Music hall and variety Page 13

At least Edith Piaf has no regrets:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoYHWgj1Gcs

Édith Piaf (born Edith Giovanna Gassion 19 December 1915) is widely regarded as France's greatest popular singer and one of the most celebrated performers of the 20th century.

Piaf's mother abandoned her at birth and she lived for a short time with her maternal grandmother. However, when her father enlisted with the French Army in 1916 to fight in World War I, he took her to his mother, who ran a brothel in Bernay, Normandy, where the prostitutes helped to look after her. The bordello had two floors and seven rooms, and the prostitutes were not very numerous - "about ten poor girls", as she later described. The sub-mistress of the brothel was called "Madam Gaby" and Piaf considered her almost like family and she later became godmother of Denise Gassion, Piaf's half-sister born in 1931.

From the age of three to seven, Piaf was blind as a result of keratitis. According to one of her biographers, she recovered her sight after her grandmother's prostitutes pooled money to accompany her on a pilgrimage honouring Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Piaf claimed this resulted in a miraculous healing.

At age 14, Piaf was taken by her father to join him in his acrobatic street performances all over France, where she first began to sing in public. At age 16 she met a young man named Louis Dupont and lived with him for a time. She became pregnant and gave birth to a daughter, Marcelle. After Piaf's relationship with Dupont ended, Marcelle, who lived with her father, contracted meningitis and died in July 1935, aged two.

In 1935, Piaf was discovered by nightclub owner Louis Leplée. Her nervousness and her height of only 4' 8" inspired her nickname of "La Môme Pia" (The Waif - or Little - Sparrow). In 1936 Leplée was murdered and Piaf was questioned and accused as an accessory but acquitted.

Piaf's career and fame gained momentum during the German occupation of France in World War II. However, some of the venues at which she performed were inhabited by German officers and collaborating Frenchmen and she was invited to take part in a concert tour to Berlin, sponsored by the German officials. In 1942, she was able to afford a luxury flat in a house in the upmarket 16th arrondissement area of Paris area and she lived above the L'Étoile de Kléber, a famous nightclub and bordello close to the Paris Gestapo headquarters.

As a result, Piaf was accused of collaboration and had to testify before a post-war trial. However, her secretary, Andrée Bigard, a member of the French Resistance, spoke in her favour after the Liberation, testifying that she performed several times at prisoner-of-war camps in Germany and was instrumental in helping a number of prisoners escape. Additionally, at the beginning of the war, Piaf had met Michel Emer, a Jewish musician famous for the song L'Accordéoniste. and paid for him to travel to safety. Following the trial, Piaf was soon back performing and, in December 1944, she sang before the Allied forces in Marseille,

Between January 1955 and October 1962, Piaf performed several series of concerts at the Paris Olympia music hall and it was in the 1961 concerts, promised by Piaf in an effort to save the venue from bankruptcy, that she first sang Non, je ne regrette rien.

Piaf had been injured in a car accident in 1951 in which both she and singer Charles Aznavour (her then-assistant) were passengers. She suffered a broken arm and two broken ribs and her doctor prescribed the drug morphine, to which she became addicted and she also developed alcohol problems. Two subsequent car crashes exacerbated the situation.

Edith Piaf died of liver cancer on 10 October 1963 at the age of 47. Her last words were "Every damn thing you do in this life, you have to pay for". She was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, where her grave is among the most visited. The funeral procession drew tens of thousands of mourners onto the streets of Paris (reportedly the first time since the end of World War II that the traffic in Paris had come to a complete stop) and the ceremony at the cemetery was attended by more than 100,000. At the time, Piaf was denied a Catholic Requiem Mass since she had remarried after divorce but, after fifty years, the French Catholic Church recanted and gave her a Requiem Mass in the St. Jean-Baptiste Church in Belleville, Paris (the parish into which she was born), on 10 October 2013.

Gus Elen (see my post on page 3 of this thread) - It's a Great Big Shame:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmYcL8wlz7I

Born Dora May Broadbent on this date (7 February) in 1923, Dora Bryan, became a star in every branch of showbusiness except, in her own words, "the circus - and if they'd given me an elephant, I probably would have had a go at that too". She is pictured above with her London Palladium pantomime co-stars during a production of Jack and the Beanstalk.

Here, from this very site, Graham McCann recalls her comedy triumphs:

https://www.comedy.co.uk/features/comedy_chronicles/triumphs-of-dora-bryan/

A famous resident of Brighton and commuter on the Brighton Belle railway train, she lived to age 91 and her funeral service was held on 6 August 2014 at St George's Church, Brighton, where she had regularly attended services.

