For the past month here we
have been delving into the incredible world of the Victorian music halls, and
personally I have learned a great deal. The halls provide an entirely new world
of the nineteenth century in which to peek and study, and it would be a
lifetime’s work to unlock all the secrets and understand everything about this
most jovial-seeming world of laughter and costume.
My guest bloggers have
lifted the lid a little on that world, and what we have discovered consequently
has changed my perspective on the Victorian halls. The following articles on
various stars of the halls, which are my contribution to this month of music
hall related articles, have confirmed that change in perspective.
Whilst reading the articles
that have appeared here over the past four weeks I have noticed a tinge of
sadness running through them like a silent undercurrent. Amongst the make-up
and the gas lights the more I read about the music halls the stronger this
sense becomes, but it was not crystallized until I completed writing about the
four music hall stars who are the focus of this article.
All four of them enjoyed
great success in various forms on the stage, be it singing, acting, or dancing,
but their stories leave a melancholy echo in the ear. Whether this is true, I leave
for other readers to form an opinion. Perhaps the sadness is on my part, and
stems from the fact that these institutions are no longer there; and that on
every site which used to house a music hall is now only faded echoes of
laughter and applause.
Sylvia Grey: (1866 – 1958)
Like most nineteenth century
stage stars, London-born Sylvia Grey began her career at an early age,
appearing as a ten year old in Shakespeare plays at Sadler’s Wells. She
continued acting on stage until the age of twelve, when she enrolled in Trinity College,
London. The
performing arts school was established in 1877, and so Sylvia would have been
among the first attendees of the new establishment. Sylvia graduated with a
degree in music, and used this to become a professional singer with a choir.
Whilst with the choir Sylvia
continued to study music and singing, and took several small roles on stage,
first at the Vaudeville Theatre, and then at the Gaiety. The Gaiety had opened
in 1868 as a Music Hall and Burlesque house, replacing the Strand Musick Hall.
At the Gaiety, Sylvia learned to dance with the burlesque performers under the
tutelage of famous dancer, actor and choreographer John D’Auban. D’Auban had
also been a child star before becoming ballet master at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and
after that, had taken up the post of dance master at the Alhambra, before moving to the Gaiety. Sylvia made her stage debut
as a dancer in 1884 at the age of nineteen, and the following year appeared in
‘The Vicar of Wide-Awake-Field’ for
which she was paid the princely sum of £6 a week. Her performances lead to her
being promoted to principal dancer at the Gaiety. In 1887 she was given her
first speaking part in the play ‘Miss
Esmerelda’. Her lines were:
Customer: “How much are your hyacinths?”
Sylvia: “Two Shillings a bunch, sir.”
Customer: “Why, yesterday they were a shilling.”
Sylvia: “Yes, but they’re higher since.”
Following her success, she
went on to play in many of the Gaiety’s burlesques, and between 1885 and 1889
in ‘Little Jack Sheppard’ (playing
Polly Stanmore) and ‘Ruy Blas and the Blasé
Roue’, (playing Donna Christina) she even embarked on an eighteen month
world tour. But despite her success with the Gaiety, Sylvia actually made more
money giving private dance lessons to anyone interested who could pay. Her
clients ranged from actors to aristocracy, and counted the great Ellen Terry as
one of her students.
Sylvia married in 1893, and made
her final West End performance two years later
in 1895 playing Countess Acacia in ‘Baron
Golosh’. She was twenty-nine when she retired from the stage.
During the First World War
she ran an Australian officers club in Piccadilly, London, and went on to appear in a few French
motion pictures in the early 1920’s
Sylvia Grey died on 6th
May 1958 at the grand age of ninety-two, and in a lovely obituary in The Times,
it was told how:
“…In spite of her great age
she resolutely refused to grow old and to the end she retained a wide circle of
friends who delighted in her anecdotes of the halcyon days of Gaiety burlesque.”
-The Times, May 7th
1958
* * *
Vesta Victoria: (1873 – 1951)
Despite being born in Leeds,
Vesta Victoria
(born Victoria Lawrence) went on to
become a great ‘cockney’ character in the music halls. Again, she started her
career young, performing on stage with her Music Hall manager father as a
child. She continued playing minor roles on stage until her career took off in
1892 thanks to a hit song.
