Beatrice Lillie

Beatrice Lillie
Beatrice Lillie, as photographed by Yousuf Karsh, 1948
Born	Beatrice Gladys Lillie (1894-05-29)29 May 1894 Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Died	20 January 1989(1989-01-20) (aged 94) Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England
Occupation(s)	Stage and film actress, singer and comedic performer
Spouse	Sir Robert Peel, 5th Baronet ​ ​ (m. 1920; died 1934)​
Children	1

Beatrice Gladys Lillie, Lady Peel (29 May 1894 – 20 January 1989), known as Bea Lillie, was a Canadian-born British actress, singer and comedic performer.

She began to perform as a child with her mother and sister. She made her West End debut in 1914 and soon gained notice in revues and light comedies, becoming known for her parodies of old-fashioned, flowery performing styles and absurd songs and sketches. She debuted in New York in 1924 and two years later starred in her first film, continuing to perform in both the US and UK. She was associated with revues staged by André Charlot and works of Noël Coward and Cole Porter, and frequently was paired with Gertrude Lawrence, Bert Lahr and Jack Haley.

During

Early life and career

Lillie was born in Toronto to Irish-born John Lillie and his wife Lucie Ann (née Shaw).^[1][2] She had an elder sister, Muriel (1893–1973), at one time an aspiring concert pianist who later played the piano at silent movie houses, married firstly to the Egyptologist, stage designer and writer Arthur Weigall, and secondly to Sir Brian Dean Paul, 6th Baronet of Rodborough.^[3] Her father was a cigar seller at the time of Lillie's birth, later working as a guard at the Toronto city jail. He had been a soldier in the British Army stationed in India, and on his honourable discharge went to Toronto rather than returning to Ireland. Lucie Ann Lillie (who had changed her name from "Lucy Ann"), who had "a modest reputation as a concert singer"^[4] was the daughter of a Manchester clothing retailer who had retired to a farm outside Toronto.^[5]

Lillie performed in Ontario towns as part of a family trio with her mother and older sister, Muriel, her father running the family home in Toronto as a boarding house in their absence.^[6] Eventually, her mother took the girls to London, England, where she made her West End début in the 1914 show Not Likely! Lillie followed this with about a dozen London shows and musical revues until 1922. In her revues, Lillie developed her sketches, songs and parodies. These won her lavish praise from The New York Times after her 1924 Broadway début in André Charlot's Revue of 1924, starring Gertrude Lawrence.^[7]

In some of her best known bits, she solemnly parodied the flowery performing style of earlier decades, mining such songs as "There Are Fairies at the Bottom of Our Garden" and "Mother Told Me So" for every double entendre. Other numbers ("Get Yourself a Geisha" and "Snoops the Lawyer") showcased her exquisite sense of the absurd. Her performing in such comedy routines as "One Dozen Double Damask Dinner Napkins", (in which an increasingly flummoxed matron attempts to purchase said napkins) earned her the frequently used sobriquet of "Funniest Woman in the World".^[8]

In 1926, she returned to New York City to perform. While in the United States, she starred in her first film,

Lillie was married on 20 January 1920 at the church of St. Paul, Drayton Bassett, Fazeley, Staffordshire, England, to Robert Peel, son of Sir Robert Peel, 4th Baronet, and at the time a used car salesman. The Peel family had "fallen on hard times", and Peel "had little else to offer besides the title of 5th baronet". He inherited the title on his father's death in 1925.^[11] Peel was an enthusiastic gambler and, due to his limited means, he generally used his wife's money; on their honeymoon in Monte Carlo, he lost all their money gambling.^[12]

Robert Peel had expensive tastes, and the couple were entirely dependent on her theatrical income throughout their marriage.^[13] Following the marriage, she was known in private life as Lady Peel. She eventually separated from her husband, but the couple never divorced. He died in 1934, aged 35. Their only child, Sir Robert Peel, 6th Baronet (1920–1942),^[14] was killed in action aboard HMS Tenedos in Colombo Harbour, Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka), in 1942.^[15]

During World War II, Lillie was an inveterate entertainer of the troops. Before she went on stage one day, she learned that her son had been killed in action. In 1948, while touring in the show Inside USA, she met singer/actor John Philip Huck. He was a former US Marine, almost three decades younger, who became her friend and companion for the rest of their lives, and she boosted his career. As Lillie's mental abilities declined at the end of her career, she relied more and more on Huck, whose intentions and loyalty to her were viewed with suspicion by her friends. She suffered a stroke in the mid-1970s, and in 1977, a conservator was appointed over her property; she retired to England.^[9]

Death

Lillie died in 1989, aged 94, at Henley-on-Thames. Huck died of a heart attack the next day, and the two were buried in the churchyard of St Margaret's in Harpsden, Oxfordshire, near Henley-on-Thames.^[16]

Filmography

Features

• Exit Smiling (1926) as Violet
• The Show of Shows
  (1929) as Performer in 'Recitations' Number
• Are You There? (1930) as Shirley Travis
• Dr. Rhythm (1938) as Mrs. Lorelei Dodge-Blodgett
• On Approval (1944) as Maria Wislack
• Around the World in 80 Days (1956) as London revivalist leader
• Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) as Mrs. Meers

Short subjects

• Beatrice Lillie (1929) as Herself
• Beatrice Lillie and Her Boyfriends (1930) Vitaphone Varieties short released 15 May 1930
• Broadway Highlights No. 1 (1935) as Herself
• Broadway Highlights No. 2 (1935) as Herself

Stage appearances

Radio and television

She was the star of three radio programs:

• The Beatrice Lillie Show on NBC 4 January – 28 June 1935
• The Flying Red Horse Tavern on CBS 7 February – 22 May 1936
• Broadway Merry-Go-Round on the Blue Network 6 January – 28 July 1937^[17]

In 1950 she appeared on The Star Spangled Revue with Bob Hope.^[18] (This includes the "One Dozen Double Damask Dinner Napkins" sketch.)

Awards and honours

• 1945: New York Drama Critics Award for Best Femme Performance in a Musical – Seven Lively Arts
• 1948:
  Inside USA
• 1953: Special Tony Award – An Evening with Beatrice Lillie
• 1954: Sarah Siddons Award
• 1958:
  Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical
  – Ziegfeld Follies of 1957 (nominee)
• 1964:
  Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical – High Spirits
  (nominee)

For her contributions to film, in 1960 Beatrice Lillie was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6404 Hollywood Blvd. Her portrait, painted by Neysa McMein about 1948 or 1949, is in the collection of The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in England.^[19]

References

Sources

• Laffey, Bruce. Beatrice Lillie: The Funniest Woman in the World, Wynwood Press (1989)
  ISBN 978-0922066223
• Lillie, Beatrice, with John Philip Huck and James Brough, Every Other Inch a Lady (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1972).

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Beatrice Lillie.

External links

External image
Neysa McMein, Neysa McMein, Beatrice Lillie (1898–1989), c. 1948–1949, Central School of Speech & Drama

• Beatrice Lillie at the Internet Broadway Database
• Beatrice Lillie at
  IMDb
• Records in the Theatre Archive at the University of Bristol of stage performances by Beatrice Lillie
• Fan video for the song I Hate Spring on
  YouTube
• Beatrice Lillie papers, 1911–1995, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
• Beatrice Lillie at Find a Grave

Awards and achievements
Preceded by Helen Hayes	Sarah Siddons Society , Chicago) 1954	Succeeded by Deborah Kerr