the topic of gossip in 1936 after The Flying Doctor but Margaret categorically denied it and Farrell remained married to Virginia Valli until her death in 1968. There is no evidence to support the claim except that they acted together in another film.
Note 2 It’s regularly claimed that Cole Porter included a reference to Margaret Vyner in the lyrics of the song “You’re the top”, from the musical Anything Goes. However, she is not mentioned in the original lyrics. As the play was written in 1934, when she was still in Australia or Paris, the reference to Vyner could only have been added in one of the many later versions of the song, probably after 1937. Unfortunately, so far, this writer cannot find a later version of the song that includes the reference to Vyner.
Melbourne’s Regent Theatre near the corner of Collins and Swanston Streets. Rebuilt in 1945-7 under the supervision of architects Gordon Murphy and Reg Appleford. Photo author’s collection.
Of my grandfather’s architectural legacy I have almost no evidence at all. Melbourne cinema architect Gordon Murphy(1889 – 1967) was a reserved and inward looking man, who died when I was just ten years old. Unlike my mother and father, who were also architects, Gordon never spoke of his work, at least in my hearing. The surviving evidence of a lifetime designing cinemas is – a silver-plated platter (a gift of Hoyt’s theatre chain after the restoration of Melbourne’s Regent Theatre in 1945-7) and two rolls of un-used theatre tickets, of dubious provenance. Of his cinema plans and specifications it appears at least some have survived in the Public Records Office of Victoria.
Sadly, there also aren’t many grand picture palaces left in Australia and only two of his theatres now operate as was intended. With dramatic changes in the public’s cinema attendance habits, many of these enormous structures, some with seating for several thousand people, have been demolished or reused.
The firm of Cowper, Murphy and Appleford were the cinema architects of choice for much of south-eastern Australia in the inter-war period. The practice was established in 1921 by Melbourne architect and developer Chris Cowper (1868-1954), with his junior partners Gordon Murphy and Reg Appleford (1888-1975). After 1936 Chris Cowper was an inactive partner in the company.
It’s not widely known to most architectural historians, but Gordon Murphy and Reg Appleford were brothers-in-law. They married sisters Hazel and Vera Cooke, daughters of former government stamp printer John Bradley Cooke, at a joint wedding in 1917. Fifteen years later, in the height of the depression, the Murphy and Appleford families lived together in a converted cool store near Emerald, to save money. This close personal relationship goes some way to explaining the later vagaries of the partnership’s workings – Reg Appleford moved out of the partnership in 1941 when it became Cowper, Murphy and Associates, while Gordon Murphy continued on full time. But even when not working in partnership, the two men kept offices in the same building, and Reg Appleford returned to the firm to work on the Regent Theatre rebuild in 1945.
Rear left to right – Architect Reg Appleford, his wife Vera Appleford (nee Cooke) and architect Gordon Murphy. Front left to right -Miriam Cooke, J.B.Cooke and Hazel Murphy (nee Cooke) holding a very young future architect, John Murphy (1920-2004). Photo author’s collection.
The moderne style Sun Theatre Yarraville, shown above, still thrives at the heart of its local community, as was always intended for a cinema. Photo author’s collection.
Of the firm’s original suburban Melbourne cinemas, only the Sun Yarraville, constructed in 1938, survives as an operating cinema. In regional Victoria, the Regent Ballarat also continues to operate. Gordon Murphy worked on this theatre after a fire in 1943, blamed on visiting US servicemen. Two other regional theatres survive in irregular use – the Reardon Theatre in Port Fairy and the Koroit Theatre.
Above: The facade of the Regent Theatre in Lydiard Street, Ballarat in 2019. The complex now has 8 cinemas, although the preserved Cinema 1 still seats 700 people. Photograph Author’s Collection
The Regent Theatre in Collins street, Melbourne was originally designed in the late 1920s by Cedric Ballantyne, the third Australian “Regent Theatre” to be opened for Hoyts Theatres. A major rebuild was required in 1945-7 after a catastrophic fire gutted the building. Both Gordon Murphy and Reg Appleford supervised this, a difficult task in a time of shortage of materials and skilled labour, because of the war. It re-opened in December 1947 and thereafter usually operated as a single screen cinema (together with the Plaza downstairs it catered for 3300 patrons) for the next 23 years. But it was too big for the television age and Hoyts closed the theatre as uneconomic in 1970. Various ideas were put forward to demolish it and build something else. The survival of this rare and grand picture palace owes much to the foresight of numerous people, including unionist Norm Gallagher, Premier Dick Hamer and theatre impresario and philanthropist David Marriner. Having sat idle for 26 years, the restored theatre finally re-opened in 1996. It is mostly used today for live performances.
The last cinema work the practice conducted may have been the enclosure of the balcony section of the 3,370 seat State Theatre, to create two separate venues – the Forum and the Rapallo, a practice sometimes called “twinning.” As this was conducted in 1962 and Gordon Murphy and Reg Appleford were in their 70s, it is possible that others working for practice completed the work.
Gordon Murphy. Undated, Author’s CollectionReg Appleford. Undated. Courtesy Peter Buckingham
The surviving theatres of Cowper Murphy and Appleford include
1934. The Plaza Theatre. Bendigo. Closed 1975. Building shell still exists at 12 Mitchell Street, Bendigo.
1935, The Capital Theatre, Mildura. Closed. Shell of building exists at 39 Langtree avenue, Mildura
1936, Waverley Theatre, Malvern. Closed 1964. Shell of building exists at 92 Waveley Rd, Malvern East – now apartments.
1937, The Astor, Mildura. Closed 1967. Shell of building exists, now a brewery, at 22 Langtree avenue, Mildura.
1938, The Sun Theatre, 8 Ballarat Street, Yarraville. Operates as a cinema.
1943, The Regent Theatre (rebuild), 49 Lydiard St, Ballarat. Operates as a cinema.
1945-7, The Regent (rebuild), Collins Street, Melbourne. Operates as a live performance theatre
1954, Reardon Theatre (formerly New Theatre), 35 Bank Street, Port Fairy. Continues to operate, live performance and cinema.
1956, Orana (later Village) Theatre, 21 Reid Street, Wangaratta. Closed 1980. Shell of building exists
1957, Memorial Theatre, 149 Commercial Rd, Koroit. Closed as a cinema in 1980 however building still exists and is used for community events.
1962 State Theatre (conversion) – Forum and Rapallo. Flinders Street, Melbourne. Continues to operate – as a live music venue.
Above Left: Melbourne’s Forum from the corner of Flinders and Russell Streets -still hard at work for the Comedy Festival in April 2019. As can be seen, the external plaster work shows some weathering. Above Right: The boarded up entrance to the Rapallo is below the three single Moorish windows (the Forum’s main entrance is from Flinders Street). The building is now owned by the Marriner Group. Author’s collection.
Gordon Murphy’s son John Murphy at the offices of Gaumont-British, with other draftsmen, names unknown. John worked on cinema projects in England in 1947. Gordon’s heartfelt desire was that John would join him in the Cowper, Murphy Appleford partnership. He didn’t. He married another architect, Phyllis Slater, and formed John and Phyllis Murphy Architects, P/L with her. Photos-Author’s collection.
Gordon’s son John was a very good quick sketch artist, but never pursued the skill. This is a portrait of movie star Joan Fontaine, completed while John served in the Army. Author’s Collection.
A final memory of Gordon Murphy
Many years later, Gordon Murphy thought it would be a good idea to teach me and my brothers and any random friends “to drive.” By today’s standards it was incredibly foolhardy. The monstrous vehicle we drove, shown below, is a 1929 Essex Super Six at our Hastings Apple orchard. This is my last photo of Gordon.
Left: Gordon Murphy and the author, second from the right in 1967. Author’s brother Jock is second from the left. Right: Richard Moir, the author’s third cousin, and his family on a visit from Queensland, also 1967. Years later, Richard would become a leading figure in the Australian film renaissance.
Frank Van Straten (1996) The Regent Theatre. Melbourne’s Palace of Dreams. Elm Publishing
Above – The foyer of Greater Union’s very functional Russell Street Cinema Centre – a multi-screen complex built to replace that cinema chain’s various city theatres. This is not a Cowper, Murphy Appleford theatre, but it is an interesting photo all the same – taken a few days after its closure in October 2013. The complex had been opened with great fanfare in 1978. There is an excellent history of the old Kings Theatre, which was at this location, by Ralph Marsden at the Theatre Heritage Australia website. Photo – author’s collection.
This site has been selected for preservation in the National Library of Australia’s Pandora archive
A pensive Alf Goulding with other members of the Pollard Lilliputian Opera Company on the steps of the Badminton Hotel in Vancouver in 1904. He is flanked by Nellie Chester, one of the company managers, with Jack Cherry and Fred Bindloss. The full photo of the Pollard Company is on the Vancouver As It Was website. Photo used with their permission.