‘Daddy Wouldn’t Buy me a Bow Wow’ was performed by Vesta for the
first time at South
London Palace
– a music hall in Lambeth, whilst holding a kitten. The song was the most
successful in the sixty-year songwriting career of James Tabrar, and it made
Vesta a star. It was also released on phonograph in America to much success in the same
year.
Two years after the
performance that gave her her big break, Vesta gave an interview to the Daily
Mail:
"VESTA VICTORIA"
ON AND OFF THE STAGE.
Special Interview
It is not often (writes a
representative of the MaiI) that one has the opportunity of having a talk with
“Vesta Victoria,”
or, to give her her baptismal name, Victoria Lawrence. As I neared Mrs
Matcham’s house — with whom Miss Lawrence and her mother are staying — l felt a
pang of remorse; for I knew that Miss Vesta had had a trying time of it at the Alhambra the night
previous; she gave no less than seven songs. Still, interviewing hardens one's
heart and steels one's nerves.
It was early in the day. I
was comfortably seated in a luxurious chair, when in walked Miss Lawrence. She
was tastefully dressed in a morning gown of red trimmed with lace. “Now, Miss
Vesta, I have been sent to gain some information about yourself. It is sure to
be interesting reading for people, because you know they regard you almost as
one of themselves.”
“I am afraid I have not very
much to tell you. My life off the stage has been most uneventful. However, I
will do my best.”
“We might as well begin as
the beginning,” I said. “Tell me when first you took to the stage?”
“Oh," with a roguish
smile, “that is so long ago, you know, that I can scarcely remember. Let me
see. I should not be quite five years old when I was first before the
footlights. It was at my father's Hall at Gloucester.
I used to go on the boards every Friday night to get accustomed the audience.
Soon after that I got my first real engagement at Dublin
at Dan Lowry's Star
Music Hall. Ever since I
have been very successful and never once looked back.”
“Are you fond of the
profession?”
“Ah; I knew would ask me
that question; all interviewers do. Yes, I am; but you know I was disappointed the
first night of my present appearance in Hull.
I had three new songs, and the audience did not catch the choruses. You know we
sing a lot better if the choruses ‘go.'
I did not venture to smile
for fear of the “wrath to come,” so on the other hand I sympathised, and agreed
that the audience was dull one.
“Have you had any strange
experiences?” I asked.
 |
| Poster for 'Bow Bow' |
“Yes, I remember one at Middlesbrough particularly well. For some time I was
billed as ‘Baby Victoria,' but I soon threw the infantile name away, and
blossomed into full ‘Miss Victoria.’
Under that name I was engaged at Middlesbrough.
My father — Mr Joe Lawrence — was with me, and when the manager saw my father
he asked where ‘Miss Victoria'
was. When he found out that I was 'Miss Victoria’
he refused to allow me to perform, I was such a little dot. He said, ‘that
little kid is too young to do anything!' My father asked him if he expected an
old woman with wrinkles. Oh; we had an awful time! My father and the Manager
were about two hours arguing, and at last it was decided that I should do my
turn, and if not satisfactory would receive no money. When I heard that, I made
up my mind to do the thing properly, and was very determined about it. Well, I
went on and was a wonderful success. After my turn the manager came and took me
up in his arms and wanted to kiss me, but father interfered and would not let
him. He was awfully nice then, and apologised for his bad behaviour. That sort
thing — not the kissing, but the misunderstanding — happened at three other halls,
where I had been engaged as Miss Victoria.”
“What a brute the fellow
must have been. But have you had any local experiences worth recording?”
“No, nothing particular,
except once, when I was at Beverley with Alice Featherstone —one of the Verne
sisters, and sister to Mrs Matcham. It was about eight years ago. I would be 12
or 13. We had been to a concert, and we missed the last train back to Hull. We were in a dreadful
way, and didn't know what to do. I remember was awfully tired and frightened,
but we managed to obtain a trap. I don't think I should have been frightened if
I had my ' bow-ow-ow' with me,” said Miss Lawrence, with a merry laugh.
