Tag: Lois Green

Lois Green (1914-c.2006) – An Australian Nanette

Above: Lois Green c1939. The photo was taken about the time she appeared in Ken Hall’s Gone to the Dogs. State Library of Victoria Collection.
The Five Second Version
Lois Green left Australia in 1939 to try her luck on the London stage. Over the previous 10 years she had successfully built a reputation in musical comedy and had even starred in one of the few Australian feature films of the late 30s. These experiences established her reputation as an skilled actress, dancer and singer. But after only a year in London she left the country with a shadowy figure, an Australian-born commission agent, who she married while in South Africa. By 1944 she was no longer married and was working for ENSA in Egypt. By late 1945 she was back in London again, specialising in revues and pantomime. Nanette in No No Nanette became one of her signature roles, a musical she performed many times. She married a second time in 1947 and made a brief visit to perform in Australia. Her final roles in British pantomime occurred in the later 1950s. She and her second husband retired to the Isle of Man.

Lois’s 1947 comments about Australian men being “extremely tiresome” are unusual for the era.

Above: Lois Green and fellow dancer Frances Ogilvy on the cover of Table Talk in 1932.[1]Table Talk, 25 Feb 1932, P1

Growing up in Australia.1914-1939

Born in Tongue Street Footscray in December 1914, Mabel Lois Green was the only child of Beaumont Hamilton Green, a carriage-builder, and Mabel nee Thretheway, the daughter of a local grocer. The family moved to leafy Hotham Street, East Melbourne in 1925, coincidentally quite near the home of young Joan MacGillicuddy (who would one day become Joan Winfield in Hollywood).

Lois danced from a very young age, attending the school run by Mrs William Green (no relation) and her daughter Florrie in Fitzroy. By the mid 1920s, she was dancing under the tuition of the very well known Jeannie Brennan, who had a close association with JC Williamson’s, the Australian theatre monopoly. Years later, her mother elaborated – she had also studied singing with Mary Campbell and later with Carrie Cairnduff, and took elocution lessons from Victor Trotman.[2]The Herald (Melb) 30 Jan 1947, p17

This training translated into exciting opportunities for a young person like Lois, who had her heart set on the stage. In 1929, she impressed visiting Mieczyslaw Pianowski, Anna Pavolva‘s partner, who reputedly told her mother: For a child of fourteen and a half years, your daughter is, in my opinion, the most remarkable example of dancing ability I have ever encountered. It would be a pity to keep so rare a talent in Australia.[3]The Herald (Melb) 26 June 1929, p5 If this really was said to her mother, then the expectations of a successful future were high.

Lois Green grew up dancing in public, thanks to her teachers, parents and enthusiastic Melbourne newspapers – 1918, 1920, 1929.[4]Left to right – Melbourne Punch, 26 Dec 1918, P20; Table Talk, 16 Dec, 1920, P19; Table Talk, 4 July 1929, P6

Although only 16, her first role professionally appears to have been in the ballet pieces for a revival of the musical comedy The Maid of the Mountains, with Gladys Moncrieff.[5]Sunday Times (Sydney) 1 June 1930, P2 From 1930 she was almost continually in employment for J.C Williamsons. The roles she featured in brought her prominence, and contact with emerging and established Australian actors. For example, in the early 1930s she was appearing with a young Robert Helpmann in Katinka, Sinbad and Happy and Glorious. [6]Ausstage database. Helpmann was six years her senior. She was in the cast of the original Australian musical Blue Mountain Melody, (which enjoyed a reasonable run in Sydney and Melbourne in 1934) with Cyril Ritchard, Madge Elliot, Agnes Doyle and Don Nicol. In time, she happily acknowledged the assistance and mentoring of many of these experienced performers had provided her.[7]The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 April, 1939 p31

It was however, her leading role in No, No, Nanette in 1938 that brought her to national prominence – with Smith’s Weekly announcing that Lois’ place “as No. 1 musical comedy lead in Australia seems to be assured.”[8]Smith’s Weekly (Sydney), 10 Sep 1938, p24 She was still only 24 when it was announced she had a role in an upcoming Cinesound film, featuring comedian George Wallace.

24 year old Lois making up for the title role in No, No, Nanette, September 1938. Australian Performing Arts Collections, Arts Centre Melbourne.

