David Slattery-Christy
Discover the extraordinary life of one of Edwardian England’s most celebrated and revered musical comedy stars, Lily Elsie. From her childhood days in the music halls of Salford and her rise to fame as the child singing star “Little Elsie” (hailed by press and public as “the infant Patti”, after the world famous opera star Adelina Patti) to her arrival in London as a young woman.
Her association with the most powerful theatre impresario of the time, George Edwardes, the father of the musical comedy genre, with his innovative and lavish productions at The Gaiety and Daly’s Theatre. Her friends included Gertie Millar, the most powerful and luminous of the “Gaiety Girls”.
Elsie’s rise to fame as Sonia in Lehar’s The Merry Widow in 1907, produced by Edwardes at Daly’s Theatre, was achieved in spite of her lack of confidence and overwhelming stage fright that would leave her sick with nervous exhaustion and cause the press to accuse her of being “a part time actress” when she missed performances.
Her image would endorse everything from toothpaste to face creams; the costumes and hats she wore for The Merry Widow were emulated everywhere. Retiring from the stage in 1911 to marry a handsome and wealthy husband, she enjoyed a brief period of domestic harmony as Mrs Bullough. But it wasn’t to last.
The early signs of the paranoid neurosis and mental health problems which would overwhelm her in later years were already in evidence. She mastered the art of being reclusive long before Garbo took up the mantle. Her final years were spent in isolation, her personality eroded by her mental health problems. Elsie died alone in 1962, a tragic end to a life which had promised so much. In fact her life had been Anything But Merry from the very beginning.
About The Author
David was born in Oxford, England, in 1959. He graduated from London’s City University with a BA (Hons) Degree in Journalism. Prior to this he attended London Theatre Arts to study drama, and then worked extensively in the performing arts industry as a playwright, producer and director. His stage plays include the award winning Forever Nineteen and The Post Card - which enjoyed London and New York productions, as well as touring nationally in the United Kingdom. His involvement in adapting the libretto for Novello’s 1935 musical Glamorous Night resulted in him directing the 50th Anniversary Concert to celebrate the life and work of Novello at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in London’s West End. Subsequently he has worked as the Ivor Novello Consultant on Robert Altman’s Oscar and BAFTA winning movie Gosford Park, and contributed to the BBC Documentary on the life of Novello The Handsomest Man in Britain. He is also a lecturer in theatre and musical theatre and the author of In Search of Ruritania, a biography on Ivor Novello, written to help satisfy the countless requests for more information by those who discovered Novello for the first time through Gosford Park. He continues to develop ideas for the stage and screen and is currently working on an original screenplay.
Further information available at: www.christyplays.com
Foreword
Elsie’s story has been a joy to recreate, certainly full of surprises but also tinged with sadness. Her heyday in the years prior to WWI are hard for us to imagine today. From the slums of Victorian England to the glittering Edwardian age anything was possible and life was to be enjoyed to the full - even if it meant overindulgence and excess for those fortunate enough to be able to afford it. The theatre of that Edwardian time was also full of excess and extravagance, where George Edwardes established his ‘musical comedy’ vision at the Gaiety Theatre and Daly’s Theatre in London’s West End. They became shining beacons of excellence, and an elegant alternative to the coarseness of the music halls, under his unique style and management where Gertie Millar was the queen of the Gaiety, along with the sophistication, beauty and elegance personified in Edwardes’ ‘Gaiety girls’. Daly’s would become the home of operetta with the most famous of that genre’s composers Franz Lehar at the helm. In a forward to her biography on Edwardes in the 1940s Ursula Bloom said of those times:
“This was most certainly the era of entertainment, and all the Edwardians evailed themselves of it whensoever they could. The music halls were well established. On their stages fat-thighed young women with breasts like St. Paul’s dome, and emphatic hips, disclosed themselves in spangles, to sing lewd songs in a gin-in-a-fog voice. Comic turns rattled off inviting choruses, to be taken up lustily by the audiences who had come to enjoy themselves and enjoy themselves they would…then came George Edwardes, and what he did for the musical play! What first night was there after 1914 compared with The Merry Widow? Indeed it was a merry world. It was far happier than the period which came after 1914, and although the modern young things may not see it in that light, it is only because they do not now recognise the tremendous attractions which it had to offer…”
Elsie’s life is still surrounded by a slight misty haze at times mainly because she faded so quickly and successfully into obscurity, an obscurity of her own choosing. This story of her life is accurate in terms of the historical facts and the personal details of her journey, and the personalities she worked with and met, but I stress it is my interpretation based on the information available. My experience of undertaking research on Elsie was at times frustrating - rather like purchasing a fascinating antique jig saw puzzle, only to find some pieces are missing once an attempt is made to put it together - inevitably I had to fill in some of the gaps based on the evidence at hand and my imagination. I admired her strength and determination, even when all the odds were stacked against her, and have to admit I too fell under her spell.