“Ah, that reminds me. Do you
mind telling me something about that famous song?”
“Oh, I had almost forgotten
to mention it to you, and it has an interesting history. I was doing turns at
the Pavilion, South London, and the Standard;
and one Friday night Mr Joseph Tabrar mentioned that had an idea for a song,
and he wrote it for me. From the outset it went ‘like all that,’ and on the
first night a sister artiste — Miss Alice Conway — handed me a bouquet, in the
middle of which I found a little black kitten. That was just before I went to America,
and I decided to take Pussy with me. As you know, I always sang the song after
that with the cat in my arms.”
I murmured “happy kitten,”
and then asked if “the trip across the Atlantic
was enjoyed?” “I enjoyed myself at the far end. I had a lovely time. The
Americans are so nice; but still I like the English quite, or nearly, as well.
In New York
'Bow-wow' took a great hold, and in less than two months more than 5,000 copies
were sold. I received all sorts of presents. See, this marquise ring I had
given me; and, wait a minute, I will show you some others.”
Vesta Victoria returned with armful of boxes. One
contained a handsome large gold medal, the gift Mr Paster; a pendant watch,
encrusted with diamonds; a fine diamond bracelet, and other “costly trifles,”
all of which had been presented her by American friends. There was also a neat
workbox given by the chorus at the Alexandra
Theatre, Sheffield,
where Miss Lawrence was a great success in the character of the Princess in “Alladdin.”
“Now, just another question,
Miss Vesta. Are you pestered with love letters and that sort of thing?”
“Oh, yes. I have had a very
fair share. There is one I have upstairs. It is great fun. It is from the son
of a proprietor of a London Hall. The poor boy is about sixteen and when he
heard that inaccurate report about my being engaged he wrote me a loving letter
and told me that ‘he envied my old man.’ I have had lots of others asking for
appointments and that sort of thing, but they write in vain.”
- Daily Mail, 1st
March 1894
In the same year she gave
the above interview, Vesta married music hall manager Frederick Wallace McAvoy.
They had a daughter together, but McAvoy was a cruel, abusive and adulterous
husband, and so they divorced after a ten year marriage in May 1904.
Following her divorce she
began seeing William Edward Herbert Terry, and whilst in New York in 1912 they announced that they
were married. A year later they had a daughter named Iris Lavender Terry, but
their 1912 marriage seems to have been made up, as English records show that
Vesta and William were married in Wandsworth in 1920. (The ‘lie’ about their being married in America was possibly because
they knew she was pregnant and wanted to avoid the ignominy of a child out of
wedlock, or maybe so that they would be allowed on the boat back to England -
in 1913 another Music Hall star, Marie Lloyd was refused entry from England
into America on the grounds of ‘Moral Turpitude’ for having undertaken the
journey there with a man to whom she said she was married, but under
questioning from American authorities, admitted she was not.)
The marriage to William
ended in 1926, Vesta having filed for divorce on the grounds of “Ill-usage and association with other women”
So far, so unlucky in love.
Vesta proved a comedy hit
not only in the UK, but also
in America, where she embarked
on a lucrative tour of USA
vaudeville theatres in 1907. She retired from the stage just after the First
World War, but during the 1930’s appeared in a few films and at a couple of
Royal Variety Shows. Vesta, who, judging by the interview she gave to the Mail,
owned many expensive gifts, was twice the victim of robbery; the first instance
being in 1926. She had made a return to the stage in Bristol, and whilst she was away her fifty
six year old housekeeper Florence Smith stole 181 uncut diamonds worth £174.
Smith tried to sell the diamonds to a pawnbroker on the Edgware Road for £60. This raised the
suspicions of the pawn shop owner who called for the Police. Smith, giving a
false name, insisted that Vesta had asked her to pawn the objects. Vesta was
telephoned by the police, who confirmed that this was not the case, and the
housekeeper was arrested.
