Tag: Mary Mauricette MacGillicuddy

The short career of gaiety girl Mollie Ventry (1879-1954)

Above: With big hair and big hat, Mollie Ventry (born Annie MacGillicuddy) photographed by Irish photographer Lallie Charles, c1905. Author’s collection.
24 year old Mollie Ventry while she was with George Musgrove in 1903.[1]Punch (Melb) 2 July 1903, p32

Life in Australia

Born on 12 September 1879, Annie Mary MacGillicuddy was the youngest child of Patrick MacGillicuddy and Annie nee O’Halloran.[2]Sometimes her name is rendered Anne or Annie Marie, and the surname often spelled McGillicuddy. However, see her Victorian Birth Certificate 25575/1879 Growing up in inner Melbourne,[3]Annie had actually been born in Bendigo, and most of her siblings in Benalla both Annie and her older sister Adeline (1876-1949) were outstanding students at Fitzroy’s Academy of Mary Immaculate.[4]Advocate (Melb) 2 January 1892, p7 The MacGillicuddy family were all musically inclined, but sometime around the end of the century, Annie attended the Marshall-Hall conservatorium of Music (later known as the Albert Street or the Melba Conservatorium) where she refined her skills.[5]The Young Chronicle (NSW) 19 Feb, 1908 p4 The Melbourne based, Viennese-born soprano Elise Wiedermann was one of her teachers.[6]Bendigo Advertiser (Vic) 4 Jan 1908, p4

Mollie profiled as one of “the pretty women of the Australian stage.” by Melbourne Punch in 1902.[7]Punch (Melb) 10 April 1902 p6

Possessed of good looks in the gaiety girl tradition, and “a sweet soprano voice of rare quality,”[8]Table Talk (Melb) 12 March 1903, p20 she first appeared in theatre in 1899, adopting the stage name Mollie Ventry.[9] Punch (Melb) 25 May 1899, p14 The choice of Ventry[10]a name with Irish connections – being the anglicised name of Ceann Trá, a town in County Kerry as an easier stage name than MacGillicuddy is understandable, but the continued use of “Mollie” during her later life suggests it was a family or pet name.[11]Her stage name was sometimes also rendered Molly, even by Mollie herself

By the age of 24 Mollie had found ongoing work with theatre entrepreneur George Musgrove – in his Musical Comedy Company.

Mollie with Musgrove’s company in 1903. (Incorrectly listed as Dolly) [12]The Express and Telegraph (Adelaide) 16 May 1903, p2

On stage in England

By late 1904 she was appearing in The Orchid for JC Williamsons – an entertainment in the tradition of the popular George Edwardes gaiety productions.[13]The Argus (Melb) 31 Oct 1904, p6 Then, in January 1905 she took passage for England. She explained later that she needed “a holiday” as she had become “very discontented in Melbourne”.[14]The Young Chronicle (NSW) 19 February 1908, p4 Unusually, she used the name “Miss M Ventry” rather than her real name on the passenger manifest – a reminder how different travel requirements were at the time. The voyage to England was most likely explained very simply – she wanted to try her luck in London. It was already a path trodden by other Australian women. In 1897, 17 year old Maie Saqui (claiming an age of 23) had travelled from Melbourne to London in search of work. She was joined on stage by her sisters Gladys and Hazel over the next few years. Ethel Haydon, also from Melbourne, was onstage at the Gaiety Theatre by 1896. Norma Whalley might also be counted as an Australian born gaiety girl, although her real identity continues to elude us today.

Interestingly, these women all made the journey to London on their own. In her study of Australian women who went to London, Angela Woollacott notes that for some, the metropolis “represented opportunities and possibilities beyond those available to them, in what some feminist scholars have identified as [the] stridently masculinist culture” that was colonial era Australia.[15]Woollacott, 2001, p7

Left – The stereotypical Edwardes chorus girl from the play A Gaiety Girl.[16]Image by Dudley Hardy, Paris, 1896 via Wikipmedia Commons Right – Australian gaiety girl. Maie Saqui, playing Maud Powerscourt in The Toreador in 1902.[17]The Tatler, 12 March 1902.