An Australian film and the London stage. 1939 – 1940

Despite its rather silly premise, Ken G Hall’s Gone to the Dogs proved to be a successful film. Cheerful, amusing and accompanied by some catchy songs, it made a clear profit in Australia and was exported for release in Britain.[9]Pike & Cooper (1980) p242 Lois Green played the ingenue role (as Jean MacAllister) with a confidence and ability not found amongst many of her Australian contemporaries. She demonstrated she could sing, dance and act, and projected an attractive and confident persona on the screen.[10]Reid 2007, p91-2 But even before filming began, her plan to try her luck in London had been announced.

Lois Green with George Wallace in the main musical number of Gone to the Dogs (1939). Source of screengrabs – Youtube
Lois singing during the main musical number of Gone to the Dogs. Also audible in this clip is George Wallace.

In April 1939, Lois departed Australia on the Matson liner Monterey, with her first stop being to “look in on Hollywood,” before going on to London. Also on board was fellow JC Williamson’s actor Enid Hollins, who was on the same journey. Although not close friends, both women seem to have matched up their travel plans, heading to the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. It was really just a “look in on Hollywood” as Lois had reached London only a few months later. She appears in the September 1939 English census, living at a boarding house in Chelsea. Her first stage work in London was in the chorus of All Clear, a “thoroughly mediocre” revue that had a run at Queen’s Theatre.[11]The Spectator (London) 12 January 1940 cited in Wearing, 2014, p774 She understudied for Beatrice Lillie, the show’s lead.

Soon however, she had a job singing at the famous Cafe De Paris in Piccadilly, part of an act with comedian Fred Emney.[12]Sunday Mirror (London) 31 March 1940, P23 She also appeared in at least one BBC radio broadcast – a selection of songs from All Clear – the first of many performances for the BBC.

South Africa, the war, a marriage and return to London. 1940-45

Evening Standard (London) 23 March 1940, P6

Despite her emerging career in Britain, during the later part of 1940 she disappeared completely from the London theatre scene. Records show that on 1st August 1940, she boarded the Llangibby Castle,(a Union Castle liner) for passage to South Africa, an unusual decision given that U-boat attacks on British shipping were already occurring. She had previously refused to discuss her personal life –“Lets leave my private life out of this” she bluntly told an Australian journalist on the eve of leaving Australia [13]Woman’s Weekly (Australia) 18 March 1939, P3, but this otherwise puzzling change of direction appears to have been for just that reason. Her journey to South Africa was undertaken with a 36 year old commission agent who went by the name William John Munden, and whom she had known since at least 1939. The couple married on 16 May 1942, at Johannesburg Anglican Cathedral.[14]presumably St Mary’s Cathedral(Also see Note 1 below)

In later comments Lois mentioned work in pantomimes and another run of No, No, Nanette during her three and a half years in South Africa, but gave no other details, except to say that South Africa was a “very young country… a youthful Australia.”[15]The Age (Melb)12 Feb 1947, p6 Of her four years with Munden, nothing was ever said to journalists.

Lois re-appeared in Cairo in mid 1944, now performing in ENSA productions, including No, No, Nanette, again.[16]ENSA was the British Entertainments National Service Association At the war’s end she was back in London again as though nothing had happened – and soon in a good run of the pantomime Cinderella at the Adelphi Theatre, playing the title role and receiving very positive reviews.[17]The Observer (London) 30 December, 1945 P3 She also made some appearances for the BBC – on radio and in the early days of live TV, after it re-started in June 1946. Desperate for material for the new medium, the BBC borrowed heavily from variety theatre.

Above: Lois Green with Royal Australian Air Force personnel in Cairo, while performing in No, No, Nanette. c1944. Photo – Laurence Craddock Le Guay, Australian War Memorial collection.

Follow the Girls in Australia. 1946-7

In late 1946 Lois was flown to Australia by JC Williamsons, to perform in the musical comedy Follow the Girls. Like some other Australians who had been unable to see family because of war, the chance to visit her parents in East Melbourne was probably also an important attraction. Her contract was a very generous £70 per week,[18]about $AU5,100 in 2024 money doubtless negotiated for her by her London agent, Fosters. Follow the Girls was a lightweight story that involved some “US sailors, a strip-tease artist (Bubbles La Marr – played by Lois) and some espionage.” Melbourne’s Argus also reported that the feature of the production was “dainty Lois Green’s re-introduction to the Melbourne stage, who, during her absence, has undergone a startling metamorphosis from sweet ingenue to wisecracking, and slightly hardboiled, comedienne.”[19]The Argus (Melb) 17 Feb 1947 p6 The newspaper reviewer felt Lois was playing well out of character. All the same, the play had a respectable run. It wrapped on 2 May 1947, when Lois departed for England.