The inimitable Robb Wilton: Back Answers:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxbf5p5_qb0&t=26s

Anne Shelton (born Patricia Jacqueline Sibley in Dulwich on 10 November 1923) is best remembered for providing inspirational songs for soldiers both on wireless broadcasts and in person at British military bases during the Second World War, having first appeared on the BBC talent radio show "Monday Night at Eight" in May 1940 at the age of 16 singing Let the Curtain Come Down, as a result of which dance-band leader Bert Ambrose signed her to sing with his prestigious Ambrose Orchestra. In January 1941 she commenced weekly wireless broadcasts with Jack Payne and his orchestra and her own programme "Calling Malta" was broadcast from 1942 to 1947. As well as singing and recording, Shelton appeared in several films, including King Arthur Was a Gentleman (1942), Miss London Ltd (1943) and Bees in Paradise (1943),

In 1944 she was invited by Glenn Miller to sing in France with him and his orchestra. She declined because of prior commitments. Miller died during this tour when his plane crashed. In the same year she appeared with Bing Crosby on the wireless programme Variety Bandbox in which they sang Easter Parade together:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V0n6OEVlss

and was the original British singer of the German love-song Lili Marlene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HaR1nzQYQk

In 1956 she had a No.1 hit song in the UK with Lay Down Your Arms:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk4RYmy_LAs

In 1958-59 she starred in The Anne Shelton Show (ATV, 11 episodes), in 1961, Ask Anne (BBC TV, 11 episodes) and appeared in three Royal Variety Performances (1953, 1959 & 1978). She was often accompanied by her sister, Jo Shelton.

She was awarded the OBE in 1990 for her work with the "Not Forgotten Association", a charitable organisation for disabled former service personnel. She died in Herstmonceux, East Sussex on 31 July 1994 as a result of a heart attack and is buried at Camberwell New Cemetery. Her Dulwich residence at 142 Court Lane was awarded a Blue Plaque by Southwark London Borough Council in 2007.

Marie Lloyd born 154 years ago yesterday: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfW3TxQhy20

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 2nd January 2024, 7:10 PM

Marie Lloyd taking her morning promenade:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLrMv0nMnz8

Born 12 Feb 1870 in Hoxton, London, Marie Lloyd was the foremost English music-hall artiste of the late 19th century. She first appeared in 1885 at the Eagle Music Hall under the name Bella Delmare but six weeks later she adopted her permanent stage name. Her first major success came with her song The Boy I Love Is Up in the Gallery and she went on to top the bill at many prestigious West End theatres but, by the mid-1890s, she was in frequent dispute with Britain's theatre censors due to the risqué content of her songs.

Between 1894 and 1900, she toured France, America, Australia and Belgium and became an international success.. In 1907 she assisted other performers during the "music hall war" and took part in demonstrations outside theatres, protesting for better pay and conditions for performers. During the First World War, in common with many other music hall artists, she supported recruitment into the armed services to help the war effort, touring hospitals and industrial institutions to help boost morale. In 1915, she performed her only wartime song Now You've Got Your Khaki On, which became a favourite among front-line troops:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg7B2oKRv4Y

She had a rather turbulent private life and was often the subject of press attention: she was married three times, divorced twice and frequently found herself giving court testimony against two of her husbands who had physically abused her. In later life, she was still in demand at music halls and had a late success in 1919 with her performance of My Old Man Said Follow the Van, which became one of her most popular songs.

However, she suffered from bouts of ill-health and became alcohol-dependent, both of which imposed restrictions on her performing career by the 1920s. In 1922, she gave her final performance at the Alhambra Theatre, London, during which she became ill on stage. She died a few days later, on 7 October 1922, at the age of 52. More than 50,000 people attended her funeral at Hampstead Cemetery on 12 October.

In their announcement of Lloyd's death, The Times wrote: "The public loses not only a vivid personality whose range and extremely broad humour as a character actress were extraordinary but also one of the few remaining links with the old music-hall stage of the last century" and T.S. Eliot wrote that "her deep popular appeal stemmed from her ability to capture and express the spirit of the English common people. In her songs and sketches she introduced to the public a series of studies in Cockney humour, sympathetic to the little man and often risqué."

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One for Valentine's Day from Whispering Jack Smith in 1928 - That's My Weakness Now:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA2ZGea4Tk4

Written by Sam H. Stept and Bud Green, the song is about being in love with someone so much that they start to like things their lovers like that they previously never cared for.