The 5 second version
Born Alfred John Goulding in Richmond, Victoria, Australia, 26 January 1885. Died Hollywood, California, USA, 25 April, 1972. He began his career as a comedian with brother Frank, then joined Pollard’s Lilliputian Opera Company in 1896. He took part in a number of extended Pollard’s tours, increasingly acting as stage manager. After the last tour wrapped up in 1909 he and some other performers stayed in the US. He was directing films in Hollywood by 1917, sometimes with comedians like Laurel and Hardy and some of the old Pollard players. He spent most of 1940-45 in Australia before returning to the US. He directed his last film in 1959. The IMDB credits him with directing over 200 films, and writing at least 60.
Left: Alf in 1922. Motion Picture News (Jul-Aug 1922), Via Lantern, the Digital Media Library
The adult working life of prolific Hollywood based filmmaker, Alf Goulding (born 26 January 1885 as Alfred John Goulding), is well documented. He had an impressive output as a director – working first with Hal Roach and later Mack Sennett. By the time he made A Chump at Oxford (1939) with Laurel and Hardy, he had directed over 200 films, and had written and appeared in many others. There were of course, a few duds later in life – including his only Australian feature film, A Yank in Australia(1942) and his final films in Britain.
It’s less commonly known that Goulding owed much to his long experience with the Pollard Lilliputian Opera Company, and that he was a Melbourne neighbour and long-time friend of Daphne Pollard (Trott) and Snub Pollard (Harold Fraser).
Alf Goulding can be traced through at least seven Pollard’s overseas tours (which all ran for more than 12 months) – something of a record – this writer can only find one other Pollard’s performer who matches it – Irene Finlay. It’s hard to know if many people have ever really run away “to join the circus”, but Alf Goulding is indeed a variation on this. Between the age of eleven, when he went on his first Pollard’s tour, and twenty-four, when he left to settle in the US, he could not have spent more than 24 months living in Melbourne.
Goulding’s place of birth was busy Hoddle Street in the suburb of Richmond, but he lived most of his brief Australian life in Fitzroy. His father Frank, a bootmaker, and mother Maggie (stage name Maggie Walsh) were both involved in local Melbourne theatre, with moderate success. Alf’s half-sister from his mother’s first marriage, Elsa Goulding (sometimes known as Elsie Golding), had gained some reputation as a singer by 1893 and, determined to maintain the family tradition, Frank encouraged his oldest son Frank junior, Alf and later his daughter Irene to go on stage. By the time of Maggie’s death in April 1895, Frank junior and Alf had developed a popular act together. Reports from papers in 1894 and 1895 stated that the brothers had the Melbourne audiences in “roars of laughter”.
Left: The white terrace house at 431 George Street, Fitzroy photographed in 2019. The Goulding family lived here in 1895. Photo – Author’s collection.
Triumphs, Tragedies and child labour
In 1896, Frank junior and Alf joined a troupe of the Pollard’s Lilliputian Opera Company. Under the management of Charles Pollard, this group of under-age performers departed in September for a tour of colonial audiences in South East Asia (Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore etc) and India, where they were received with great enthusiasm. Their father Frank was paid a monthly wage for both children performing, while their travel, food and accommodation costs were covered by Pollard’s.
Above: All three Goulding children performed for Pollard’s. Left- Alf made up in the role of Lurcher for the opera Dorothy in 1896. Centre – Irene (left) with Ivy Trott. Right Frank Goulding as the Major-General in Pirates of Penzance, 1896. Photos -courtesy The Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne
According to a contemporary Singapore paper, whilst touring, the child performers with Pollard’s had the following program;
9.00 am breakfast,
10 am until 1.30 pm rehearsal, then had
1.30 “Tiffin” (an Indian term for a meal),
two hours of siesta, then
two hours of lessons with the teacher (who doubled as the cornet player) ,
then play and rest before a light dinner and
the evening performance.
Unfortunately a terrible tragedy occurred when Frank junior died and was buried in Calcutta, in January 1897. We can only imagine how hard this was for Alf, still on tour, let alone his father and sister back in Melbourne. His Indian burial certificate clearly lists the cause of death as smallpox, an even greater tragedy given that a vaccine existed at the time. One wonders if Frank’s father ever knew the truth, as his death was described as being due to pneumonia in most reports.
Above: Frank Junior’s death from “pneumonia” is reported by “The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser”, 23 Feb 1897, via Newspapers SG – digitized newspaper collection.
Frank Goulding’s death in January 1897 from smallpox while in Calcutta. “Confluent smallpox” generally meant the pustules ran so thickly on the skin they often formed a massive sore.
Above: This 19th century medical sign advertising public vaccinations is still visible on the side of a Fitzroy building, in 2021. Ironically, it is only a few hundred metres from Frank Goulding’s Fitzroy homes and the Brunswick Street hall the Pollard’s used for rehearsals. Author’s collection.
Yet it was all back to work for the Pollard’s children. Two months later, on April 20, 1897, the same Singapore newspaper reported; “Master Alfred Goulding scored the principal success again, this clever boy keeping the house in fits of laughter… In the part of Lurcher, the bailiff…his acting could not easily have been beaten by a professional comedian.” Of course, Alf was a professional comedian – even if he was only 13 years old at the time.
In August 1898, a second Pollard’s troupe, including Alf and now with his sister Irene, arrived in South Africa. Interviewed in July 1899 by a correspondent for the Sydney Referee , the children were probably all instructed to put a positive spin on their work, the endless travel and to not mention their homesickness. From Johannesburg, South Africa, the correspondent wrote of Alf Goulding, as “the clever young comedian of the company, aged 12 years” and Irene Goulding, “a bonny girl of 8 years.. who hadn’t been very well lately.” Pollard practice was very typically never to accurately give the ages of the child performers. Alf was in fact 14, and Irene 10.
With the outbreak of the Boer War, Manager Charles Pollard apparently rushed the company to safety. By early 1900 the children were all back in Australia, and then a new tour was organised to colonial outposts in the “far east” – including Hong Kong and Singapore. Meantime, Charles Pollard had exciting war stories to tell. How seriously at risk the children were in South Africa is impossible to tell now.
Gillian Arrighi and others have written of the phenomenon of the child performer tours, and the later impact of the disastrous 1910 Pollard tour of India; which saw new Australian laws restricting children leaving Australia to be performers. It’s also worth pausing and looking past the modern nationalist sentiment we might attach to these pioneer Australian performers today, to wonder whether this was really just another form of child exploitation, even by the standards of the time.
Above: Alf Goulding now listed as the Pollard’s stage manager by the “China Mail,” December 26, 1900. He was almost 16 and the troupe were perhaps on their way home from South Africa. Image via Hong Kong Public Libraries Multi Media Information Systems.
Regarding the Pollards
There is some good reason for thinking this. By leaving Australia, not only did Pollard’s avoid Australian education laws, they were also able to essentially not pay their juvenile performers as they travelled. Instead, parents were paid their salary via a trust fund or in advance. And was a life on stage a healthy upbringing for a child? Even at the time, many didn’t think so. The influence of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, or the “Gerry Society” kept Pollard’s away from the east coast of the US, as is obvious from the tour map below. The society’s opposition to children performing on stage was well-known. The Chicago Tribune of 19 May 1902 touched on this issue in a long article about the company during their only visit to that city; “Although the idea of keeping children on the stage is repugnant to Americans, and although it is forbidden by law in some states, the Pollards claim that their children… suffer no evil effects from the experience.” It was repugnant to some influential Australians too, but laws to restrict child performance troupes did not come into being until 1912.
We should also remember that the Pollard’s performers were playing adult roles on stage, a fact that some commentators found confronting, given the adult content of the musicals they performed. One correspondent for the Hong Kong Daily Press on December 27, 1907 reminded 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?” (in reference to a leading character in The Belle of New York). Yet at the end of their review, the writer felt the need to abandon their concerns and recommended all readers should see it. The Pollard’s performance was “beyond praise” the writer concluded.
We have little insight into the Pollard business model. However, it was lucrative – in 1900 one Australian paper reported that Charles Pollard had netted over £3,000 in two years – the equivalent of about $AU450,000 in 2020 currency.
A life of touring
Alf’s tours with Pollard’s Lilliputian Opera Company, managed by Charles Pollard and Nellie Chester – as identified so far by this writer include
I. Sept 1896 – c. Sept 1897, Tour to India and the “Far East” (meaning Manila, Singapore, Hong Kong)
II August 1898 – c. 1900, Tour to South Africa and the Far East. (However, details of these first two tours are still sketchy.)
III. July 1900-April 1901, Tour to Singapore, Penang, Hong Kong and Manila
IV. September 1901 – October 1902, Tour to North America
Manifests show SS Sierra departed Sydney 3 Sept 1901, SS Aorangi arrived back in Australia on 17 Oct 1902. Then, three months later…
V.January 1903 – April 1904, Tour to North America.
Manifests show SS Changsa departed Sydney 18 Jan 1903, SS Miowera arrived back in Australia on 2 April 1904.
