BOHEMIAN CAREER

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 94, 11 December 1931, Page 7

BOHEMIAN CAREER

JIMMY GLOVER, WELL KNOWN PERSONALITY. DEAD. DRURY LANE NOTABLE. , LONDON, Monday. For some 40 years one of the best known personalities in theatrical and musical circles in London, Mr. James Maekay Glover, familiarly known as "Jimmy" Glover, died at Hastings at the age of 70. Glover was the famous conductor and former musical director at Drury Lane. He was one of the few remaining Bohemians, perhaps the most outstanding of them all, and no figure will be more acutely missed from London's stage life. For 30 years he was associated with Drury Lane, and during that period he came to personify the theatre to the majority of its patrons.^ Born in Dublin, Glover was first apprenticed to a pharmaceutical chemist, where, as he declared, "I wasted three years of my life." In those days he played the organ at Dublin churches. He was sent to Paris for a musical education, and when he returned secured an engagement as pianist with a woman conjurer. "She was also a mesmerist," Glover related, "and part of my duties was to improvise an accompaniment suggestive^ of a gentleman swallowing a pint of paraffin oil, and also of a gentleman having pins stuck in him. ; The second night I played the 'paraffin oil' music for the 'pin' gentleman, and a few words followed." After being dismissed by the conjurer, Glover spent a little while with some acrobats, and was left with some bills on which he was described as "musical director." That deseription enabled him to get a musical director's job on tour at £3- a week. "Robison Crusoe." His first Drury Lane pantomime was "Robinson Crusoe," in 1893. Dan Leno, Herbert Campbell, Marie Lloyd, and Little Titch were there in those days. During hjs association with the "Lane," Glover's duties were many and varied. Once he had to go to Windsor, take a punt and journey up the backwaters and creeks of the river shouting "Melba, Melba!" in order to get the great singer to come at once to London to play in "Rigoletto." He used to tell how the Drury Lane patnomime one rang up without a principal boy, and once the prineipal comedian did not appear until later.. Glover's appearance, with the inevitable monocle, among his orchestra at Drury Lane in the days of his prime was an important part of the show. He would take the conductor's chair with superb dignity. His orchestra was started with a flick of the baton. Then he would loll back, leave the orchestra to itself, turn round in his seat, and survey the house for his friends. Each one would be greeted with a rich, impressive nod. It was a great thing to be acknowledged by "Jimmy." The death of Glover's second .wife two years ago came as a blow from which he never fully recovered. For some time past he had lived at the Albany Hotel, Hastings.