Soon after arriving in London, George Edwardes offered Mollie a minor role in the successful new musical comedy Lady Madcap, which had been running at the Prince of Wales Theatre for several months. She stayed with this until it closed. Then she took the supporting role of Catherine in Mr Popple (of Ippleton) at the Apollo in November 1905. Wearing (1981) states this musical ran until March 1906. The parts rolled on – including another musical comedy – The Girl Behind the Counter at Wyndham’s. Possibly seeking a change from musical comedy, she appeared in Frederick Fenn’s comedy/drama of working class life – The Convict on the Hearth. Finally, in 1907, she took a part in US writer Langdon Mitchell’s satire The New York Idea. In 1908 she was to say that she had been in continuous employment for three years straight.[18]The Young Chronicle (NSW) 19 February 1908, p4

A cast photo of The New York Idea while playing at the Apollo in 1907. Mollie Ventry is at right. [19]Tatler (UK) 11 December 1907

She explained to the same journal that she often felt homesick, and she had convinced her sister Adeline to join her in London in 1906. Together, they shared a comfortable flat at 32 Elm Park Mansions in Chelsea.

On being a Gaiety Girl

Many of the gaiety girls made “good marriages” to wealthy admirers and titled men. Mollie also had stories to share about her admirers. One man was so annoyed by the attention given to Mollie by another, that he sent her a threatening letter, apparently written in blood. Another, or perhaps the same stage door Johnnie, impersonated a cab driver, so as to be nearer to her.[20]The Advertiser (Adelaide) 10 January, 1908 ·p11 In February 1906 an Australian newspaper reported a budding romance – she had supposedly charmed the grandson of a Lord, who enjoyed an income of £12,000 per annum.[21]The Gadfly (Adelaide) 28 February 1906, p18 If this was true, it came to nothing. But in time, Mollie made a good marriage too.

Undated postcard showing a gaiety girl and a stage door Johnny – Author’s Collection.

There are few surviving records that explain the phenomenon of stage door Johnnies of this era, and even the light-hearted name suggests an endearing, wealthy, sometimes comical boffin. This writer has seen only one collection of ephemera relating to Johnnies of this era – in the papers of May Pollard. The surviving letters are overly polite, insistent but occasionally overbearing.[22]May Pollard Collection, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

Positive though her career in London had been, it seems to have come to an abrupt and unexplained halt in early 1908. She was aged 29 and simply stopped performing. There are no clues in the historical record to help us understand why. Perhaps the career was not as exciting and rewarding as we might like to imagine.

Photographed by Lallie Charles, c1905. Author’s collection.

Life after the theatre

In November 1908, in London, Mollie’s sister Adeline married Oscar von Bernuth, a US based businessman. Mollie witnessed the marriage certificate, signing her name “Molly MacGillicuddy”. Also at the wedding was a certain Georges Perbal, reportedly the best man.[23]The Australasian (Melb) 2 Jan 1909, p46

In March 1910, Adeline and Mollie returned to Australia to visit family. After a few months, Adeline travelled to New York where she and Oscar were now based. Mollie stayed longer in Australia – she departed for London on the Mongolia in August 1910. On arrival, she almost immediately married Georges Perbal, the French industrialist who had been at Adeline’s wedding. There was no publicity regarding Mollie’s marriage at all. And on the marriage certificate, Mollie sliced eight years off her age – claiming a birth in 1887. Her sister Adeline and brother in law travelled to London to be witnesses.[24]It is intriguing that she listed her father as deceased on the marriage certificate. He was living in Australia at the time. Perhaps he did not approve…

We have only a limited chain of evidence regarding Mollie’s life in France after 1910. The family home was in Longwy, France, and a daughter, Rose Marie, was born to the couple in August 1912. She remained close to her sister Adeline all her life, and made the trip to see her in New York a number of times. In New York, Oscar Bernuth went on to establish a successful US shipping company.

We know that Georges Perbal flourished. In 1911 he established a foundry in Charency Vezin, in France’s north-east, twenty kilometres from Longwy. On the eve of the First World War he was employing over 200 men.[25]American Foundrymen’s Association, 1922, p60-2 French national archives suggest it was severely damaged during both world wars. It appears to have closed by about 1960, although some of the foundry’s buildings still stand today. Perbal had served with distinction as an officer in the First World War. In June 1920 he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour for bravery.