VI. July 1904 – February 1907, Tour to the Far East and North America. Departed July 1904 for Queensland and then 27 September 1904 for Hong Kong. Arrived July 8 1905 in Vancouver. Arrived back in Australia 26 February 1907 on the SS Moana.
The Pollard Company’s “Grand Tour” of North America (March 1905- Jan 1907) avoided much time in the eastern USA, where child labour law made performances impossible. The troupe was in Sacramento during the April 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The map is based on company member Midas Martyn’s diary. Thanks to Catherine Crocker for sharing this information. Courtesy Google Maps. Click to go to the google map
VII. July 1907 – February 1909, to the Far East and North America
Another trip departed in late July 1907, again testing out shows in Queensland before departing for the Far East. The Company arrived in the US on the SS Nippon Maru from Yokohama, Japan on 3 March, 1908. It appears most of the company from this tour arrived home in Australia in early 1909.
VIII. May 1909 + Nellie Chester’s various Pollard troupes in North America Nellie Chester ran several troupes in the US after May 1909. The last of these appear to have wrapped up circa 1920, although most of the performers stayed in the US.
Meanwhile in Australia…
None of this travel seems to have bothered Alf Goulding, indeed he may well have had his own reasons for not wanting to live at home. Back in Melbourne, Frank Senior found the new century and the life without wife, children and oldest son increasingly hard to deal with. Now a bootmaker, he blamed the Pollard company management for the death of Frank Junior and began to send abusive letters to the Melbourne managers, even while they engaged Alf and Irene. He complained that the money promised to him by Pollard’s was not being paid. Frank had already been publicly embarrassed the year before, when details of his passionate letters to a sometime servant/petty thief were plastered about the Melbourne papers. Now in 1903, his stream of abusive letters saw him end up in court again, a lonely father, perhaps also disconnected from his two children. When he failed to pay the £20 fine, he went to gaol for a month.
Returning to Australia on SS Miowera on 2 April 1904, Irene, now aged 15, apparently decided she had had enough of performing and touring. Fortunately for us, in 1985 Irene was interviewed by Sally Dawes for The Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne. Although aged in her late 90s, her memories of some events – Frank’s death, the songs she sang for Pollard’s and her trips with the Company remained clear to the end of her days.
Alf’s final tour to the US, 1909+
Charles Pollard announced his retirement in early 1909, while the company was in Honolulu, heading home. At this point, many of the older company members, including Alf, decided to throw in their lot with Nellie Chester, who was now based in the US. This performance company dropped “Lilliputian” but kept some sort of “Pollard” in the title. With about 12 others, including Eva Moore, Emily Davis, Ada Hind, Freddie Bindloss, Jack Cherry, Harold Fraser and Teddy McNamara, this smaller group set off again in late March 1909 to the US, then touring back across the US and Canada, with Alf as Actor – Director-Stage Manager. But instead of storming the US east coast as they planned, they again specialised in visiting all the familiar Pollard’s locations where their popularity was assured. This arrangement lasted for a year or so, until the group went their separate ways.
In 1912, Nellie Chester resurrected another young adult troupe or Australian performers to work in North America, called Pollards Juveniles. But Alf was not involved with this – he now pursued a stage career of his own design.
Alf in makeup as Ko-Ko for The Mikado. The Province, British Columbia, 11 April, 1911. Via Newspapers.com
Alf and Daphne Pollard performing together in A Knight for a Day, Los Angeles Times, 28 May 1914. Via Newspapers.com
Alf Goulding appears to have maintained a personal and professional friendship with former Pollard Company performers for much of his life. In 1911, Alf was married to Gladys Watson, with Daphne (Mrs Ellington Bunch) and her husband as witnesses. They were married in Seattle by the same official as Daphne and her husband had used, exactly three months before. When former Pollard alumni Teddy McNamara died of pneumonia in early February 1928, on the eve of great success, all the Hollywood based former Pollard players attended his funeral – Goulding, Daphne Pollard, Snub Pollard and Billy Bevan.
Above: Marriage certificates for Daphne Trott and Alf Goulding weddings. US national archives via Family search.org.
It is hardly a coincidence therefore that Goulding is reputed to have been instrumental in convincing Daphne to work for Mack Sennett in 1927, and he was apparently on hand when she arrived at Sennett studios. He also directed a number of her first films – including Run Girl Run, The Swim Princess and The Campus Carmen. He also worked closely with Snub Pollard (Harold Fraser) in his early years in Hollywood. His first appearance as a director in Hollywood seems to date to 1917. Snub Pollard once explained that he had just “drifted into films,” and it seems likely it was the same for Alf.
Goulding’s output in Hollywood was impressive – today the IMDB credits him with directing more than 200 films for Hal Roach and later, for Mack Sennett, and writing at least 50. His sister Irene, interviewed in the mid 1980s, recalled his great success in the US, but also complained that Alf was a poor money manager and had burnt through three fortunes.
Snub Pollard Harold Lloyd & Alf Goulding on set 1918 “Somewhere in Turkey”. Source unknown.
Left: This is one of few photos I have seen of Goulding at work. It shows Snub Pollard (Harold Fraser), Harold Lloyd, and Alf Goulding at right, on the set of Somewhere in Turkey (1918) Right: Advertisement for Rolin Comedies – Snub Pollard and Ernie Morrison, directed by Alf Goulding. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Above: Alf (at right) on the set of Grass Skirts (1929) with Lloyd Hamilton and Ruth Hiatt. Exhibitor’s Herald-World. 28 Dec, 1928, via Lantern Digital Media Library
An Australian sojourn
Alf lived in Australia again in 1940-45. He had been busy in Hollywood and England through the 1930s, and then, after making A Chump at Oxfordfor Hal Roach, he travelled to England to make one more film – Olympic Honeymoon. By the end of 1940, he was back in Australia. This movement in the first year of war relates to his lack of visa status back in the US. Variety reported that he had incorrectly re-entered the US from England on a short term visitor’s permit and thus been ordered to leave.(Variety 3 Jan, 1940, P32) At least several Australian newspapers – from 1939 and late in 1940 also reported on this misfortune. While in Australia, he not only directed the feature A Yank Down Under (in May 1942 but which was not immediately released) but also a number of documentaries – wartime propaganda pieces for the Ministry of Information. According to the National Film and Sound Archive, these include;
Australia Marches On No 1; Canberra The Federal Capital (1941),
Australia Marches On No 2; Cavalcade of Transport(1940),
Australia Marches On No 3; Boystown (c.1940) and
Marjorie Lawrence – The Voice of a Nation (1945).
It was probably not very fulfilling work. He returned to England in May 1945 on the MV Stirling Castle, and directed a few more quota quickies. He returned to the United States in about 1950, after ten years away.
Alf Goulding died in Hollywood in 1972. Irene died in Melbourne in 1987.
Note 1
Alf’s date of birth is regularly and incorrectly given as 1896. However, the Victorian BDM, which can be searched for free, is quite clear. It’s possible that Goulding himself may have contributed to this confusion – it was not uncommon in Hollywood’s golden age to “drop a few years”
Nick Murphy, May 2018, August 2020, April 2021
Special thanks
To Claudia Funder at The Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne, for introducing me to the Pollard Collection.
To Catherine Crocker for sharing the information from Midas Martyn’s diary of the 1904-7 Pollard’s tour and Jamie L Bird, one of Alf’s grandchildren, for her comments.
Further reading
Gillian Arrighi (2017) The Controversial “Case of the Opera Children in the East”: Political Conflict between Popular Demand for Child Actors and Modernizing Cultural Policy on the Child. “Theatre Journal” No 69, 2017. John Hopkins University Press.
(This can be purchased at https://www.press.jhu.edu )
Brent E. Walker (2010) “Mack Sennett’s Fun Factory: A History and Filmography of His Studio and His Keystone and Mack Sennett Comedies, with Biographies of Players and Personnel.” McFarland and Co. ISBN 978-0-7864-3610-1
From National Library of Australia, Trove, Digitised Newspaper Collection
Above: Years before he became well known as a Hollywood character actor, Robert Greig is shown here with fellow actor and wife Beatrice Holloway. They remained a devoted couple until his death in 1958, although the move to the US meant the end of her career. Photos from The Green Room Magazine, (left) 1 October 1918 and (right) 1 February 1918. Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW.
Robert Greig was the quintessential movie butler of Hollywood’s golden age. He first appeared in the Marx Brothers“Animal Crackers” in 1930, playing the role of Hives the butler, followed by another twenty years of related roles – more butlers, doormen, stuffy judges and remote English lords. Various online biographies generally make no reference to the first forty-five years of his life, or the place of Beatrice Denver Holloway, his wife and Australian on-stage collaborator for many years, who moved with him to the US in the mid 1920s. This writer is inclined to the view that while work in Hollywood was lucrative and life was easy, it was probably much less rewarding for a couple who had once been at the forefront of Australian theatre.