The second theft occurred in
1934 when thieves broke into her home in Roydon, Essex, and stole jewellery
that had previously belonged to the Russian Royal Family worth between £5,000
and £10,000. Vesta had worn the jewels whilst performing at a charity concert
in London, and
whilst the majority had been returned to a safety deposit box, she had taken
two of the pieces home, and they were promptly stolen during the night.
Vesta Victoria
died on April 7th 1951 in Hampstead, London, aged 78. At Golders Green Crematorium
a lilac tree was planted in her memory, but this is no longer there.
* * *
Letty Lind: (1861 – 1923)
Letty Lind (Born Letitia Rudge in Birmingham) first
appeared on stage at the tender age of five when she secured the role of Eva in
a stage adaptation of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’
Her mother was an actress who worked on stage in the Birmingham area during a very short acting
career, but Letty and her siblings would go onto far greater success.
Letty, along with her
siblings Sarah, (stage name Millie Hylton)
Elizabeth, (Adelaide Astor) Fanny (Fanny Dango) and Lydia (Lydia Flopp) all had some kind of career
on the stage, first as dancers, then as singers and performers in pantomime and
comedy and previously mentioned theatres the Gaiety and Daly’s.
At the age of ten, Letty
went on tour with American writer Howard Paul and his wife. She enjoyed a
successful time on stage, but in private this was not to be an enjoyable period.
Howard Paul had an affair with her which resulted in Letty becoming pregnant in
1878. Howard was forty-eight and Letty only seventeen. For this to happen once
was perhaps careless to put it mildly, but in 1880 Letty again fell pregnant by
Howard; both babies died in infancy. Between the two pregnancies Letty made her
London stage
debut at the Princess’s Theatre in Howard’s farce ‘Locked Out’ in 1879. Other than being the first time she performed
in London, this occasion was notable for being the first time she used the name
of ‘Letty Lind’ (Howard had always billed
her as ‘La Petite Letitia). This review from the same year suggests that
her abilities in singing and dancing were already starting to please crowds:
Not little of the success of
the entertainment is due to the efforts of Miss Letty Lind, piquante little vocalist,
who was encored after she sang…her execution of the rope dance calling forth
hearty applause
–
Western Daily Press, January 1879
In 1881 she left Paul
Howard’s company, which comes as little surprise, and spent most of the 1880’s
performing in various London theatres, including The Gaiety, (in ‘The Nine Days’ Queen’) The Olympic,
(in ‘Exiles of Erin’) and The
Criterion, (in ‘Little Miss Muffet’)
as well as going on a UK tour with several shows.
She returned to The Gaiety
to perform burlesque in 1887, and it was at this time that her fame began to rise.
She starred in ‘Monte Cristo, Junior’
in which she replaced the hugely popular, but America-bound Lottie Collins (she who made the song ‘Ta ra-ra Boom de-ay’
a huge hit, and about whom we will learn more later) by now Letty’s star
was well-and-truly on the rise.
 |
| Letty Lind's famous 'Skirt Dancing' |
After performing in a few
more shows at The Gaiety Letty was ‘loaned’
to The Theatre Royal on Drury Lane
for the 1887 Christmas pantomime ‘Puss in
Boots’ in which she played the princess. The next eighteen months were
spent touring Australia and America, before returning to London in 1889 to star in ‘Ruy Blas and the Blasé Roue’ (alongside Sylvia Grey, whom we met earlier).
By this time, Letty’s dancing, and her ‘skirt dancing’ in particular (a type of dancing involving the flinging
about of your skirts, made popular by the likes of Kate Vaughn and the
aforementioned Lottie Collins) had made her extremely popular. By the mid
1890’s,
however, burlesque had begun to lose its popularity, and so Letty turned her hand to musical comedies which focused more on singing than dancing.
Before she could get to grips with her new direction on stage, Letty gave birth to a baby boy.
The
father of the child was the third Earl of Durham (John George Lambton.) Lambton
had been married to his wife, Ethel, since 1882, however illness had confined
her to an asylum for most of that time, and Lambton – understandably lonely – had
started seeing Letty. The Earl wished to divorce his wife so that he could
marry his sweetheart, but his wife’s condition prevented this from being
possible as divorce law forbade the legal separation of a married couple in
which one partner was ill. As a result, baby John Rudge was born out of wedlock
in 1892. The Earl stayed with Letty until her death.