Above: Lois Green and Don Nicol in Follow the Girls, His Majesty’s Theatre Melbourne,1947. Photograph by Hal Williamson, Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne.

While in Australia, Lois was sought out for comment on her experiences and opinions, as were other Australian actors who returned post-war. Although her private life continued to be off limits in interviews, she ventured intriguing and some might argue, insightful comments about Australian men. “They are extremely tiresome both in their dressing and their manners… The Australian man is fundamentally a grand person. But he is so intent on playing the role of great open spaces, heart of gold beneath rough exterior, that one cannot be bothered searching for the alleged heart of gold.” [20]Undated Australian newspaper cutting c 1947, in the Bernard Woodruff Scrapbook, Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne She need not have worried about Australian men. Hugh Eagleton, a British businessman, followed her by plane to Australia and soon after her return to London in May 1947, the couple married at the Westminster registry office.[21]Marriage Certificate, Hugh Falkener Eagleton and Lois Green otherwise Munden, 21 May 1947, UK General Register Office

British Career after 1947

No, No, Nanette being produced for live TV, again, in March 1948 [22]Radio Times, 28 March – 3 April 1948, p26

Lois was involved in a string of TV and radio programs after her return to London and again, these include televised live variety programs. The BBC Genome lists Floor Show (November 1947), The Passing Show (May 1948) and Mirth and Melody (Sept 1949). However, it was performing in Christmas season pantomimes, including some that toured Britain, that she became best known for.

Puss in Boots. The 1949-50 Christmas Panto at the Palladium.[23]Author’s Collection

Even at the time, pantomime was not to everyone’s taste. In January 1950, one London theatre critic complained that “every year… [the panto season] is the occasion for the worst singing and acting and the most puerile humour that we ever have to sit through.” Puss in Boots, then playing at the Palladium and starring Tommy Trinder, Zoe Gail and Lois, was acknowledged as a spectacular, but not much more. Lois (as Princess Sonia) and Betty Frankiss (as Colin) did “their best with the scanty romantics… [while] Tommy Trinder… appeared to be satisfied with a range of jokes which would have reduced even a radio studio audience to numbness.”[24]Truth (London) 6 January 1950, p12 But pantomime always had an audience and remains an important part of the British theatre tradition today.

Lois’s performances in Cinderella, Dick Whittington and Puss in Boots were all televised in the late 1940s and early 1950s, although none of these early TV versions seem to have survived into the 21st century. She was also a regular in revues, and travelled with a Tommy Trinder troupe to South Africa to perform panto, including Cinderella in early 1951. The Stage reported Lois Green made “the ideal Cinderella, bringing out the charm and piquancy of the character, and at times displaying a pleasant sense of comedy.”[25]The Stage (London) 15 February 1951, p4 Cinderella was amongst her last roles. She appeared in it again with Harry Seacombe, touring Britain in the mid 1950s.

Tommy Trinder, Lois Green and Barbara Perry in the 1950 revue Starlight Rendezvous [26]The Stage (London) 27 July 1950, p7

Her postwar career included Noël Coward’s musical After the Ball. Based on Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan; it was directed by fellow Australian Robert Helpmann. Lois had a supporting role as Lady Plymdale. Although reviews varied, it had a decent season of 188 performances at the Globe from June -November 1954.[27]Wearing, 2014, p310-311

Lois In After the Ball at the Globe in 1954.[28]The Sketch (London) 28 July 1954, P46. Illustrated London News Group

Unfortunately, of Lois’ later life we know little. Her last performances were in a Glasgow run of Cinderella in 1956, by which time she was aged 42, and perhaps less likely to be offered principal girl roles in panto. Regrettably, she was never interviewed about her 25 years of performance – the Australian tradition of quickly forgetting about those who have departed seems to have occurred, yet again. Lois and Hugh Eagleton lived for many years in South Kensington, but later in life moved to the Isle of Man. According to several online sources, Lois died there in 2006, although no confirmation could be found for this account.