Whispering Jack Smith, born in New York on 30 May 1896, made his London debut in the Midnight Follies at the Hotel Metropole in 1926 and appeared at the Shaftesbury Theatre in April 1928 in Will-o'-the-Whispers. His distinctive style of "whispering" singing, helped by the newly invented microphone, was a result of a World War I injury from poison gas that kept him from singing at full volume. He died in New York on 13 May 1950.

Wilkie Bard was born William August Smith in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Lancashire on 19 March 1874. He was a popular British music hall entertainer and recording artist at the beginning of the 20th century and is best known for his songs I Want to Sing in Opera and The Night Watchman.

He began as an amateur singer and comedian at the age of 21 and his act included performing in female character roles, specifically with his hit song I Want to Sing in Opera:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCtsAYuw0Jc

He performed in both America and Australia and also had a long career in pantomime (he is pictured above as Widow Twankey in Aladdin) and he introduced tongue twisters such as She sells seashells by the seashore, which he performed in the show "Dick Whittington and His Cat" in Drury Lane in 1908:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pobMI27JmkA

Bard was married to Ellen Smith (née Stratton), who performed using the stage name Nellie Stratton. He died age 70 on 5 May 1944 and is buried on the eastern side of Highgate Cemetery, on the main north/south path.

The song After the Ball was written in 1891 by Charles K. Harris in which an uncle tells his niece why he has never married. He saw his sweetheart in the company of another man a ball and he wouldn't to listen to her explanation. Many years later, after the woman had died, he discovered that the man was her brother.

After the Ball became the most successful song of its era, which at that time was gauged by the sales of sheet music. In 1892 it sold over two million copies of sheet music. Its total sheet music sales exceed five million copies. The song was originally written for an amateur minstrel show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was not an immediate success but Harris published it himself and arranged for it to be included into the touring musical production of A Trip to Chinatown in which it was sung by J. Aldrich Libbey. Its popularity grew when it was performed regularly by John Philip Sousa and his band at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago while, in England, it was promoted by George Lashwood and successful recordings in 1893 were by George J. Gaskin and by John Yorke Atlee. The song was later sung in the musical Show Boat, and in the 1940 biographical musical film, Lillian Russell, and is heard in the 1936 film San Francisco.

It has been recorded in more recent times by Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Anita Harris and even Dave Davies of the Kinks. Personally I've always liked this version by Irish singer (and now politician) Frances Black:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjER8_oXCnM

The 1957 film After the Ball was a portrayal of the life of Music Hall star Vesta Tilley.

Charlie Higgins: (see my post on page 7 of this thread) - "I'm a Daddy at 63":

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPxiMxS4XFc

"Grandfather's Clock" (more popularly known as My Grandfather's Clock") was written in 1876 by Henry Clay Work

and is a standard of British brass bands and colliery bands as well as having been recorded by artists as diverse as Sam Cooke, The King's Singers, Johnny Cash and Jon Pertwee. I remember having a record of it as young boy by a group called the Mudlarks

The earliest known recording of the song was by the Edison Quartet in 1905:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwR-BIu9MEk

Tomorrow night (Sunday 3 March) on TPTV @ 8:10pm sees the 40 minute short film Starlight Serenade in the Long Time Ago with the Bain Collection slot. It includes top of the bill song & dance performers with the highlight being two routines from those unique sand dancers Wilson, Keppel & Betty in which "Betty" (in this case "betty" being Patsy Knox, the original Betty's daughter) also shares a comedy scene with Bonar Colleano (whose parents were part of the Colleano's Circus family in Australia where Wilson and Keppel first met.

Harold Baim was one of the most prolific producers of short feature documentaries ("Quota Films"). The need for a quota of British films arose in 1927 when the ratio of American to British films shown in cinemas had dropped to sixteen to one. The government acted to prop up the failing British film industry and an Act of Parliament - The Cinematograph Films Act of 1927 - required a "quota" of British films be shown in cinemas. Harold Baim was one of the most prolific producers of short feature documentaries thus produced. By the mid 1960s, Baim's films numbered about a third of all short quota films made in the UK. His early films featured variety acts, his later films mainly colourful widescreen travelogues, often with commentaries by celebrated actors and broadcasters such as Telly Savalas, Nicholas Parsons and Terry Wogan.

This is a link to the Baim Collection website:

https://www.baimfilms.com/

Nellie Wallace was born Eleanor Jane Wallis Tayler in Glasgow 18 March 1870. Her mother was a retired actress who became a teacher and governess. Nellie was a British music hall star, actress, comedienne, dancer and songwriter who became one of the most famous and best loved music hall performers. She was known as "The Essence of Eccentricity". She always wore a hat sporting some obscure object such as a lone daisy, a feather, a fish bone or even a lit candle -- so she could see where she was going and where she had been!