To date, this writer has been unable to find how Georges and Mollie managed during the Second World War. Australians, born as British subjects, (even if they had become French citizens) were generally interned by the occupying German Army.

Mollie died in France in 1954. Today, all her descendants all live in France.


The MacGillicuddy Family

In addition to her sister, Mollie had four older brothers. Daniel (1864-1936) and Maurice (1871-1942) were both physicians. Two other brothers moved to Western Australia – Edgar (1873-1940) being a dentist and Ernest (1865-1936) a business manager. Maurice’s two musically gifted daughters Mauricette (1913-1998) and Joan (1918-1978) both acted in the US. Joan adopted the name Joan Winfield and took a number of minor roles in Hollywood films in the 1940s. Mauricette called herself Dale Melbourne and toured the US with a production of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House in the later 1940s.

Mollie’s two nieces – Joan and Mauricette MacGillicuddy. Born in Melbourne, the sisters developed modest acting careers in the US. Author’s collection.

References

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

Text

  • American Foundrymen’s Association. Vol 30.Transactions of the Twenty-sixth Annual Meeting, Rochester, N. Y. June 5 to 9, 1922. Via Internet Archive.
  • John Meredyth Lucas (2004) Eighty Odd Years in Hollywood. McFarland & Co
  • J.P. Wearing (1981) The London Stage, 1900-1909: A Calendar of Plays and Players. (2 Vols) Scarecrow Press.
  • Angela Woollacott (2001) To Try her Fortune in London: Australian Woman, Colonialism and Modernity. Oxford University Press.

Web

  • Bibliothèque Nationale de France – Gallica
  • Republic of France – Portail National des Archives – French National Archives.
This site has been selected for preservation in the National Library of Australia’s Pandora archive

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Punch (Melb) 2 July 1903, p32
↑2 Sometimes her name is rendered Anne or Annie Marie, and the surname often spelled McGillicuddy. However, see her Victorian Birth Certificate 25575/1879
↑3 Annie had actually been born in Bendigo, and most of her siblings in Benalla
↑4 Advocate (Melb) 2 January 1892, p7
↑5 The Young Chronicle (NSW) 19 Feb, 1908 p4
↑6 Bendigo Advertiser (Vic) 4 Jan 1908, p4
↑7 Punch (Melb) 10 April 1902 p6
↑8 Table Talk (Melb) 12 March 1903, p20
↑9 Punch (Melb) 25 May 1899, p14
↑10 a name with Irish connections – being the anglicised name of Ceann Trá, a town in County Kerry
↑11 Her stage name was sometimes also rendered Molly, even by Mollie herself
↑12 The Express and Telegraph (Adelaide) 16 May 1903, p2
↑13 The Argus (Melb) 31 Oct 1904, p6
↑14, ↑18 The Young Chronicle (NSW) 19 February 1908, p4
↑15 Woollacott, 2001, p7
↑16 Image by Dudley Hardy, Paris, 1896 via Wikipmedia Commons
↑17 The Tatler, 12 March 1902.
↑19 Tatler (UK) 11 December 1907
↑20 The Advertiser (Adelaide) 10 January, 1908 ·p11
↑21 The Gadfly (Adelaide) 28 February 1906, p18
↑22 May Pollard Collection, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
↑23 The Australasian (Melb) 2 Jan 1909, p46
↑24 It is intriguing that she listed her father as deceased on the marriage certificate. He was living in Australia at the time. Perhaps he did not approve…
↑25 American Foundrymen’s Association, 1922, p60-2

Joan Winfield (1918-1978) – celebrated violinist and actor

Above and below – Joan Winfield in 1942. Press photo, source unknown, in the author’s collection. 

Joan Marie Therese MacGillicuddy was born in Melbourne in 1918, the second child of Dr Maurice and Nell MacGillicuddy, important figures in society and the local charitable community. Joan and her older sister Mary Mauricette (born in 1913 and called Billie by the family) had grown up with a love of performance and music. Maurice ran a well known and successful medical practice in the city and Richmond. Both girls gained fame in Melbourne as musicial prodigies – Mauricette was an accomplished pianist studying at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, while Joan, still a student at Catholic Ladies College, was a skilled violinist.