Lois wearing a Norman Hartnell gown for Follow the Girls.[29]Australian Performing Arts Collection

Note 1 – The intriguing William John Munden
On his 1942 South African marriage certificate, William John Munden claimed to be of Australian birth, but he does not appear in any of the available Australian state birth databases, electoral rolls, or directories. He does appear in a few UK and US passenger documents of 1939-40, where he gave his birthplace as Orange in New South Wales, and his date of birth as 27 August 1903. He also appeared in the 1939 British census, living in the same Chelsea boarding house as Lois. When he visited New York in April 1939, he was able to demonstrate to US customs that he had the extraordinary amount of $US3000 available (about $US65,000 in 2024 money). Most visitors to the US at the time were content to show they had the required $US50. Munden disappeared from the historical record following the marriage in Johannesburg. Lois’s marriage certificate stated that she had divorced Munden.

Nick Murphy
May 2024

References

Thanks

  • Claudia Funder at the Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne.

Text

  • Ken G Hall (1980) Australian Film, The Inside Story. Summit Books, Australia
  • Andrew Pike & Ross Cooper (1980) Australian Film 1900-1977. Oxford University Press/AFI
  • John Howard Reid (2007) Hollywood’s Classic Comedies. Lulu.com
  • J. P. Wearing (2014) The London Stage 1930-1939: A Calendar of Productions, Performances and Personnel. Lanham, Maryland. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers
  • J. P. Wearing (1991) The London Stage 1940-1949: A Calendar of Plays and Players. 2 Vols. The Scarecrow Press Inc. Metuchen, N.J and London.
  • J. P. Wearing (2014) The London Stage 1950-1959: A Calendar of Productions, Performances and Personnel. Lanham, Maryland. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers

Film

  • Gone to the Dogs (1939) Australian Screen. National Film & Sound Archive (3 clips available Online)
  • Gone to the Dogs (1939) Trekxx Channel @ Youtube (Online)
  • History of Australian Cinema 1896-1940. Episode 3. Now You’re Talking 1930-1940. Film Australia (2011)

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

Australian Theatre Heritage – On Stage

Online databases

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

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Table Talk, 25 Feb 1932, P1
↑2 The Herald (Melb) 30 Jan 1947, p17
↑3 The Herald (Melb) 26 June 1929, p5
↑4 Left to right – Melbourne Punch, 26 Dec 1918, P20; Table Talk, 16 Dec, 1920, P19; Table Talk, 4 July 1929, P6
↑5 Sunday Times (Sydney) 1 June 1930, P2
↑6 Ausstage database. Helpmann was six years her senior
↑7 The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 April, 1939 p31
↑8 Smith’s Weekly (Sydney), 10 Sep 1938, p24
↑9 Pike & Cooper (1980) p242
↑10 Reid 2007, p91-2
↑11 The Spectator (London) 12 January 1940 cited in Wearing, 2014, p774
↑12 Sunday Mirror (London) 31 March 1940, P23
↑13 Woman’s Weekly (Australia) 18 March 1939, P3
↑14 presumably St Mary’s Cathedral
↑15 The Age (Melb)12 Feb 1947, p6
↑16 ENSA was the British Entertainments National Service Association
↑17 The Observer (London) 30 December, 1945 P3
↑18 about $AU5,100 in 2024 money
↑19 The Argus (Melb) 17 Feb 1947 p6
↑20 Undated Australian newspaper cutting c 1947, in the Bernard Woodruff Scrapbook, Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne
↑21 Marriage Certificate, Hugh Falkener Eagleton and Lois Green otherwise Munden, 21 May 1947, UK General Register Office
↑22 Radio Times, 28 March – 3 April 1948, p26
↑23 Author’s Collection
↑24 Truth (London) 6 January 1950, p12
↑25 The Stage (London) 15 February 1951, p4
↑26 The Stage (London) 27 July 1950, p7
↑27 Wearing, 2014, p310-311
↑28 The Sketch (London) 28 July 1954, P46. Illustrated London News Group
↑29 Australian Performing Arts Collection

