The Actressocracy—Stage and Peerage

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 654, 4 May 1929, Page 18

The Actressocracy —Stage and Peerage

HTtMP- T present the demand in oar P res€llt Hfckt musical shows is for quicktire dancing and etrenuXiMMJ OLLS acrobatic teats from which is conducive to the development of good looks or grace (writes Mr. J. B. Booth In an article recalling the glories of the old-time Junoesque chorus beauty). The very speed involves strained expression and ungainlinesH, and is, of course, death to good singing. At the present moment the chorus girl i 3 chosen for her legs and feet; her looks, her stage intelligence, and, least of ail, her voice, are of minor importance. There are, of course, exceptions, but as a general thins the American school has for the moment eclipsed the really good-lookng girl, who possessed stage presence, grace! of movement, and a voice. It is a delusion of the post-war school to imagine that the show-girls of the early days of the century were over-plump, heavy, and dull. Socalled statuesque beauty was largely a matter of clothes and feminine fashion, and the wearers had as a rule personalities which were of value to the intelligent stage-manager. Hope of Peerage

At one stage of his success George Edwardes was dangerously near losing his sense of humour, for once at least he quite seriously contended that the hopes of the future generation of the peerage lay in the Gaiety chorus, and he would discourse at length on the eugenic advantages to be conferred on posterity by the union of scions of ancient races with the keenwitted. healthy, good-looking young women who decorated the Gaiety boards.

And it is a fact that the Ggjety girl turned peeress as often as not proved

• an ornament to her new position , andj was by no means the fish out of water expected by the pessimistic dowager* and outraged society ingenues. No that, for one moment, stage and society alliances have been confined to j the Gaiety. Surely never was there a stranger transformation than that ’ of the irrepressible Val Rhys into the millionaire Lady Meux. As Lady Meux she owned the Derby winner Volodyovski. but took a keen interest in other matters than rac- ; I ing, and was an enthusiastic Egypt-j OlOgiat. Lady Meux had an extraordinary [ collection of jewellery, and it may have been due to the old theatrical leaven that she would on occasions appear at a small private dinner-party wearing £30,000 worth of jewels! It is on record that the only person who completely silenced Whistler ! was the peeress from the lighter stage. j He had painted her twice in two famous portraits, the “Arrangement in j White and Black." and the “Pink and ! Grey," and she decided to sit a third time for a smaller portrait. At one of the sittings Whistler was unusually highly-strung; nervous and irritable, he became at last impertinent, and passed all bounds. Then it was that Lady Meux. j abandoning the pose, turned toward • him, and said very softly: “See here,: Jimmy Whistler! You keep a civil tongue in that head of yours, or 1*11: have someone in to finish those portraits of yours"—with the faintest possible accent on “finish.” Jimmy literally danced with rage. 1 He darted up to his sitter, his long brush tightly clenched and quivering j in his hand. “How dare you!" he spluttered. “How dare you!" But the ci-devant Val Rhys never ■ sat again.

By- her will in 1311 half the noble j and county families in England bene- j fited; a famous KLC. received an an-1 nuity of £30o; and the future of Temple Bar was provided for. A strange career, paralleled only, perhaps, by that of the Drury Lane , minor actress who became Mrs. Co nits, and later Duchess of St. : Albans. In the palmy days of the theatre the Gaiety girl was, as a rule, well-, educated, intelligent with a practical common-sense knowledge of the world, I unlikely to make stupid errors, and 5 possessed of considerable tact. So it Is not to be wondered at that i in many cases the “actressocracy," as it wa= called, was a striking success. And the debt of the peerage to thei Gaiety is a heavy one. It was at the ; Gaiety, in the “Toreador," that Gertie j Millar, now Countess of Dudley, first achieved fame as a bridesmaid, singing Lionel Monckton s song, “Captivating Cora.” And there are probably some battered hearts that thrill at the recollection of Rosie Boote s farewell to the Gaiety, on the eve of becoming Marchioness of Head fort, when the gallery wholeheartedly joined in the chorus of her song: “Maisie is a daisy!" Sylvia Storey, Marie Tempest, Denise Or me, Gladys Cooper, Kitty Gordon, Eleanor So a ray, Zona Dare, Oelia Sinclair. Connie Gilchrist, Eva Carrington, May YohP, and further back still. Belle Hilton, Doily Tester, and Miss Lea mar—the lighter stage has supported the titled ranks nobly. I ; And many of the alliances were > ■ successful, for the Gaiety girl of the ! Edwardes’s school was, a« a rule, a woman of the world, possessing tact, and a reasonable intelligence which enabled her to adapt herself to her new surroundings—although, of < course, there were exceptions. : 1