Joan as violinist 1934Mauricette farewell 1936

Joan and Mauricette as they appeared in The Advocate, the Melbourne Catholic newspaper.
Note that Joan had won the Victorian Open Violin Championship for Under 25 years, not as is often claimed, “The Australian Violin championship.” All the same, it was a remarkable achievement for a 15 year old. The Advocate 26 July, 1934 and  The Avocate, 26 March 1936 via The National Library of Australia’s Trove.

Joan also enjoyed the stage, and took a leading role in several pantomimes performed for charity. In 1930 she appeared in The Doll’s House Tea Party, with another aspiring actress, Peggy Maguire, who she would later meet again in Hollywood as Mary Maguire. Joan apparently enjoyed this so much she played the same role again in 1931.

Joan and Peggy

Peggy Maguire is in the maid’s costume, 6th from the left. Joan MacGillicuddy appears to be in the centre, 8th from left. Via  The National Library of Australia’s Trove – The Argus, 16 June, 1930

Life changed in 1936, when the family decided to travel to Britain so that Mauricette could continue her studies in music. John Meredyth Lucas (Joan’s husband after 1951) suggested the move was also because Maurice had discovered he had terminal cancer and wanted to make the most of his final years. After numerous parties and farewell concerts, the family departed Melbourne in April. In July 1937, Mauricette, now making a name for herself in London as a musician, was presented at court. Joan was studying “dramatic art,” – it was later reported to be at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. The family resided for a time at the Duke Street Mansion Apartments in Grosvenor Square and then in June 1939 sailed to New York on the SS Normandie.  (Maurice’s sister lived in New York. He died there in August 1942)

The very young and fresh Joan Winfield in movie publicity shots. Above left: Joan and another Warner Bros. starlet, Faye Emerson, in a typical wartime publicity shot. The film they appeared in together was actually Lady Gangster and the cups they were pictured with an obvious studio stunt. [Hollywood Magazine Jan-April 1942, Via Lantern]
Above right: Joan with Warren Douglas in Murder on the Waterfront. [Warner Bros Pressbook, 1943, Via Lantern]

According to John Meredyth Lucas, it was in New York sometime in 1941 that Joan was spotted by a Warner Bros. scout and offered the standard contract  – the type that enabled a studio to “try out” new faces for up to seven years, but did not necessarily offer much in return. Merle Oberon described the studio system at this time as a “sausage machine,” an apt metaphor for its treatment of young stars like Joan. She was to be known professionally as Joan Winfield, a name plucked from Bette Davis‘ character in the 1941 film The Bride came C.O.D. It was claimed her spectacular swimsuit body made her a popular pin-up with allied troops, which is almost certainly another studio publicity story. However, it is the case that like many other actors, Joan did her bit entertaining servicemen passing through Hollywood. Australian actor Vincent Ball, then a Australian Air Force (RAAF) trainee in Canada, recalled meeting Joan at the Hollywood Canteen on a break from training. While the highlight was dancing with Deanna Durbin, it was Joan Winfield who took Ball and his Australian comrades under her wing, and arranged studio visits for them. 

Above: Joan demonstrating makeup in Modern Screen, Jan-Nov 1944, via Lantern.

By the end of the 1940s, after years of completely unremarkable B-films for the likes of Warner’s prolific director “Breezy” Eason, (see the rather underwhelming 50 minute Murder on the Waterfront for example), Joan’s career had become confined to un-credited supporting roles, later in father-in-law Michael Curtiz‘s films. If this annoyed her or disappointed her, she never publicly said so.

Joan 1945

Above: Joan Winfield as she appeared in The Des Moines Register (Iowa), 4 March 1945. Beauty, swimsuits and health were important features of Joan’s publicity, and for someone confined mostly to minor or un-credited roles, she enjoyed remarkable publicity. Via Newspapers.com.