Career-wise, she secured her
first role in a musical comedy in 1893, playing Maude Sportington in ‘Morocco Bound’ at the Shaftesbury
Theatre. The Show was a huge success and ran for more than three hundred
performances. Away from the stage, in their Christmas Number ‘The Pelican’ (a periodical) published short stories written by people connected
to the theatre, to which Letty contributed. Other big-names who wrote stories
were Albert Chevalier, Sylvia Grey, Augustus Harris and Lilly Langtry. Letty’s
story concerned a dancer who had to deal with the nightmare of a petticoat
string breaking during a performance.
She also tried her hand at
writing a song when, in 1894 she penned ‘Dorothy
Flop’ for the show ‘The Lady Slavey’.
Letty’s sister, Adelaide Astor, performed in the production.
For the rest of the 1890’s
Letty stared at Daly’s Theatre in a string of successful West
End productions for which she won much praise and many fans,
particularly for her graceful dancing. In The summer of 1899 she returned to
the world of Music Hall for the first time in seven years when she appeared at
the Alhambra:
MISS LETTY LIND GOES TO THE “HALLS”
Miss Letty Lind is the latest
recruit to the variety halls, and has this week made her first appearance at
the Alhambra, singing
“Di Di” from “Go Bang,” the “Gay Tom Tit” from the “Artists Model,” and similar
things. The lady has entered into an elaborate explanation why she has accepted
Mr. Slater's offer to appear at a music hall. The apology is, of course, wholly
superfluous. Very small, indeed, nowadays is the dividing line between the
music halls and the after-dinner theatres, and if Miss Letty Lind chooses to
accept ten pounds or so a night for singing at the Alhambra the self-same songs
as those she is accustomed to sing over the way at Daly's, nobody would be
prepared to deny that she is a woman of sense, particularly as just now the
theatres in the hot weather are to a certain extent under a cloud. In the autumn,
when Mr. Edwardes produces his new Japanese musical play, Miss Letty Lind will
be seen singing and dancing again at Daly's.
- Evening
Telegraph, June 1899
 |
| Bill for the Last Night at the Gaiety |
This would not be the last
time in her career that Letty returned to the halls. In 1903 the Gaiety theatre
was to be demolished, and put on a final night performance which was made up of
many of their current and former stars singing their best loved songs. Letty,
then aged forty-one, sang ‘Listen to my
Tale of Woe’ from ‘Ruy Blas and the
Blasé Roue’. After this performance she retired from the stage.
After retiring from the
stage she lived a quiet life at her home in Slough.
Her house, Brookside, had been built for her in 1897 on the site of an old inn,
and she had lived there ever since, in the peace and quiet away from smoky London. In 1923, at the
age of sixty-one, Letty became suddenly ill, and never recovered. After a
funeral in St Mary’s church in Slough, she was buried in Windsor cemetery. Her partner, and father to
her son, John George Lambton died in 1928.
* * *
Lottie Collins: (1865 – 1910)
An East
End girl, Lottie Collins certainly does not buck the trend for
music hall performers starting their careers early; she began her career at the
age of ten as part of a skipping rope act with her two sisters Lizzie and
Marie. They imaginatively called themselves ‘The Three Sisters Collins.’
By 1886 Lottie had become a
solo music hall act, making her debut in the burlesque ‘Monte Cristo Jr.’ at the Gaiety Theatre – the theatre’s influence on
the music hall scene has by now become apparent – but it was whilst touring the
vaudevilles in America in 1889 that Lottie’s life was to change forever; Not
only did she marry her American beau Stephen Cooney whilst in St. Louis, but it
was in the USA that she first heard the song ‘Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay’.
The song was part of a revue
(an entertainment show containing many
different types of acts from music and dance to sketches satirizing popular
culture) called Tuxedo, staged in
America
in 1891. Her husband, Stephen, first heard the song, and immediately set about
securing the rights to play it in England. Once this was achieved,
Lottie developed a suitably ‘burlesque’
(and also exhausting) dance to accompany it, comprising of energetic Can-Can
style leg-kicks that titillated audiences by exposing stockings, sparkling
suspenders and bare thighs.