Beatrice Denver Holloway was born in Richmond, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, on 12 October 1884. Her father was Charles Holloway, an actor and long time member of the Bland-Holt and the Holloway Dramatic companies, and actress Alice Deorwyn (Alice Hayward). A number of members of her extended family were involved in theatre – her uncle William J Holloway was very well known.
Beatrice first appeared in 1890, in a performance of the drama The World Against Her, with her parents. It was the beginning of a long career on stage with many accolades. She learnt her craft with the Holloway Dramatic Company, often on tour around Australia with her parents. Eight years on, the Melbourne Punch was typically complementary of her work in The Silver King – “Miss Beatrice Holloway, as Cissie Denver; an important part played by the little lady with childishnaturalness.” By 1900, Beatrice was well enough known that Table Talkcould simply describe the 16 year old as “the clever young daughter of Mr Charles Holloway.”
Above: Beatrice in Table Talk, 7 June 1900, P10. Photo by Talma. Via National Library of Australia’s Trove.
Beatrice (right) in The Two Little Vagabonds. The Theatre,1 Sept 1906, p6, Via State Library of Victoria.
Robert Greig was born in Toorak, Melbourne, Australia on 27 December 1879. At birth, he was named Arthur Alfred Bede Greig. However, Robert Greig was his stage name and in life he was generally known as Bob or Bobbie to all who knew him well. After an education at Xavier College and some mundane experience working at Dunlop Tyres and as a commercial traveller, he became increasingly interested in amateur theatricals, and nearing the age of 30, made the transition to professional performer. He was offered a contract with the Hugh Ward Comedy Company, in 1909. He toured with them for a season, performing comedy roles in The Man from Mexico and Mr Hopkins.
Bob Greig in Melbourne Punch, 1 July 1909.
Beatrice and Bob met and first performed together in Beauty and the Barge in 1911. It was the start of a long and productive partnership. They married in December, 1912. It was a novelty wedding for the time – considerable press attention was given. Melbourne Punch ran full page photos of the wedding party which included Fred Niblo and Josephine Cohan – who had arrived from the US only six months before. They had met while preparing for George M Cohan’s Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford,which had its Australian premiere at the Criterion Theatre in Sydney, in August 1912. Niblo gave the bride away and was a witness.
During Niblo and Cohan’s three years in Australia, they often worked with Beatrice and Bob, although apparently not on Niblo’s two Australian filmed versions of Get-Rich-Quick Wallingfordand Officer 666 made for J. C. Williamson’s in 1916. Bob stated a great admiration for American plays. “They are all about natural people…there is always a big, good-natured man in anything American,”he told Adelaide’s Critic in November 1913.
As Elisabeth Kumm has noted, Australian theatre was already undergoing change even before the outbreak of World War One. After a brief hiatus in 1914, Australians flocked back to the theatres for escapism, and US comedies and performers filled some of the headline acts once dominated by British stars, now difficult to engage. In early 1918, Bob became Associate Director for the Tivoli theatre circuit. It seems the disruption of the War and attractive local contracts continued to keep the couple busy. A trip to the United Kingdom (and the USA on the way home) in 1920 seems only to have wetted their appetite for more stage possibilities. On their return, Bob was involved in producing the Australian musical F F F : an Australian Mystery Musical Comedy, which AusStage describes as “probably the first professionally produced Australian musical.” Following this and often under the banner of the Greig- Holloway Comedy Company, the couple performed new plays like Baby Mine in combination with familiar favourites, includingOfficer 666.
Bob and Beatrice starring in Baby Minein 1918. The Green Room magazine, 1 Jan 1918, p14. Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW.
With many friends and connections overseas, Bob and Beatrice often spoke of travelling to the United States, where both he and Beatrice felt sure they would find work. The demand in the US for Beatrice’s “style of work” was great, he once said. In fact, it was not until early 1925 that they finally sought work overseas. It was Bob who appeared onstage at Philadephia’s Garrick Theatre in A Night Out later that year, not Beatrice. Her career appears to have come to a full stop. Bob found more stage work, including 6 months with the Marx Brothers in the musical Animal Crackers, at New York’s 44th Street Theatre from October 1928. He played Hives the butler.
Above: Bob Greig in the stage farce Tonight’s the Night in 1916 – and already looking very much like his Hollywood character.
Bob’s first Hollywood role was reprising this role for the 1930 film version of Animal Crackers. But aged in his 50s and by now, very overweight, he was to find himself consigned to playing similar character roles in Hollywood films. Several Australian newspaper reports appeared in the mid 1930s, stating he was feeling typecast. He gained a role as Sir Charles Drake-Drake in the London musical Yes, Madam? for several months in late 1934, part of what must have been an effort to see if he could break the cycle. But in a career of more than 100 films, the movie butler became his signature role.
Five years after arriving in the US Robert Greig was already well and truly typecast – here as the butler Jarvis in MGMs Peg o’ My Heart (1933) . Photoplay, July – Dec 1933, p65.
In 1935 dancer Madge Elliot described having “a regular Australian night of it” (meaning too much to drink) in Hollywood with partner and husband Cyril Ritchard and other Australians including Bob and Beatrice. Writing for Australian papers, she remarked “The thing that struck me most about Hollywood is that in spite of the amazing climate, nearly everybody you met wanted to get away from it all …, the incessant talk of films, the terrible strain of competition and the monotony of the work in studios bored them to tears… but they stayed on because their earnings were high.” Elliot did not say these were Bob and Beatrice’s opinions, but it seems likely they were.
Bob’s accent
A few years after settling in the US, Robert Greig had a refined transatlantic accent. In this short clip from Dorothy Arzner’s “Merrily We Go to Hell”(1932), Jerry Corbett (Frederic March) complains he can’t find a baritone. Bartender Robert Greig explains that he is one.
By the time of the 1940 US census, Bob and Beatrice lived comfortably in an apartment on Franklin Avenue Los Angeles, with a steady income from his films. Robert died in on 27 June 1958, following complications from an operation. Bea died six years later – on 22 November 1964.
Above – Robert Greig’s memorial plaque at Holy Cross Cemetery in Los Angeles. A sign of the couple’s enduring affection
The couple did not return to Australia and soon lost touch with their many Australian admirers. One hopes they lived a happy life. But one can’t help feeling that the “fondest memories” Beatrice referred to on Robert’s memorial were of the years before Hollywood. What became of Beatrice’s career aspirations we do not know.
Nick Murphy Rewritten November 2020
Further reading
Text
Hal Porter (1965) Stars of Australian Stage and Screen. Rigby
Viola Tait (1971) A Family of Brothers. The Taits and J C Williamson, a theatre History. Heinemann.
Frank Van Straten (2003) Tivoli. Thomas C Lothian
J P Wearing (2014) The London Stage 1930-1939 : A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Producer Joe Schenck and Mary Maguire at a Los Angeles Turf Club Ball in June 1938. A publicity photograph that also hints at all that could go wrong in Hollywood. There has been plenty of speculation regarding Schenck’s relationship with other young actresses, but the exact nature of this relationship remains unknown.[1]5 months later, Schenck appeared in a similar photo at the races, squiring Hedy Lamarr Associated Press Photo in the author’s collection.
The 5 Second version There are numerous stories of starlets in Hollywood’s Golden Age whose careers were as much the result of parental hopes and dreams as their own, and this is another. Mary Maguire was born Ellen Theresa Maguire in Melbourne Australia in 1919. Her fame as Mary Maguire was extraordinary, and the publicity generated about her has tended to overshadow her indifferent performances in disappointing films in Australia and the US. Today she is also famous for a short-lived marriage to a much older British fascist sympathiser in 1939-1944. She redeemed herself in several later British films, but by the age of only 23 her career was over. She returned to the US with a new husband after World War II but could not resurrect her career. Deep unhappiness marred her later life and she died aged only 55, a result of acute alcoholism.
Eighteen year old Mary Maguire in Hollywood c1937. A Warner Bros photo. Author’s Collection.
Born in Melbourne, Australia, on February 22, 1919, Ellen Theresa Maguire was the second of five daughters parented by publicans Michael “Mick” Maguire and Mary Jane “Bina” nee Carrol. But in childhood she was known to all as Peggy, later adopting the name Mary. [2]Source: Victorian Births, Deaths and Marriages, Document ID 5295/1919. However in many accounts her birth name is incorrectly given as Helene.
Mary Jane “Bina” Maguire with her girls c1930. L-R: Mary “Lupe” (b1925), Joan (b1921), Patricia (b1916), Carmel (b1924), Ellen Theresa “Peggy” later Mary Maguire (b1919) Courtesy Norm Archibald.