This is probably because she found interests beyond acting. She became a US citizen and after several reported romances, married Hollywood writer – director – producer John Meredyth Lucas (son of director Wilfred Lucas and Bess Meredyth) in 1951. They had met on the set of the wartime drama The Gorilla Man, in 1943. Together they raised three children and Joan increasingly worked for charitable causes, continuing to take small film parts until 1957.

east melbourne

Hotham St East Melbourne in 2020. The last MacGillicuddy home in Melbourne, the grey building (the grey is an extension on the front of a Victorian building) on the right is now a private residence again. It looks out on a streetscape that has changed little since Joan revisited it in 1960. Author’s collection

Joan returned to Australia in 1959, while John was directing and writing scripts for the TV series Whiplash, an Australian “western” starring Peter Graves. They visited the beautiful MacGillicuddy home in Hotham Street, East Melbourne. Much to her horror, it had become a scruffy boarding house. But her old school nearby, Catholic Ladies College, was still operating and some of the nuns who taught Joan were there to greet her. In his autobiography, John recalled being deeply moved by the welcome given to his wife in the school’s best parlour. Sister Bernard held Joan’s hand for the entire visit and recounted what had happened to her classmates and all of the nuns.

Apparently a heavy smoker all her life, Joan died after a battle with cancer, aged only fifty-nine, in June 1978.

A Doll's House Darwell and Melbourne

Above: Jane Darwell with Joan’s sister Dale Melbourne in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House c 1945. Author’s Collection.

In addition to singing, Joan’s sister Billie also took to acting, performing on stage in the United States in the mid 1940s, using the stage name Dale Melbourne. Independent producer James B Cassidy organised a tour of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House throughout North America in 1944-6 and apart from Billie in the role of Nora, it also featured well known actors Francis Lederer, Jane Darwell and Lyle Talbot (yes – the same Lyle Talbot who appeared in Plan 9 from Outer Space in 1957). Cassidy and Billie were married, until his untimely death in 1952.

Vancouver Sun 18 Nov 1944
Above: A Doll’s House advertised in The Vancouver Sun, 18 November 1944. Via Newspapers.com

In 1981 Billie married John Herklotz, a Californian businessman and philanthropist. She died in 1998 but remains well remembered at the University of California. The University’s Conference facility at the Centre for Neurobiology of Learning and Memory is named after her.

John Meredyth Lucas’s autobiography, with its entertaining accounts of making a pioneering TV series in Australia, was published shortly after his death in 2002. He is, of course, remembered for his own prolific and diverse body of work especially on television – which included writing, producing and directing Star Trek, The Six Million Dollar Man, Harry O and The Fugitive.

Lucas and Meredyth in an advertisement from EJ Carroll. The Green Room Magazine, 1 Oct, 1919, P9. Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW.

Note: Lucas’ parents, US actress and writer Bess Meredyth and director Wilfred Lucas, made three films in Australia in 1920-1 with Snowy Baker and local producer E. J. Carroll, one of which, The Man from Kangaroo has survived to the 21st Century. 

 

Nick Murphy
Updated July 2020

Further Reading

  • John Meredyth Lucas (2004) Eighty Odd Years in Hollywood: Memoir of a Career in Film and Television. McFarland and Co.
  • Ross Carpenter Legends of Australian Ice – Site also includes photos of Joan and Mauricette.
  • Vincent Ball (1996) Buck Jones Where Are You? An Australian Boy’s Adventure. Random House Australia

National Library of Australia, Trove,

  • The Argus, 16 June 1930
  • The Advocate 26 July, 1934
  • The Avocate, 26 March 1936
  • The Australian Women’s Weekly 5 Aug 1944  Page 11
  • The Argus (Melbourne) 12 Jun 1946

Newspapers.com

  • The San Francisco Examiner, 15 Oct 1944
  • Vancouver Sun 18 Nov 1944
  • The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky) 18 Jan 1945
  • The Des Moines Register (Des Moines, Iowa) 4 Mar 1945
  • The Los Angeles Times 27 August 1981

Lantern Digital Media Project

  • Hollywood Magazine, Jan-Dec 1942
This site has been selected for archiving and preservation in the National Library of Australia’s Pandora archive