The 1938 book, ‘Ring up the Curtain’ gives a brief description
of how the performance went:
“Lottie began with
diffidence, her trembling voice being emphasized by nervous little gestures
with her handkerchief. Then she put her hands on her hips, below the waspish
waist of the period, and went crazy, along with an intoxicated orchestra, the
music mingling, as it were, with the swirl of maddened petticoats and the nip
of that scarlet-clad limb. The furore which “Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay” created
depended upon the conjunction of song and singer. Either was of small value
apart; together they were irresistible.”
If you close your eyes and
imagine hard enough you can almost see her on the stage.
It is worth pointing out
here that the song was not a big hit until Lottie sang it, such was the vigour
with which she attacked it; and as the last sentence of the extract above
alludes; the song was worth little without her; and she little without the
song. After she performed it at the Tivoli Theatre on the Strand,
it exploded.
One Edwardian newspaper
looked back on the song and commented on its popularity:
“…It was an epidemic, and
its secret and cause was Miss Lottie Collins, the lady who ‘kicked’ the song
and herself into worldwide fame…In London, babies lisped it, school children
sang it, tottering old men and staid old ladies hummed it, and street boys
whistled and shrieked it. Costers, of both sexes, and it each other’s hats,
stamped, kicked and yelled it until they were hoarse and feeble from sheer
exhaustion. Street organs and German bands played nothing else, it was taken up
and echoed from town to village, and the cry throughout the land from cockcrow
till midnight was “Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay.”
As with any craze – or mania
as the Victorians would have called it – the song, and Lottie, were in high
demand. She performed it at theatres and music halls right across London throughout 1891
and 1892, and at the song’s zenith, it is believed she was performing it five
times a night at various venues. Given the exuberance and energy required in
the dance routine, I imagine this was excruciatingly tiring.
In late 1892 she returned to
America to perform the song
in New York,
but received rather waspish reviews. One critic described her as a ‘mature woman’ – she was twenty-seven.
Throughout the 1890’s she
continued to perform at variety shows and music halls around Britain, and she
even had a hit with Vesta Victoria’s signature song ‘Daddy Wouldn’t Buy me a Bow-Wow’ less than half a decade after
Vesta’s version catapulted her to fame and fortune. ‘Bow-wow’ seems an interesting choice of song for Lottie to cover;
given that her rise to superstardom was thanks to a super-hit song of her own.
In 1897 – Diamond Jubilee year – the newspaper Society published an article which made
accusations of indecency at her, and claimed that the songs she sang were
vulgar. Lottie took legal action and won £25 in damages, though the episode
probably did her image a deal of good, and helped her to become one of the
icons of the so called ‘Naughty Nineties’.
Its true, her routines were ‘saucy’ in their time, but that is what the music
halls were all about. Risqué was
their business.
In November of Jubilee year
Lottie returned to New York
and sang three new songs, (it seems theatre performers did not rest!) ‘The Little Widow’ ‘The Girl on the Ran Dan’ and ‘A
Leader of Society’
By the end of the century
her nine-year marriage to Stephen Cooney appeared to be becoming an unhappy
one. In 1898 Lottie tried to commit suicide by cutting her wrists and neck with
a penknife, though she was discharged from hospital on the same day she was
admitted (no counseling back then!)
so the injuries could not have been too severe – the physical ones, at least.
SUPPOSED
ATTEMPTED SUICIDE BY MISS LOTTIE COLLINS.
THE EXPONENT
OF “TA-RA-RA BOOM-DE-AY.”
Miss
Lottie Collins, known in private life as Mrs. Coonev, and to the public for
many years past as the I exponent of “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay” and a very popular
form of skirt dancing, was yesterday morning admitted to the Great Northern
Hospital suffering from wounds in her throat and wrist, said to have been self
inflicted.