Agnes Doyle (1905-1992) From Nymagee to New York

Agnes Doyle in November 1930 while performing in Sydney in Op O’ Me Thumb. Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne.
The Five Second version
During her lifetime, Agnes Doyle found her way from a remote regional town in outback New South Wales to the New York stage. She was a popular favourite with audiences in Australia in the 1920s and early 1930s, and almost continuously in work. Like many of her contemporaries, she left Australia to “try her luck.” She enjoyed some success on the US stage, especially in a long tour of Yes My Darling Daughter, but it appears her career never took off, as had been expected. She appeared on US TV in the early days of live-to-air programming in the mid 1950s. Sometime in the late 1950s she took on an important role for JC Williamsons, the Australian theatrical company, acting as their agent in New York. In this role she negotiated contracts and royalty arrangements. She died in New Jersey in 1992.
Agnes in 1930 [1]The Bulletin 26 Nov 1930, P18

In remote Australia

Agnes Doyle was born in Nymagee, a remote copper mining town over 600 kilometres north-west of Sydney, in late December 1905. Her father Michael was a copper smelter, her mother Ada a local woman – Agnes being the third of three children. Unfortunately, deep unhappiness marred her childhood. When Agnes was very young, her parents went through a bitter separation and divorce. Custody of Agnes and her older siblings was granted to Michael, who moved the family to nearby Cobar – a much larger mining town, in 1917.[2]As with so many divorce documents of this time, a great deal was written but much remains unstated. See Divorce papers; Michael Doyle – Ada Doyle, 1912-1913, New South Wales State Archives The children all started performing even while living at Nymagee,[3]Cobar Herald (NSW) 9 December 1913, P13 but it was at Cobar that Agnes and older sister Annie shone as a young singers.[4]Western Age (NSW), 31 Jul 1917, P3 (See Note 1 below regarding her family circumstances)

Nymagee, New South Wales, with school students visible at left. Undated photo taken before 1917. Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

On stage in Australia

Agnes’s first notable success on stage was as a dancer in Sydney in August 1926. With dance partner Jack Lyons, she went on to win at state and then in Australia-wide amateur dance competitions.[5]The Sun (Syd) 28 Nov 1926, P31. There is evidence that Agnes subsequently taught dancing at Melbourne’s Green Mill Dance Hall in the late 1920s. See Table Talk (Melb) 21 Mar 1929, P64 Unfortunately, where she learned to dance was never explained and what dramatic training she received is also unclear. But she had success on stage from a young age. In 1927 she was appearing in Leon Gordon‘s touring production of The Green Hat with Judith Anderson.[6]The Sun (Syd) 3 Jul 1927, P38 By early 1929, she was touring Australian towns, now in a leading role in The Patsy, with Bert Bailey.

Dancing partnership Jack Lyons and Agnes Doyle in 1926.[7]Sunday Times (Syd) 24 Oct 1926, P26

Interviewed while touring in The Patsy in Western Australia in April 1929, the twenty-four year old Agnes said exactly what might be expected of very young Australian actors of the era – “Of course, I’m dying to get to London, and I’m hoping to go in December… I adore the stage… and have always been anxious to take up that life.” And in language also so typical of the time, the Perth newspaper added: “Though her association with the stage has been comparatively brief, Miss Doyle has already made solid progress towards the top of the stage ladder, and there seems little doubt that her talents, so obvious to those who have already seen the show, [The Patsy] combined with her ambition… will carry her further.”[8]The Daily News (WA) 2 Apr 1929, P1 A Sydney Truth review of her role in the comedy This Thing Called Love in October 1930 was equally effusive. Her performance as the “inconsequential little idiot” Dolly Garrett, was “sheer joy”.[9]Truth (Syd) 12 Oct 1930, P7

Left: Agnes Doyle in Eliza Comes To Stay (1930) Photograph – Walker Studios. Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne.
Right: Agnes Doyle and John Wood in Hayfever (1931) or While Parents Sleep (1932). The Marriner Theatre Archive, Melbourne.

The AusStage database entry for Agnes Doyle, which is not definitive, charts her busy schedule in the early 1930s, a reflection of her great popularity with Australian audiences. Her surviving JC Williamson contract also demonstrates how much “the Firm” valued her.[10]JC Williamson’s was the large theatrical firm that dominated Australasia In late 1933, the agreement was to pay her a working salary of £12 per week and then retain her on £4 per work when not working. It was generous pay for a woman in her late twenties. By comparison, the Australian minimum wage at the time was about £3 and 7 shillings.[11]Agnes Doyle contract with JC Williamsons. Dated 14 Dec 1933. Courtesy Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne

Agnes in Ivor Novello’s Fresh Fields in 1934. She took the same role for its New York run in 1936.[12]Table Talk (Melb), 31 May 1934, P23

Her stage work brought her into contact with an eclectic mix of visiting and Australian performers, but notably there were a large number who would also try their luck overseas in the 1930s – John Wood and Campbell Copelin, Mona Barrie, Lois Green, Mary MacGregor, Dulcie Cherry and Isabel Mahon.