She made her London debut in 1903 and, by 1910, she was given star billing at the London Palladium. Not a naturally pretty woman, a reviewer noted her 'grotesque get-up', which started the audience laughing the moment she appeared on stage; her cleverness, vivacity and facial expressions were second to none. She deliberately made herself appear ugly and performed in a multicoloured jumper, a very tight hobble skirt, a skimpy feather boa or moth-eaten fur stole which she described as her "little bit of vermin" and her "decorated" hat. Her appearance made her unusually successful as a pantomime dame -- a role usually performed by men.

Her main character was a frustrated spinster, singing ribald songs such as Under the Bed:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtWvFJWZAug&t=42s

and Let's Have a Tiddley at the Milk Bar:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH8hureJ0Oo

Nellie was married to William Henry Liddy, a comic actor who died in 1921. Their daughter Nora died in 1948, and Nellie died on 24 November the same year, having, it was said, "lost the will to live".

Born on this day (7 March) in 1900 in Grenada: singer & pianist Leslie Hutchinson known as "Hutch". He was invited to London by impresario CB Cochran in 1927 and became one of the biggest cabaret stars of his generation as well as a regular fixture of the gossip columns.

Hutchinson soon became the darling of society and the population in general. He was a favourite singer of the then Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) and was a major star in Britain during the 1920s and 1930s and, for a time, the highest paid star in the country. He was regularly heard on the BBC with one of his biggest hits, These Foolish Things:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHePfLq6oyU

He also recorded several of Cole Porter's songs, including Begin the Beguine:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8OAilfa9l0

and Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGFJ9K7DcXs

Hutch was one of the first stars in Britain to volunteer to entertain the troops at home and abroad during World War II, but he received no formal recognition for his service and his name would never appear on any Honours list.

He was married to Ella Byrd and their daughter, Lesley Bagley Yvonne, was born in 1926. He went on to father seven further children with six different mothers. In 1930, one of Hutch's mistresses, British debutante Elizabeth Sperling, was discovered to be pregnant with his child. Her family tried to hush up the affair, hastily marrying her off to an army officer and attempting to pass off the child as his. When the child was born, however, and discovered to be of mixed race, the officer refused to acknowledge her as his own. She (Gabrielle) was put up for adoption and Elizabeth Sperling's outraged father, the former diplomat Rowland Sperling, sued Hutch.

Hutch was also rumoured to have had a lengthy affair with Edwina Mountbatten, Countess Mountbatten of Burma, which scandalised the British upper classes, becoming the subject of tabloid news and an embarrassment to Lady Mountbatten's royal in-laws. The Mountbattens sued the tabloids for libel and, as a result of the scandal, Hutch was shunned by many of his former patrons and his career was effectively over.

Leslie Hutchinson suffered from ill-health in his later years and died at New End Hospital, Hampstead from pneumonia on 18 August 1969. Forty-two people attended his funeral on 22 August 1969 at the Parish Church of St. John, Hampstead.

On 12 October 2012, an English Heritage blue plaque, in commemoration of Hutch, was unveiled by his daughter, Gabrielle, at 31 Steele's Road, Belsize Park, his home from 1929 to 1967

and, in November 2016, Hutch was featured in episode four of the BBC series Black and British: A Forgotten History, presented by historian David Olusoga, during which a plaque was unveiled by Gabrielle and her half-brother, Chris, in the presence of extended family at Mayfair restaurant Quaglino's, where he used to perform later in his career.

My great-grandmother was a showbiz legend. I'm not saying she was up there with Alma Cogan, Shirley Bassey and Petula Clark and I'm not saying anybody alive today outside our family has ever heard of her but she did well enough for herself professionally and was extremely well known in her local neighbourhood. I know some of you are asking does that really qualify her as a showbiz legend and the answer is 'Yes, it does so shut up.'
One thing about her which can't be denied is that she was a very attractive woman and when I tell you she even looked good on her passport photo, you'll know I'm telling the truth.
Anyway, a story that's a been passed down in our family for the past many decades is about the time she attracted the attention of Leslie Hutchinson who one evening approached her in a nightclub and, as they say, one thing led to another.
The following morning and for years afterwards, whenever she was asked about her experience with 'Hutch', she'd reply with one simple sentence which later became the title of a song in the 1967 'Dr Dolittle' film.