Auckland Girl's Stage Career

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 620, 23 March 1929, Page 24

Auckland Girl's Stage Career

An Auckland-born girl. Nellis Denj nis, is attracting considerable attention on the Australian stage at pres- j sent. Her work in “The Wrecker” has; ! pleased both public and critics. I “I might say I’m an Australian by this time, as I came over when I was ! six,” is her confession of facts, ali though she was born in Auckland. Gaston Mervale is responsible for i inculcating the first principles of actI ing into her, and she played for him \ in Melbourne in “Lilies of the Field,” j and then went to Adelaide to play the lead in “The Alarm Clock,” gaining | some further experience in a stock | company there. She was in two of Muriel Starr’s productions,-* playing comedy. and then she went on tour in Floie Allan’s ! part of Freda in “The Cousin from Nowhere,” with soubrette parts in “Katja” and “Kissing Time.” After this George Carney selected her for a sketch at the Tivoli, and she was understudy for Elsie Prince in “Mercenary Mary” for a while. “But Elsie never gets ill.” She went on at short notice for Mary Gannon in “Please Get Married,” and she made an extensive tour as the mad girl, Julia (the lead) in “The Ghost Train.” For a young girl this is no mean record, but Nellie Dennis is brimming over with the enthusiasm for her work, and with a natural gaiety that is bound to make itself felt behind the footlights. Timidly she admits that in her spare time she writes poetry. “Quite a lot of it, but I’m too timid to try it on editors.”