The
facts are stated to be that the lady in question, who occupies rooms at 16,
Highbury crescent, close to the Highbury Station of the North London Railway,
went to her bathroom yesterday morning in order to take her usual bath. Shortly
after she had entered that apartment piercing screams were heard, and on the
servant entering the room to ascertain the cause she found her mistress lying
on the floor, covered with blood, which was flowing from her neck and throat. A
small penknife was also seen close at hand. The servant at once sent for
assistance, and a doctor and the police soon arrived.
Miss
Collins was at once taken into her bedroom and laid upon her bed, where her
wounds were temporarily attended to. A conveyance was soon afterwards procured,
and in it the patient, who appeared in a somewhat dazed condition, was driven
to the Great Northern Central
Hospital, where she was
examined and her injuries dressed by the house surgeon. The latter gentleman
later informed a representative of the Press that the wounds, which were not
serious, had been made with a penknife and were apparently self inflicted.
There were two or three cuts on the neck and one on the left wrist.
Later,
Mrs. Cooney, having recovered somewhat, was allowed to leave the hospital and
go home. As might be expected under the circumstances, the police and hospital
authorities are very reticent as to any knowledge they may possess of the
matter.
- London Daily News, 10th
November, 1898
Cooney died in 1901 in Saratoga, California.
I have read reports that he and Lottie had three children together, but the
only information I can find for any of them is for their most famous offspring,
the musical star Jose Collins, who, despite Lottie’s wish that she learn
French, how to play the piano and all the requirements of a life of
domesticity, defied her mother and became the famous stage actress that she
did.
In 1902 Lottie married for a
second time when she wed producer and composer James W Tate, who was ten years
her junior. The marriage was not to last long, as Lottie died on 1st
May 1910 of heart disease.
I’ve seen a lot of reports
claiming that she suffered with a weak heart all her life, leading to many
various opinions that her untimely death at the age of just forty-five, was
brought on by her many years of robust and vigorous dancing the exhausting
dance that accompanied her hit song. In a poetic way, many opinions say that
the song that made her, also killed her.
Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay
A
sweet tuxedo girl you see
A
queen of swell society
Fond
of fun as fond can be
When
it's on the strict Q.T.
I'm
not too young, I'm not too old
Not
too timid, not too bold
Just
the kind you'd like to hold
Just
the kind for sport I'm told
Chorus:
Ta-ra-ra
Boom-de-re! (sung eight times)
I'm
a blushing bud of innocence
Papa
says at big expense
Old maids say
I have no sense
Boys
declare, I'm just immense
Before
my song I do conclude
I
want it strictly understood
Though
fond of fun, I'm never rude
Though
not too bad I'm not too good
Chorus
A
sweet tuxedo girl you see
A
queen of swell society
Fond
of fun as fond can be
When
it's on the strict Q.T.
I'm
not too young, I'm not too old
Not
too timid, not too bold
Just
the kind you'd like to hold
Just
the kind for sport I'm told
Chorus.
* * *
Having written about these
women, common threads seem to run through all their stories, connecting them. Most
of them found their way into the world of entertainment at a very young age,
often through one or both parents and many of them also experienced unhappiness
or lack of luck in love, or being ill-used by men in general. I’ve written
about actresses before, and the life of Ellen Terry – perhaps the nineteenth
century’s greatest actress – also followed this same path. Marie Lloyd, that
most effervescent music hall star was certainly not blessed with a smooth and
uneventful love life.
One wonders if a lifetime on
the stage singing, dancing and acting makes it impossible to do anything other than pretend, and that although
the photographs, interviews and performances show happy people, was the actor
masking the person beneath the character? Had life allowed art to imitate it so
much that it became the very thing it was mimicking? Who knows, but many child
stars of the twentieth century followed similar paths in their personal lives,
with celebrated young actors, actresses and musicians going on to become
involved in drugs, bankruptcy and suicide. This seems to suggest that a balance
of the fact and fiction is difficult when the line has been blurred for your
whole life.
My thanks are most humbly extended for the final time to Nancy Bruseker, Fern Riddell and Peter Stubley for the fantastic work they have put into their guest posts over the last month, in which I have learned so much about a world I was not particularly au fait with.