When The Patsy was revived again in 1932, Everyone’s magazine reported: “The play marks another individual success for Agnes Doyle… This girl is going [ahead] with leaps and bounds. She has a whimsicality and method of expression quite unusual, and in the part of Pat Harrington… [a] very quaint and also very appealing little personality…[13]Everyones, Vol.13 No.651, 24 August 1932, P36

Patricia Penman and Agnes in 1933. A Rene Pardon Studio photograph. [14]The Sun (Syd) 6 Sept 1933, P18

By this time, her personal life had already been “remade.” She was now reported to be the daughter of “a well known grazier” and her hometown was the respectable and well established town of Bathurst.[15]The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 Oct 1934, P8 While this was a fiction, she had made some important society connections. Possibly while at Cobar she had befriended Patricia Penman [16]Western Age (Dubbo, NSW) 23 Sep 1931, P2 a budding actress now using the stage name Tisha (or Tuisha) Guille and the daughter of sportsman, mining engineer and colourful Sydney personality Arthur Percival (Percy) Penman. When Patricia married Jack Harris in 1933, Agnes was the single bridesmaid.[17]Patricia lived a long life in New Zealand. Sir Jack Harris ran New Zealand import-export firm Bing Harris for many years

Perhaps her signature role was in Ivor Novello‘s comedy Fresh Fields. The play opened in Sydney in March 1934 after a long run in London. It probably appealed to Britons and Australians for different reasons. It concerned the Pidgeons, an Australian family, who had just sold their large hotel in Brisbane and who suddenly appear in the lives of two impoverished aristocratic London sisters (who cannot afford the upkeep on their Belgravia mansion). Agnes played Una Pidgeon, the “gauche clumsy” Australian daughter, who eventually wins over everyone and makes a success at court.[18]Ivor Novello Fresh Fields synopsis (1935) The theme of brash, wealthy, but unsophisticated Australians (or Americans) versus the reserve and genteel poverty of an English family has been repeated so often it is immediately familiar to us today.

Move to the United States in 1935

Agnes arrived in the US on the SS Monterey in July 1935. Intriguingly, on US immigration documents she gave Arthur Penman as her guardian in Australia, and actor John Wood (who was then under contract to RKO) as her contact in the US. In early 1936 she played the role of Una again with the Margaret Anglin company production of Fresh Fields in New York. Reviews for her performance were positive – although the play itself may have been “too English” for a long run in the US. Variety thought it “overwritten” and a bit “too gabby.”[19]Variety 12 Feb 1936 P62

Stories that she got the role while “on the way to London” may be true, but they also bear close similarity to accounts given for the US discoveries of other young Australians – Mary Maguire, Jocelyn Howarth (Constance Worth) and Mona Barrie – and it seems to have been a favourite Australian newspaper story. Another popular story was that of the movie studio offer. In Agnes’ case, following reports back home of the success of Fresh Fields on Broadway, came stories of studio contracts and movie offers in Hollywood.[20]Daily Telegraph (Syd) 23 April 1936, P14 Whether she ever really entertained working in film is unknown, but The Australian Women’s Weekly claimed that talks with Twentieth Century-Fox had broken down because she was “asking too much.”[21]The Australian Women’s Weekly 18 April 1936, P29

Agnes touring in Yes, My Darling Daughter in 1938.[22]Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Texas) · 24 Feb 1938, P11

Still presenting as a slight but vivacious young woman, she was well suited to playing the rebellious modern daughter in Yes, My Darling Daughter, first in New York in 1937 and then on tour through the US in 1938. It was a popular success.

The celebratory press reports of the 1930s regarding Australian actors overseas regularly included news of Agnes’s doings. Her travel to London in 1936 and again in 1938 when she stayed with Lord and Lady Waleran, news of being seen in the company of interesting people like Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, aviator Charles Kingsford-Smith and Hollywood newcomer Jocelyn Howarth (Constance Worth); all fitted in with the contemporary nationalistic belief that Australians could do anything.[23]The Sun (Syd) 25 Jan 1938, P11 But there was little news about work on stage.

