Gertie Gitana
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Gertie Gitana | |
---|---|
Birth name | Gertrude Mary Astbury |
Born | Longport, Staffordshire, England | 27 December 1887
Died | 5 January 1957 Hampstead, London, England | (aged 69)
Genres | Music hall |
Occupation(s) | Singer, dancer, entertainer |
Gertie Gitana (born Gertrude Mary Astbury; 27 December 1887 – 5 January 1957)[1] was an English music hall entertainer.
Biography
She was born in Shirley Street,
By the age of 15, she was earning over £100 per week, more than her father earned in a year. At the age of 17, she topped the bill for the first time at The Ardwick Empire at
During the 1914–18 war she was the Forces' sweetheart and often entertained the war wounded in hospitals. In her prime, her name was always sufficient to ensure a full house. After the war, she appeared in pantomime, notably as Little Red Riding Hood, and Cinderella. She was reputed to have said the line in Cinderella, "Here I sit, all alone/ I think I'll play my saxophone", before removing it from the stage chimney and playing it.[4] Two musical shows were specially written for her: Nellie Dean and Dear Louise, and in 1928 she married her leading man in the latter, Don Ross.[1]
She retired in 1938 but made a very successful comeback ten years later with other "old timers" in the show Thanks for the Memory produced by her husband. The show was the centrepiece of the Royal Command Performance in 1948. Her final appearance was on 2 December 1950 at the Empress Theatre, Brixton.
She died of cancer on 5 January 1957 in Hampstead, London, aged 69,
Legacy
In the early 1950s, Frederic Street in
A bench on Edinburgh's Prince Street Gardens has been named in her honour. The inscription reads "A Loving Remembrance of Gertie Gitana Music Hall Artiste" followed by the lyrics "There's An Old Mill by the Stream Nelly Dean". (Note the incorrect spelling of "Nellie".) Her London memorial — "The Nellie Dean" at the corner of
References
- ^ ISBN 978-1-78340-066-9, pp.251-254
- ^ Did you know? – Gertie Gitana was born in Stoke-on-Trent? thepotteries.org
- ^ a b "Singing star's greatest thrill was street name honour". The Sentinel. 11 October 2008. Retrieved 31 July 2009.
- ISBN 1-86105-206-5, p.24