Mick and Bina’s own upbringing is central to the story of their film star daughter, and their four other daughters. Mick Maguire was born and bred in the working class suburb of Richmond.[3]Born 6 June 1894 – Victorian Birth Certificate 15293/1894 Mick excelled at sports – becoming a very young player for Richmond Football Club at the age of 16, and dabbling in boxing in 1912-1915, with mixed success. In later life, Mick was to claim he was the Australian football code’s youngest ever player, and still later, that he had been Welterweight boxing champion of Australia. Neither claim was true. Mick also later claimed – incorrectly – that he had served in World War One.[4]A Maguire relative once told the author Mick was known through the extended family as a “blowhard.”
Mary Jane Carroll was four and a half years older than Mick.[5]Born 20 Dec 1889 – Victorian Birth Certificate 5084/1890 She had been born into a struggling farming family in the Wimmera region of Victoria. Her Irish mother and father gave up the herculean task of trying to make a farm pay and took up work with the Victorian Railways. In time, “Bina”[6]the origins of her family nickname now being forgotten would suggest she was also of Irish birth – perhaps she felt it preferable to admitting to her new, swell, friends in London that she had once lived a childhood in the remote Australian bush. In the early twentieth century almost all of her extended family had become hoteliers, as did she and Mick – an assured way to make money in the difficult times between the two wars.
Mick and Bina were both great self – promoters; as a few who knew them recalled in later life. On Bina’s passing in 1963, one old friend told a Brisbane paper – “she was a great contact woman and admitted quite frankly that she cultivated the ‘right’ people because that was the thing most likely to advance her daughter’s interests.”[7]Unidentified newspaper article, dated 24 June 1963. “Five Little Marrying Maguires” by Joyce Stirling. Likely to be The Courier Mail. Courtesy Loreto Convent Brisbane In 1940, one of Mick’s old drinking mates, Truth journalist Jim Donald, recalled Bina as “a sparkling and radiant personality in any class of company.” It was under her direction that “the family fortunes prospered.”[8]Truth (Syd) 14 July 1940, P18
A school enrolment from another era. Peggy Maguire’s (misspelled McGuire) enrolment record at the Academy of Mary Immaculate in Melbourne in 1923. Her pet name was good enough apparently, plus her father’s name and his hotel in Bourke Street! How different to the 21st Century where so much information is required to enrol a child in an Australian school. Courtesy Academy of Mary Immaculate. In Brisbane after 1934, the Maguire girls attended Loreto Convent.
Above: One of the many Carroll family hotels – the now de-licenced and forgotten Bay View Hotel in Kensington. Run by Mary Maguire’s auntie Alice, it was also where her maternal grandparents retired to. Mary visited them here before heading off to Hollywood in 1936. Photo – author’s collection.
In the 1910s and early 1920s, Mick and Bina held the licences to a series of increasingly important central city hotels in Melbourne – the Bull and Mouth, the Melbourne Hotel, the Metropol before moving to Brisbane to run that city’s premier hotel, The Bellevue in 1933. It was Bina who held the licence at the Bellevue[9]The Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 11 Jan 1940, P1 and there that she built her reputation as a society hostess – hosting film-star Jocelyn Howarth at afternoon tea[10]The Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 9 Nov 1933, P18, fussing about the visiting English cricket team[11]The Courier Mail (Brisbane) Feb 17, 1933 and running charity events attended by the state governor.[12]The Courier Mail (Brisbane) Nov 2 1933
Peggy,[13]who at this time was still known by her pet name appeared in her first film in 1933. This was a small bit part in Pat Hanna’sDiggers in Blighty, filmed in Melbourne. It was a background non-speaking role as a clerk, where she giggles at the soldier antics of Hanna, Joe Valli and George Moon. How did a 14 year old get the role? Although she had some experience in pantomime in Melbourne,[14]The Argus (Melb) 21 June 1930 it’s almost certain that the ever affable Maguires used their connections to get their daughter a break doing something she loved. In 1934, based largely on her looks and an ability to do a Irish accent of sorts – apparently her party piece – pioneer director Charles Chauvel cast Peggy as Biddy O’Shea, an Irish immigrant girl, in his panorama of Australian history Heritage.[15]The Courier Mail (Qld) 16 June 1934, P10
Peggy’s breakthrough role came on the heels of Heritage. Miles Mander, a British actor and director was hired by an Australian syndicate to make a movie, based very loosely on the 1934 novel The Flying Doctor, by Robert Waldron. Peggy won the part of Jenny Rutherford, with Hollywood actor Charles Farrell imported for the lead. In January 1935 she announced she was now calling herself Mary – a name more suited to a sophisticated film star. Today, the rarely seen finished product looks unconvincing and old-fashioned. Even in 1936 it attracted mixed reviews – The Sydney Morning Herald tried to be positive, but the reviewer complained about much, including the film’s endless scenes of “local colour… what amounts to tourist propaganda.”[17]The Sydney Morning Herald 21 Sep 1936, P4 The cameo appearance of Don Bradman delighted and annoyed reviewers in equal numbers.[18]Photos and posters from The Flying Doctor can be found here at The Ozmovie site
The Maguire family welcome Mary home after filming The Flying Doctor; from left – Lupe, Mary, Mick, Joan, Bina, British screen writer JOC Orton, Patsy and Carmel, April 1936 . Director Miles Mander had left hurriedly for the US a few days before, following a court case for speeding. Photo from Queensland Newspapers – John Oxley Library Collection, State Library of Queensland.
Whatever the reviewers said, the Maguires were immensely satisfied and the decision was made to pursue Mary’s acting career. Miles Mander had also been very encouraging – and assured them Hollywood was the place to go. Mick was to accompany Mary to the US as her personal manager, probably intent on bulldozing a path through any obstacles and clearly confident that he could make things happen as successfully as he had in Melbourne and Brisbane. There must have been discussions about the rest of the family following soon after, especially if, as expected, Mary made a go of it in Hollywood. Australian newspapers were delighted to report another young Australian seemed about to succeed in the US. 17 year old Mary was understandably apprehensive.[19]The Courier Mail (Bris) Aug 17, 1936, P25
The Governor-General Lord Gowrie and a very wide-eyed Mary Maguire, at an event just before her departure. What advice was he giving!?[20]The Mail (Adelaide), 8 Jan 1938, P1
Mary [21]or more correctly her father, as she was underage signed a contract with Warner Brothers soon after arriving in the US in August 1936, and over the next year she appeared in four films for the company. One was a small role in a main feature film,Confession, a vehicle for leading star Kay Francis. Her three other films were cinema program fillers, all produced by Brian Foy’s “B-film” unit, all running to less that 60 minutes, and all constructed around scripts that were not particularly original, being churned out in a matter of weeks.
Doris Weston, Thais Dickerson and Mary Maguire, photographed in October 1936, having just had their Warner Bros contracts approved in Court.[22]Mary outlived both these women. Weston made her last film in 1939 and died in 1960. Dickerson, as Gloria Dickson, died in a house fire in 1945 Source: Syndicated Press Photo. Author’s collection.
Even in 1937, these Warner Brothers B-films; That Man’s Here Again, Alcatraz Island and Sergeant Murphy, were underwhelming. Mary’s roles were limited and perhaps, as a few unkind reviewers noted, she just wasn’t as good as some of the others chasing acting careers at the time.[23]Warner Brothers out-take compilations, which include very short clips from some of these films, can be found here in Breakdowns of 1937 – see Mary briefly at 4:05 … Continue reading The film she made with Ronald Reagan, Sergeant Murphy, is perhaps the easiest of her B-films to find in specialist collections. Not withstanding the claims made since; there is not a shred of contemporary evidence she had an affair with Reagan during the making of the film.
By July 1937, the whole of the Maguire family were finally reunited in Hollywood. The license of the Bellevue had been sold and Bina had packed up the oldest girls for the voyage across the Pacific. It was timely, because Mary was recovering from a “nervous breakdown” – one of several she suffered while in the US. Older sister Patsy commented, perhaps a little unhelpfully; “You know, I think she was just lonely. When we arrived on Saturday she was so jittery she could scarcely speak. Now she’s a different person… You see, we’ve always been together and although dad has been marvellous, I think Mary has really missed us.”[24]The Mail (Adelaide) 10 Jul 1937, P2
One of a series of “boudoir style” photos of 19 year old Mary taken for Warner Bros in early 1938. For the time they would have been daring. This marked up copy from a US newspaper archive shows the editor was reducing the amount of breast shown for publication. Author’s collection.
With the assistance of studio public relations, Mary’s star seemed to be on the rise and she was enjoying extraordinary publicity, given her modest film output.[25]Back home the press described her as “Australia’s Mark Pickford” and “Australia’s Sweetheart.” Bina dutifully passed on everything she said and did to the Australian press, with a smattering of commentary. And at age 18, Mary was meeting all the people she had read about or watched on the screen, only a few years before. Some were extremely powerful figures – including millionaire racehorse owner Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt II, newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst and his partner Marion Davies, and the head of Twentieth Century Fox, Joe Schenck. Despite all this exciting socialising, her closest real friend seems to have been fellow Warner’s actress Jane Bryan, who was about the same age and was also being groomed for ingénue parts.