Australian sojourn 1945-6

Newly returned home in March 1945, Agnes models a New York hat.[24]The Sun (Syd) 11 Mar 1945, P6

Unusually, Agnes Doyle returned to Australia in March 1945 – before the end of World War II, a difficult task and only possible at the time if one had guaranteed work at the destination and could get a berth on a ship. Yet Agnes did this and she stepped back into the Australian theatre scene with a role in the new comedy The Voice of the Turtle, with great ease. What had she been doing in New York for the previous six years was vaguely and briefly reported. When pressed, she spoke of her recent role in (a very short run of) That Old Devil.[25]The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 8 Mar 1945, P16 She also mentioned radio plays for the B.B.C. and a play for NBC’s TV channel. She explained that she had worked for the British Ministry of War Transport for 18 months and had also helped raise $200,000 for American War Loan Bonds.[26]The Sydney Morning Herald 8 Mar 1945, P5

Voice of the Turtle demonstrated that, whatever she had been doing, she had lost none of her skills as an actor. This contemporary adult comedy had a healthy two month run at Sydney’s Minerva Theatre and Agnes and Ron Randell, her co-star, were complimented for their performances.[27]The Sydney Morning Herald 10 Apr 1945, P5 This was followed by a short run of Shaw’s Arms and the Man at the Minerva.[28]The Daily Telegraph (Syd)13 Aug 1945
P16

Career in the US after 1946

It took until April 1946 for Agnes to get a passage back to the US, and during the interim she lived with the Penman family in Sydney again. She had time to socialise with friends, support events for the services and comment on Australia’s limited post-war opportunities for actors. [29]She also thought income taxes were too high. Daily Telegraph (Syd) 7 Jan 1946, P9 Like Ron Randell, she declined to take up a role in Flying Foxes, a play with an Australian theme written by US serviceman Warren D Cheney, that was very publicly proposed for a New York launch in early 1946.[30]See Daily Telegraph (Syd) 27 Jan 1946, P6. After US war service, Warren DeWitt Cheney, a maker of medical documentaries, went on to an interesting career as an abstract sculptor and later became a … Continue reading

One might wonder why Agnes Doyle, “Australia’s great little favourite,” returned to the US if her career there had slowed.[31]JC Williamson Whistling in the Dark program, August 1932. Via National Library of Australia PROMPT collection However, as this writer has noted before, the choice for post-war Australian performers was stark. Actors could either stay – meaning they would continue to work for JC Williamsons, or on radio, or perhaps in a rare Australian film – there was, as yet, no television. Alternatively, they could try their luck overseas – where the opportunities seemed boundless.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to trace all of Agnes’s professional activities in the post-war world. She appeared in several live plays for US television in the mid-1950s and occasionally wrote for newspapers. She was living in apartment hotels in the 1940s – the Royalton and Algonquin in New York, both well known for hosting actors seeking work. However, her luck changed at the end of the 1950s, when she took on a new and very high profile role. JC Williamson’s employed her as their New York representative, to negotiate contracts and complex royalty agreements – for example for the hugely successful musical Camelot. Some of these survive in the archives of the Australian Performing Arts Collection in Melbourne.

Agnes’s name on JC Williamsons letterhead, c1960. She continued in this role for at least ten years.[32]Australian Performing Arts Collection

Agnes Doyle became a US citizen in February 1958. By that time she lived at the Martha Washington Hotel, a women’s-only residential hotel in New York.

Agnes died at the Actor’s Fund Home in Englewood, New Jersey in August 1992. She never married, had no dependents and appears to have had no significant long-term partnership. A lonely life, perhaps. In 2024, the township of Nymagee still mines copper and sustains a population of about 100.

Another image of Agnes while performing in Op O’ Me Thumb in 1930. Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.

