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Beatrice Lillie
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Beatrice Lillie
Beatrice Gladys Lillie, Lady Peel (29 May 1894 – 20 January 1989) was a Canadian-born British actress, singer and comedy performer.
She began to perform as a child with her mother and sister. She made her West End début in 1914 and soon gained notice in revues and light comedies. She first appeared in New York in 1924 and two years later starred in her first film, continuing to perform in both the US and UK. In her early career in André Charlot's revues she appeared with other rising stars such as Jack Buchanan, Gertrude Lawrence and Noël Coward. Coward and Cole Porter were among the many songwriters to write with her in mind. She premiered Coward's "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" and "I Went to a Marvellous Party", and her last stage appearances were in High Spirits (1964) directed by him.
Lillie married into the English upper class, becoming Lady Peel from 1925 to the end of her life. During the Second World War, she was an assiduous entertainer of the troops in Britain, the Mediterranean, Africa and the Middle East. Essentially a live performer, she made few films although her last, Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), won her praise.
Lillie was born in Toronto on 29 May 1894 the younger daughter of John Lillie, cigar seller, of Lisburn in Ireland, and his wife, Lucie Ann, eldest daughter of John Shaw, a Manchester draper. Lillie attended Loretto Academy in Toronto and St Agnes' College in Belleville, Ontario. She had an elder sister, Muriel, at one time an aspiring concert pianist who later played the piano at silent movie houses. Mother and daughters performed in amateur concerts, billed as the Lillie Trio. John Lillie ran the family home in Toronto as a boarding house in their absence.
Shortly before the First World War their mother took the girls to England, where Beatrice made her professional stage début at the Chatham Music Hall in 1914 and her West End début the same year in The Daring of Diane, a musical comedy composed by Heinrich Reinhardt, at the London Pavilion. She first appeared in revue in October 1914 in André Charlot's Not Likely! at the Alhambra Theatre. According to the biographer Sheridan Morley, Charlot saw in her "not the serious singer she had set out to become, but a comedian of considerable if zany qualities". A series of Charlot revues followed, in each of which she attracted more attention: 5064 Gerrard (1915), Now's the Time (1915), Samples (1916), Some (1916), Cheep! (1917) and Tabs (1918).
During the war Lillie became a favourite of troops on leave from the front. She became known for her spontaneity and improvised response to her audiences. Morley comments that her great talents were "the arched eyebrow, the curled lip, the fluttering eyelid, the tilted chin, the ability to suggest, even in apparently innocent material, the possible double entendre". Noël Coward, another of the impresario's protégés, said that Charlot's 1917 revue Cheep! was the first time Lillie appeared "in her true colours as a comic genius of the first order". On tour in 1918 and in the West End in 1919 Lillie appeared as Jackie Sampson in Oh, Joy! – her first starring role in a "book" musical – with music by Jerome Kern and words by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse.
On 5 January 1920, at St Paul's Church, Drayton Bassett, Staffordshire, Lillie married Robert Peel, great-grandson of the Victorian prime minister Sir Robert Peel, and heir of Sir Robert Peel, 4th Baronet. The actress Phyllis Monkman described him as "a sweet boy; very, very good looking [but] weak as water". There was little family money and according to one biographer, Peel "had little else to offer besides the title of 5th baronet". The couple honeymooned in Monte Carlo, where Peel lost all their money at the gambling table. What his wife called his "champagne tastes" left the couple dependent on Lillie's income from the theatre throughout their marriage.
Shortly after the honeymoon the couple visited the US. Lillie received numerous offers of engagements, not least from Florenz Ziegfeld, but she turned them down, announcing that she was pregnant. They returned to England and in December 1920 Lillie gave birth to a son – another Robert. She found domestic life boring and soon returned to the theatre. In the words of the biographer Norman Powers, "Placing her son's upbringing in her mother's care and accepting her relationship with Peel as a marriage in name only, Lillie returned to the stage". She co-starred with Charles Hawtrey in Up in Mabel's Room, billed as "A frivolous farce in feminine foibles", in April 1921.