Regarding her career, Mary dutifully wheeled out the same old story about her start to acting that others gave, including Australians like Jocelyn Howarth (now known as Constance Worth). This was that she had been offered work while on a casual visit to a studio, while she was really on her way somewhere else, like New York. It was nonsense of course. This story fitted in very nicely with the fantasy of the easy pathway to stardom regularly peddled in film fan magazines.[26]Presumably this story was courtesy a studio publicity department Mary went on to acknowledge that she had been acting on the screen in Australia – “since the age of twelve.”[27]Mary said this when interviewed by US journalist Harrison Carroll. Forecasting 1938. Broadcast by CBS on 1 Jan,1938. Library of Congress. Call Number RGA 6202 LC control no :00584434.
In late 1937 Mary declined a role in another B picture, Mystery House, and was promptly laid off by Warner Brothers, as the contract allowed. This generated more publicity, as was obviously intended – Mary was “on strike!” Australian papers reported. Her star was at its zenith by this time, and she (and almost certainly her parents) clearly believed she could bargain her way into better roles. In early April 1938 Mary obtained a new contract with Twentieth Century Fox, doubtless through her new friendship with the 62-year-old Joe Schenck – they had attended the 10th Annual Academy awards together. Gossip columnists speculated that a wedding might be imminent. Bina apparently joined in with the gossip.
Left -Another photo of Joe Schenck and Mary in March 1938. [28]Motion Picture Magazine, Feb-July 1938, page 81 via Lantern. Right – Truth reports on a letter from Bina about an impending marriage.[29]Truth (Bris) 3 July, 1938, P1“Joe regards me as a kid” Mary said of the relationship and she denied any plans to marry only a few days later.[30]The Argus (Melb) 6 July 1938, P1
Mary with Gracie Fields in Smiling Along (1938). Author’s Collection
Following a role in Fox’sMysterious Mr Moto, with Peter Lorre as the Japanese detective [31]the absurdity of Lorre, a Jewish émigré from fascist Europe playing a Japanese detective, who often disguises himself as a person of another ethnicity, in this case a German, could not have been … Continue reading she suddenly departed for Britain with her mother. Soon after arrival in London she gave a lengthy interview to journalist Mary St Claire. Her comments suggest she had very consciously taken on Warner Bros over the types of roles she was given. It was easy to “get a part in a film if you take anything given to you”, but she wanted parts where she could “express her own individuality.”[32]The Australian Women’s Weekly, 28 May 1938, P4
Her assignment was to appear in a Fox musical called Keep Smiling(later changed to Smiling Along) with Gracie Fields in the lead. In mid July, Joe Schenck travelled to London, officially for work, staying at Claridge’s hotel, not far from her apartment. We know nothing of the outcome of any meeting they had, except we do know that Fox dropped Mary’s contract in September 1938 and Schenck took no further interest in her or her career. It suggests a really serious “falling out.” It is easy to speculate that Schenck was expecting more than a friendly relationship with Mary, but there is no evidence – not even hints – to assist us.
After Smiling Along, Mary settled into British filmmaking, and with Bina’s supportive presence and a comfortable flat in Hayes Mews in Mayfair. Mary’s first film for the Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC) was The Outsider, a remake. Mary received top billing with leading male player George Sanders, who played the charismatic but self-absorbed medico. Sanders’ role is Anton Ragatzy, a slightly oily foreigner of some sort, the type that inhabited British films for decades. Mary plays Lalage Sturdee, a beautiful “crippled” musician, whom he finally cures with the aid of a device he has invented, a type of stretching machine. By the time this film had been made, the whole family had relocated to London.
John Wood as Carlo and Mary Maguire as Tanya in Black Eyes. Screengrab from the author’s copy.
Mary’s second film for ABPC was Black Eyes, which was another remake – this one of a 1935 French film. But even for the time, it was a dull story – preoccupied with notions of class and with a predictable storyline. A highlight was playing against Sydney actor John Wood.
The two young Australians in the scene shown above. Audio grab from Author’s copy.
In May 1939 she began work on An Englishman’s Home(later titled Madmen of Europe in the US)for Aldwych films. The plot concerned an invasion of Britain (the threatening power is un-named, but clearly meant to be Germany) and starred Austrian-born Paul von Hernried, another refugee to Britain from fascism. It again featured John Wood, in what was to be his last film before returning to Australia.[33]After his return to Australia in 1939, Wood joined the Army and was posted to Singapore. He was captured in early 1942. He spent the next four years working tirelessly to maintain morale through … Continue reading
A little over two years after this photo was taken on the set of An Englishman’s Home, Paul Henreid (left) had simplified his name and was in Hollywood. John Wood (right) however, was to find himself a POW of the Japanese. Aldwych films publicity shot. Author’s collection.
Two of Mary’s sisters laze at Cannes while Bina looks on. [34]The Truth, 26 November 1944. Page 18
In early 1939, Mick and Bina took a lease on Villa Esterel near Cannes in the south of France, apparently oblivious to the rising political tensions in Europe. Explaining the Cannes sojourn in an interview in 1957, Bina said they had chosen it because “you simply have to meet the right people and at the right places.” As with the move from Melbourne to Brisbane, the motivation for travelling to Cannes appears to have been to advance opportunities for the girls, in this case, to find suitable husbands for them.[35]The Courier Mail (Bris) July 11, 1957, P11
In one of the few publicly released photos of the Maguires in Cannes, Lupe and Carmel laze about on the Villa’s sunny front steps, while Bina, wearing sunglasses, stands ominously and proprietorially behind two of her girls.
About the time she was filming An Englishman’s Home, Mary became engaged to Robert Gordon Canning, a wealthy and decorated British World War One veteran. It was, she later admitted, a whirlwind romance. Known to his close friends as “Bobbie”, he was a former Captain in the 10th Hussars and had earned the Military Cross for bravery in action at Arras in 1916. They were introduced to each other by Miles Mander, during a visit to England. At almost fifty-two, Bobbie was over thirty years Mary’s senior.
What did Mary see in this man who was older than her father? At the time, Mary said, “Bobbie conforms to my idea of the ideal man … when I met Bobbie, nothing else mattered.”[37]The Australian Women’s Weekly 26 Aug 1939, P33 There was however, another dimension to Bobbie that would have made him less attractive to some, although it did not discourage the Maguires. Bobbie was an opinionated, active and influential fascist. From 1934 until mid-1938, he was a senior figure in the British Union of Fascists (BUF) and was close to BUF leader, Oswald Mosley, although he had split from the movement in 1938.
At the time of the engagement, Bobbie was quoted as saying that she was the first actor he met who “didn’t talk shop.” He apparently also disliked “bridge and golf-playing women.” “I am neither,” Mary pointed out.[38]The Australian Women’s Weekly 26 Aug 1939, P33 The impending marriage was celebrated with a portrait of Mary by popular artist Vasco Lazzolo.
Mary Maguire, painted by Vasco Lazzolo c1939. Courtesy Norm Archibald.[39]Unfortunately, the original painting was lost in the 2009 “Black Saturday” bushfires
Mary was wise enough to publicly disassociate herself from Gordon Canning’s political extremism and virulent anti-Semitism. “I was given my big chance in Hollywood, where there are many Jews. It would be both ungrateful and unkind of me to ally myself because of marriage with the Fascist Party… I have no fascist sympathies and do not intend to take part in my fiancee’s political life.”[40]The Australian Women’s Weekly 29 Jul 1939, P28 She maintained the argument that she was not involved in his political activities, or at least, was largely ignorant of them, all her life. But looking back on the marriage in late 1944, she said of fascism; “I didn’t understand what it was all about.”[41]Truth (Brisbane) 26 Nov 1944 P12
In July 1939, towards the end of filming An Englishman’s Home, Mary became ill again. What seemed to start as another cold ended up very seriously. Maxwell Chance, a highly regarded Mayfair doctor, diagnosed her with acute pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) and immediately sent her to an exclusive nursing home to rest and “dry out.” It was a shock, an embarrassment, and it put an end to her acting for the time being, as well as her social life. Of course, the family did not publicly report her condition as TB, but rather as fatigue from “overwork” or “lung trouble” from working in the cold. The condition explains why she was carried to her wedding in an invalid chair. Her treatment for TB included “collapse therapy” a revolutionary procedure designed to deflate and rest the infected lung, using oxygen introduced by a pneumothorax needle. Mary lay on her side to have the needle inserted between her ribs, a treatment that was repeated every few weeks. Antibiotic treatment for TB was still years away.
Only a few weeks after the wedding, Britain found itself at war again. Unfortunately, nothing had changed Bobbie’s anti-Semitic opinions or his admiration for aspects of the German model of National Socialism. As a former member of the BUF, he was already under close observation and MI5 had developed a significant file on him and all those he associated with.