Note 1 – Her family

There were great tragedies in Agnes’s life and these almost certainly coloured her willingness to discuss her past and probably influenced many of her decisions. In December 1920, her older sister Annie died in heartbreaking circumstances, apparently as a result of an attempt to induce an abortion.[33]Truth (Syd), 2 Jan 1921, P9 Annie also left behind a very young son, and the grief for the Doyle family was palpable.[34]The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 14 Dec 1920, P4[35]The Sydney Morning Herald 14 Dec 1920, P7 Twenty-two years later, in early 1942, Agnes’s brother Dennis died in fighting during the Japanese invasion of Malaysia and Singapore. He left behind a family. It appears that Agnes was estranged from her mother for much of her life. Not so her father, who as late as 1950 was proudly providing commentary on her life.[36]The Daily Mirror (Syd) 15 Feb 1950, P24 reported Patrick Doyle appearing on 2SM’s radio program “Fifty and Over”

Nick Murphy
March 2024

References

Special thanks

  • Claudia Funder – Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne
  • Elaine Marriner – Marriner Theatre Archive, Melbourne

Collections

  • Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne Australia
  • The Marriner Theatre Archive, Melbourne
  • New South Wales State Archives, Museums of History, New South Wales
  • State Library of New South Wales
  • State Library of Victoria
  • Births, Deaths & Marriages, New South Wales
  • Ancestry.com
  • Newspapers.com
  • National Library of Australia – Trove
  • National Library of New Zealand – Papers Past

Text

  • Warren D Cheney (1978) Don’t you play games with me!: How to identify and deal with games children play against you. Randolph-Harris, California.
  • John McCallum (1979) Life with Googie. Heinemann, London
  • Ivor Novello (1933) Fresh Fields: A comedy in Three Acts. (1936 Edition) Samuel French, New York.

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 The Bulletin 26 Nov 1930, P18
↑2 As with so many divorce documents of this time, a great deal was written but much remains unstated. See Divorce papers; Michael Doyle – Ada Doyle, 1912-1913, New South Wales State Archives
↑3 Cobar Herald (NSW) 9 December 1913, P13
↑4 Western Age (NSW), 31 Jul 1917, P3
↑5 The Sun (Syd) 28 Nov 1926, P31. There is evidence that Agnes subsequently taught dancing at Melbourne’s Green Mill Dance Hall in the late 1920s. See Table Talk (Melb) 21 Mar 1929, P64
↑6 The Sun (Syd) 3 Jul 1927, P38
↑7 Sunday Times (Syd) 24 Oct 1926, P26
↑8 The Daily News (WA) 2 Apr 1929, P1
↑9 Truth (Syd) 12 Oct 1930, P7
↑10 JC Williamson’s was the large theatrical firm that dominated Australasia
↑11 Agnes Doyle contract with JC Williamsons. Dated 14 Dec 1933. Courtesy Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne
↑12 Table Talk (Melb), 31 May 1934, P23
↑13 Everyones, Vol.13 No.651, 24 August 1932, P36
↑14 The Sun (Syd) 6 Sept 1933, P18
↑15 The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 Oct 1934, P8
↑16 Western Age (Dubbo, NSW) 23 Sep 1931, P2
↑17 Patricia lived a long life in New Zealand. Sir Jack Harris ran New Zealand import-export firm Bing Harris for many years
↑18 Ivor Novello Fresh Fields synopsis (1935)
↑19 Variety 12 Feb 1936 P62
↑20 Daily Telegraph (Syd) 23 April 1936, P14
↑21 The Australian Women’s Weekly 18 April 1936, P29
↑22 Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Texas) · 24 Feb 1938, P11
↑23 The Sun (Syd) 25 Jan 1938, P11
↑24 The Sun (Syd) 11 Mar 1945, P6
↑25 The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 8 Mar 1945, P16
↑26 The Sydney Morning Herald 8 Mar 1945, P5
↑27 The Sydney Morning Herald 10 Apr 1945, P5
↑28 The Daily Telegraph (Syd)13 Aug 1945
P16
↑29 She also thought income taxes were too high. Daily Telegraph (Syd) 7 Jan 1946, P9
↑30 See Daily Telegraph (Syd) 27 Jan 1946, P6. After US war service, Warren DeWitt Cheney, a maker of medical documentaries, went on to an interesting career as an abstract sculptor and later became a psychologist
↑31 JC Williamson Whistling in the Dark program, August 1932. Via National Library of Australia PROMPT collection
↑32 Australian Performing Arts Collection
↑33 Truth (Syd), 2 Jan 1921, P9
↑34 The Daily Telegraph (Syd) 14 Dec 1920, P4
↑35 The Sydney Morning Herald 14 Dec 1920, P7
↑36 The Daily Mirror (Syd) 15 Feb 1950, P24 reported Patrick Doyle appearing on 2SM’s radio program “Fifty and Over”