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Beatrice Lillie
Beatrice Gladys Lillie, Lady Peel (29 May 1894 – 20 January 1989) was a Canadian-born British actress, singer and comedy performer.
She began to perform as a child with her mother and sister. She made her West End début in 1914 and soon gained notice in revues and light comedies. She first appeared in New York in 1924 and two years later starred in her first film, continuing to perform in both the US and UK. In her early career in André Charlot's revues she appeared with other rising stars such as Jack Buchanan, Gertrude Lawrence and Noël Coward. Coward and Cole Porter were among the many songwriters to write with her in mind. She premiered Coward's "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" and "I Went to a Marvellous Party", and her last stage appearances were in High Spirits (1964) directed by him.
Lillie married into the English upper class, becoming Lady Peel from 1925 to the end of her life. During the Second World War, she was an assiduous entertainer of the troops in Britain, the Mediterranean, Africa and the Middle East. Essentially a live performer, she made few films although her last, Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), won her praise.
Lillie was born in Toronto on 29 May 1894 the younger daughter of John Lillie, cigar seller, of Lisburn in Ireland, and his wife, Lucie Ann, eldest daughter of John Shaw, a Manchester draper. Lillie attended Loretto Academy in Toronto and St Agnes' College in Belleville, Ontario. She had an elder sister, Muriel, at one time an aspiring concert pianist who later played the piano at silent movie houses. Mother and daughters performed in amateur concerts, billed as the Lillie Trio. John Lillie ran the family home in Toronto as a boarding house in their absence.
Shortly before the First World War their mother took the girls to England, where Beatrice made her professional stage début at the Chatham Music Hall in 1914 and her West End début the same year in The Daring of Diane, a musical comedy composed by Heinrich Reinhardt, at the London Pavilion. She first appeared in revue in October 1914 in André Charlot's Not Likely! at the Alhambra Theatre. According to the biographer Sheridan Morley, Charlot saw in her "not the serious singer she had set out to become, but a comedian of considerable if zany qualities". A series of Charlot revues followed, in each of which she attracted more attention: 5064 Gerrard (1915), Now's the Time (1915), Samples (1916), Some (1916), Cheep! (1917) and Tabs (1918).
During the war Lillie became a favourite of troops on leave from the front. She became known for her spontaneity and improvised response to her audiences. Morley comments that her great talents were "the arched eyebrow, the curled lip, the fluttering eyelid, the tilted chin, the ability to suggest, even in apparently innocent material, the possible double entendre". Noël Coward, another of the impresario's protégés, said that Charlot's 1917 revue Cheep! was the first time Lillie appeared "in her true colours as a comic genius of the first order". On tour in 1918 and in the West End in 1919 Lillie appeared as Jackie Sampson in Oh, Joy! – her first starring role in a "book" musical – with music by Jerome Kern and words by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse.
On 5 January 1920, at St Paul's Church, Drayton Bassett, Staffordshire, Lillie married Robert Peel, great-grandson of the Victorian prime minister Sir Robert Peel, and heir of Sir Robert Peel, 4th Baronet. The actress Phyllis Monkman described him as "a sweet boy; very, very good looking [but] weak as water". There was little family money and according to one biographer, Peel "had little else to offer besides the title of 5th baronet". The couple honeymooned in Monte Carlo, where Peel lost all their money at the gambling table. What his wife called his "champagne tastes" left the couple dependent on Lillie's income from the theatre throughout their marriage.
Shortly after the honeymoon the couple visited the US. Lillie received numerous offers of engagements, not least from Florenz Ziegfeld, but she turned them down, announcing that she was pregnant. They returned to England and in December 1920 Lillie gave birth to a son – another Robert. She found domestic life boring and soon returned to the theatre. In the words of the biographer Norman Powers, "Placing her son's upbringing in her mother's care and accepting her relationship with Peel as a marriage in name only, Lillie returned to the stage". She co-starred with Charles Hawtrey in Up in Mabel's Room, billed as "A frivolous farce in feminine foibles", in April 1921.
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