On Saturday 13 July, 1940, Bobbie was arrested and interned under the British government’s Emergency Powers (Defence) Act, Defence Regulation 18B. Understandably, Mary, now at home, was shocked when police arrived at their London flat to arrest Bobbie (although she should have had some warning, as others like Mosley and his friend retired Admiral Barry Domvile had already been arrested). She was later to indignantly complain that the Police suspected her of being disloyal; with allegations made that she had “flashed signals to submarines lurking off (her home at) Sandwich.”[42]Truth (Brisbane) 26 Nov 1944 P12
Mary and her baby, named Michael Robert. [43]The Sun (NSW) 5th June, 1941
Mary was well enough to escort Bobbie to the gates of Brixton prison, announcing that he had long since given up membership of “certain organisations.” A couple of weeks before he was interned, Mary had given Bobbie some good news. She was pregnant and was expecting early the following year. However, she was still continuing with her TB treatments. Her doctors feared the birth would be hazardous. On 3 February 1941, in the midst of the London Blitz, Mary gave birth to an eight-pound son. It was a difficult cesarean birth, aggravated by her weakness from the TB treatment and her petite size. Bobbie was briefly released from Brixton to attend to Mary and his new son.
It was Bina who passed on details of baby Michael’s birth, as she had after the wedding – for example that the birth had cost Bobbie £2,000. She then gave enthusiastic interviews to the press about the arrangements for the christening. “The baby will wear a christening robe made …from a beautiful old point lace robe which has been worn by his father’s mother, and has been in the Gordon Canning family for a hundred years.”[44]The Sydney Morning Herald 6 Feb 1941, P14
The reality for Mary was very different. With her husband interned, treatment for TB still ongoing and a new baby to care for, Maxwell Chance wrote to Bobbie’s lawyer in August 1941. It was a medical opinion that might be used to support an appeal for Bobbie’s release. Chance was clearly concerned about Mary’s health and state of mind, and it is worth quoting in full:
“Dear Mr Rollo, …I am glad… to send you an informal opinion about Mrs Gordon-Canning, because there is no doubt at all that her health is being severely and sadly affected both by the confiscation of her home at Sandwich and…by the prolonged separation from her husband.
Her nervous stability and mental balance were disturbed by the severity of her confinement six months ago. It involved, as you know, owing the the active lung trouble for which she still has to submit to regular and irksome treatments, a hazardous caesarean section followed by major surgical complications, which for a time endangered her life.
There is considerable disparity between their ages and though she is bound to her husband by ties of the strongest affection, she is an impressionable and impulsive young woman of great attraction with many acquaintances, eager to console her and lighten her loneliness.
I do not hold any brief for Captain Gordon Canning, but if this woman’s reason is to be preserved, and at the same time a happy marriage safeguarded, then on ordinary humanitarian grounds alone, I believe it is urgently necessary to rearrange his further detention under conditions whereby husband and wife may enjoy some measure at least of ordinary normal companionship… Maxwell Chance”
WHC Rollo was Bobbie’s lawyer, and also the father of Primula Rollo, the first wife of David Niven. The Committee reading this letter was reviewing Bobbie’s detention. It recommended release, but this was not to be. The Home Secretary, again acting on the advice of M15, decided to keep Bobbie in detention. [45]Source British National Archives. File KV 2-877/8 Maxwell Chance to WHC Rollo, 12 August 1941
Mary did return to work in the second half of 1941, although, as she was later to point out, it was difficult to get film work with a husband in gaol on suspicion of treason. The film she worked on was the 70-minute comedy-drama This was Paris. Ironically, the plot revolved around three or four key characters who are participants battling the activities of fifth columnists in France in 1940. Several of the players in the film, including Mary, would have been very well known to US audiences. Ben Lyon, a US actor, played Butch, a perpetually drunken reporter for an Australian newspaper called “The Sidney Chronicle.” [46]Despite the incorrect spelling, it is clearly meant to be a newspaper in Sydney, Australia he works for Mary played his girlfriend with a degree of ability and confidence not seen in many of her earlier films.
Mary Maguire’s first line as Blossum Leroy in her final film This Was Paris. Her boyfriend, Butch, a reporter for “The Sidney Chronicle” (sic) has come home drunk, with British spy Bill Hamilton in tow. Listen to that accent! Is she meant to be Australian? It’s worth noting that by the time she was in England, her accent was usually a refined one. Audio clip from copy in the author’s collection.
In wartime England, the joy of parenthood and the pleasure of working in film again was not to last for long. Over Christmas 1941 little Michael became ill. In February 1942, he succumbed to pneumonia – an operation failed. Even Bina was unable to put a positive spin on this awful event and could find little to say.
With the best medical support the Maguires could find, Mary slowly regained something of her former self, although distractions were difficult to find in the very desperate days of 1942. The war was not going well for the Allies.
A grainy photo of Mary performing in August 1942. [47]The Courier (Tunbridge Wells), August 7, 1942
Finally, in the middle of 1942 she felt strong enough to take up some acting again – this time in the theatre – a production of Bedtime Story, a “light comedy in 3 acts”, touring through southern England for a month. Based on the Cinderella story, it was well received by war weary audiences. Although looking thinner and wearing her black hair shorter, Mary was still a glamorous film star and the provincial English press were thrilled when she hit town. But Mary didn’t stay with the play – by the end of the year she had left and the production moved on to Glasgow. She did not return to the stage.
Another glittering wedding for the Maguires. Sydney Truth reports on the wedding of oldest Maguire daughter Patricia to Peter Aitken, youngest son of Lord Beaverbrook.[48]Truth, (Sydney) 1 November 1942. Some newspaper reports suggested Mick was serving in the British Army as an Officer’s batman at this time.
But there was some good news. Sometime, early in 1943, Mary met an up-and-coming US aeronautical engineer, Phillip Legarra. Four years her senior, Phil worked in England for North American Aviation on the highly successful P-51 Mustang fighter project. The Mustang, in its final form, was one of the finest US offensive fighters of the war. At the time they met, Phil was the company’s English representative. They fell in love.
Phil Legarra, c1943. [49]“Notes from England” Skyline Magazine, July-August 1943. North American Aviation, Author’s Collection.
Bobbie was amongst the internees released in August 1943. He stated at the time that he was determined to put his marriage “in order.”[50]Following a post-imprisonment interview conducted in late August 1943, two MI5 officers wondered if Bobbie was suffering “some form of mild mental derangement.” His eccentric behaviour … Continue reading Soon after, in a courageous step, Mary decided that honesty was the best policy, and she bared all to journalists, publicly making reference to her bout of TB for the first time. Phil and Mary’s plan was to marry and return to the US, where Mary could settle down and restart her Hollywood career and Phil could return to the aviation industry. Aware that not all her relatives in Australia would approve of a divorce, she tried to pre-empt their reactions. “Apart from the shock this is going to be to my grandparents in Melbourne, and also to many other of my Australian friends, I am unashamed of what I have done … It’s distressing, but that’s the way it is. I’m sure there are lots of people who won’t forgive me, but most women would do the same in similar circumstances.” To force Bobbie’s hand and give him no choice but to agree to a divorce, Mary took the unusual step of moving in with Phil, to a comfortable flat in Kensington. Mary said; “I am not apologising for falling in love with someone my own age. That is natural.”[51]Truth (Syd) 26 Nov 1944, P18 Uncharacteristically, Mick and Bina could find nothing to say publicly about the matter. They were obviously conflicted between their Catholic faith, the embarrassment of a looming divorce and their loyalty to a daughter whose marriage they had encouraged.
Phil and Mary married in March 1945 and left for California just as soon as they could. As newspapers of the time reported, Mary hoped to get a role in “Forever Amber”, a major “Gone With the Wind” style production based on a popular novel by Kathleen Winsor. But in Hollywood, things had changed. Her great mentor and family friend Miles Mander died suddenly in February 1946, only a few months after she returned. Richard Monter, her former agent, died in 1947. Many of Mary’s friends, like Marion Davies, had moved on. Tastes in filmmaking had also changed while she was away, and her hopes of returning to acting on the screen came to nothing. It is difficult to know whether Mary had simply lost her currency as an actress, or whether her reputation was so severely damaged by her past association with Bobbie Gordon-Canning that no one would consider employing her.
Mary and Phil were also denied the joy of parenthood. The female reproductive system is particularly vulnerable to TB – the damage the disease can do to the fallopian tubes can be irreparable and successful conception extremely difficult. While new post-war medicines probably cured her of the disease, it is highly likely her TB was the reason there were no successful pregnancies from their marriage. This would have been a bitter blow.
Mary and Phil must have been reassured though – the US aircraft industry, largely based in Southern California – employed hundreds of thousands of people at the war’s end, and the couple’s security and prosperity must have seemed assured by Phil’s connections and ability as an engineer.
Mary flew home to the US from Mick’s funeral in London. This airline manifest shows she was still travelling as an Australian in 1950. Mary often said she wanted to return to Australia, but never did. Her interest in flying dated to the 1930s. [52]This image has been modified from the original manifest. National Archives, via Ancestry.com
Mick Maguire died suddenly in England in June 1950. In 1957, Bina returned to Australia for a holiday. It was at this time she made her “you simply HAVE to meet the right people and at the right places” statement to explain her girls’ successful marriages. She was also reported to have said “if you want marry money, you have to go where money is.” When she died in 1963, there was another flurry of newspaper accounts. She was, said friends, a woman of “great personal charm and very clear purpose… a motivating force in the whole operation” said another friend. The article was correct in identifying Bina’s actions as driven by a fierce desire to give her daughters the things she had missed out on in her childhood.[53]Unidentified newspaper article, dated 24 June 1963. “Five Little Marrying Maguires” by Joyce Stirling. Likely to be The Courier Mail. Courtesy Loreto Convent Brisbane
Mary’s sisters – Carmel, Lupe and Joan Maguire (Patsy not shown) all achieved the “glittering marriages” their parents hoped for.[54]Press Association Photo taken in about 1938 Author’s collection
Mary and Phil settled into a comfortable home in the trendy beachside suburban development at Surfridge, near the airport. The houses in this development faced westwards and had views of the Pacific Ocean, a suburb in the rolling sand dunes popular with former Hollywood stars and the modestly wealthy. Unfortunately the suburb was reclaimed in the 1960s for Los Angeles airport redevelopment. Today, this area is a ghost-suburb; footpaths and streets without houses and palm trees shading what were once verdant gardens and green back yards, while runways are extended and more aircraft arrive.
Mary, Phil (obscured) and a niece of Phil’s, c1960. Courtesy Norm Archibald.
Mary died on 18 May, 1974 – aged only fifty-five.[55]In Australia, a general election was held on this day. Perhaps this explains why not a single Australian paper noted the passing of “Australia’s sweetheart.” Phil had died in 1971 – alcohol played a part in both their deaths. In her last years Mary lived in a small apartment on Pasadena Avenue in Long Beach. Built in 1922, it still stands and is one of the older apartment blocks in the area. In appearance it could be straight out of Nathaniel West’s classic expose of life of the margins of Hollywood – Day of the Locust.
A very grainy polaroid of a very thin Mary Maguire, now on her own in Long Beach, late in life. Courtesy Norm Archibald.
Most of Mary Maguire’s Melbourne has been demolished, including all of their former hotels. Left: However, she would recognise her old school the Academy of Mary Immaculate, in Nicholson Street, Fitzroy. Right: This stretch of Elizabeth Street between Bourke and Collins appears almost unchanged from her era. It would have been visible from windows at the rear of the Hotel Metropole. Author’s Collection.
Nick Murphy August 2018, revised February 2024
References
Special Thanks I met with Mary Maguire’s cousin Norm Archibald many times over a period of about 8 years. Norm was extremely generous with his family archive and I sincerely thank him.
Thanks also to
Writer Robert Gott, Editors Jane Cussen and Ingrid Purnell. Joe Henderson (National Archives, Kew, England), Dan Gulino (Radio was Better), Sandra Joy Aguilar (Director of Archives, Warner Bros Archive, University of Southern California), Dorothy Weekes (Academy of Mary Immaculate Melbourne), Sister Helen Salter (Loreto Convent Brisbane), Roland Week (Richmond Football Club), The Earl of Kimberley, Simone Cubbin. And Jo Mostyn nee Gardiner – Peggy Maguire’s school friend from Melbourne.
Don’t Call Me Girlie (1985) A film by Stewart Young and Andree Wright. Director Stewart Young, Script and Research by Andree Wright. Producer Hilary Furlong. Narrator: Penne Hackworth-Jones. Ronin Films
A History of Australian Film 1896-1940: Film Australia – The Pictures that Moved 1896-1920 (1968) Director Alan Anderson. Writer Joan Long – The Passionate Industry 1920-1930 (1973) Director Joan Long. Writer Joan Long – Now You’re Talking 1930-1940. (1979) Director Keith Gow. Script Keith Gow.
Books
Michael Adams (2019) Australia’s Sweetheart: The amazing story of forgotten Hollywood star Mary Maguire. Hachette Australia.
Olga Abrahams, (2007). 88 Nicholson Street; The Academy of Mary Immaculate 1857 – 2007, Academy of Mary Immaculate. ISBN 978 0 9589817 1 2.
Christopher Andrew (2009) Defend the Realm. The Authorized History of MI5. Alfred Knopf, New York. ISBN 978 0 307 26363 6
Daniel Bubbeo (2002) The Women of Warner Brothers: the lives and careers of 15 leading ladies. McFarland and Company, North Carolina. ISBN 0 7864 1137 6
Miles Mander (1935) To My Son, In Confidence. Faber and Faber, London
Janet McCalman (1998) Public and Private Life in Richmond 1900-1965. Hyland House. South Melbourne ISBN 1 86447 048 8
Brian McFarlane, Anthony Slide, 2003. The Encyclopedia of British Film. Methuen Publishing Ltd, London. ISBN 0 413 779301 9
Robert Murphy (Ed) (2008) The British Cinema Book. Palgrave Macmillan for the BFI, London. ISBN 978 1 84457 275 5
Andrew Pike & Ross Cooper (1998) Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Vincent Porter, (Ed) (2006). Walter C. Mycroft: The Time of My Life. The Memoirs of a British film Producer. Scarecrow Press, Maryland. ISBN 0 8108 5723 5.
Eric Reade (1979) History and Heartburn: The Saga of Australian Film 1896-1978, Harper and Row, Sydney. ISBN 0 06 312033X
Jeffery Richards: The Unknown 1930s: An alternative history of the British Cinema 1929-1939.B. Taurus
W. Brian Simpson, (2005) In the Highest Degree Odious: Detention without trial in Wartime Britain. Oxford University Press. 2005. ISBN 0-19-825949-2
John Wodehouse, The Fourth Earl of Kimberley, and Charles Roberts, (2001). The Whim of the Wheel: The Memoirs of the Earl of Kimberley. Merton Priory Press, Cardiff, England. ISBN 1 898937 45 1
Andree Wright, (1986). Brilliant Careers; Women in Australian Cinema. Pan Books, Sydney. ISBN 0 330 27065 6.
Angela Woollacott, (2001).To try her fortune in London. Australian women, Colonialism and Modernity. Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN 9 780195 147193
This site has been selected for preservation in the National Library of Australia’s Pandora archive
Unidentified newspaper article, dated 24 June 1963. “Five Little Marrying Maguires” by Joyce Stirling. Likely to be The Courier Mail. Courtesy Loreto Convent Brisbane
Warner Brothers out-take compilations, which include very short clips from some of these films, can be found here in Breakdowns of 1937 – see Mary briefly at 4:05 and Breakdowns of 1938 see 4.10.
Mary said this when interviewed by US journalist Harrison Carroll. Forecasting 1938. Broadcast by CBS on 1 Jan,1938. Library of Congress. Call Number RGA 6202 LC control no :00584434.
the absurdity of Lorre, a Jewish émigré from fascist Europe playing a Japanese detective, who often disguises himself as a person of another ethnicity, in this case a German, could not have been lost on discerning audiences, even then
After his return to Australia in 1939, Wood joined the Army and was posted to Singapore. He was captured in early 1942. He spent the next four years working tirelessly to maintain morale through theatre performances. Although he survived it seems the experience broke his health. He died in 1965.
Following a post-imprisonment interview conducted in late August 1943, two MI5 officers wondered if Bobbie was suffering “some form of mild mental derangement.” His eccentric behaviour over the next ten years also suggests this. Bobbie blamed Jewish pressure on the Government for his internment while Barry Domvile blamed “judmas;” in his damaged mind a Jewish-Masonic conspiracy was responsible. Bobbie remained an unrepentant national socialist to his death in 1967. He can be seen here in a British Movietone newsreel.
In Australia, a general election was held on this day. Perhaps this explains why not a single Australian paper noted the passing of “Australia’s sweetheart.”
Unfortunately a terrible tragedy occurred when Frank junior died and was buried in Calcutta, in January 1897. We can only imagine how hard this was for Alf, still on tour, let alone his father and sister back in Melbourne. His Indian burial certificate clearly lists the cause of death as smallpox, an even greater tragedy given that a vaccine existed at the time. One wonders if Frank’s father ever knew the truth, as his death was described as being due to pneumonia in most reports.
With the outbreak of the Boer War, Manager Charles Pollard apparently rushed the company to safety. By early 1900 the children were all back in Australia, and then a new tour was organised to colonial outposts in the “far east” – including Hong Kong and Singapore. 
Charles Pollard announced his retirement in early 1909, while the company was in Honolulu, heading home. At this point, many of the older company members, including Alf, decided to throw in their lot with Nellie Chester, who was now based in the US. This performance company dropped “Lilliputian” but kept some sort of “Pollard” in the title. With about 12 others, including Eva Moore, Emily Davis, Ada Hind, Freddie Bindloss, Jack Cherry, 
