Lily Brayton

Lily Brayton
Lily Brayton, Melbourne, 1909–1910
Born	Elizabeth Brayton (1876-06-23)23 June 1876 Hindley, Greater Manchester, England
Died	30 April 1953(1953-04-30) (aged 77) Dawlish, Devon, England
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1896–1932
Spouses	Oscar Asche ​ ​ (m. 1898; died 1936)​ Dr. Douglas Chalmers Watson ​ ​ (m. 1936; died 1946)​

Elizabeth "Lily" Brayton (23 June 1876 – 30 April 1953) was an English actress and singer, known for her performances in

Brayton was born in

In 1909–1910, while Brayton and Asche were touring Australia, the Australian musician Wynne Jones composed a piece entitled "The Lily Brayton Valse".[4] In 1911 at the Garrick Theatre, Brayton starred with Asche in the play Kismet.^[5] They toured Australia again in 1912–13 and also visited South Africa at the end of the tour in 1913. Several Shakespeare plays were given during these visits, as well as Kismet. In 1914, she appeared as Marsinah in the silent film adaptation of Kismet.

Chu Chin Chow and later years

The Asche hit musical comedy Chu Chin Chow was staged in London in 1916. Brayton played the female lead character, Zahrat-al-Kulub. Chu Chin Chow played until 1921, enjoying an unprecedented run of 2,238 performances, of which Brayton performed in nearly 2000, an endurance feat. Brayton did not accompany Asche on his third tour of Australia in 1922–24.

The majority of Brayton's performances, excepting Chu Chin Chow, were in Shakespeare plays. She also performed for several seasons at the Stratford Festival. Her last stage appearance was as Portia in Julius Caesar in 1932, directed by Asche. Asche became unstable and violent in his later years, and he and Brayton separated for a time, although she produced his 1928 play, The Good Old Days of England.^[6]

After Asche's death in 1936, Brayton married Dr. Douglas Chalmers Watson and moved to Drem in East Lothian. Following the death of her second husband she moved to Dawlish in Devon where she died at the age of 76.^[1] She was cremated and her ashes buried in the grave of her first husband in the riverside cemetery near her former home in Bisham, Berkshire. She had no children.

There are three paintings of Brayton in the

Selected performances

• Herod, as Mariamne (1900)
• Richard II, as Queen Isabella (1900,1903,1910)
• Twelfth Night, as Viola (1901)

• The Prayer of the Sword (
  James Bernard Fagan
  ), as Ilaria Visconti (1904)
• Darling of the Gods, as Yo-San (1904)
• Taming of the Shrew
  , as Katherine (1904,1907,1908,1914)
• Hamlet, as Ophelia (1905)
• Measure for Measure, as Isabella (1906)
• The Virgin Goddess (
  Rudolph Besier
  ), as Althea (1906)
• Tristram & Iseult, as Iseult (1906)
• A Midsummer Night's Dream, as Helena (1906)
• Othello, as Desdemona (1907, 1909)
• Attila, as Ildico (1907)
• The Two Pins (Frank Stayton), as Elsa (1908)
• Merry Wives of Windsor
  , as Mistress Ford (1911)
• As You Like It, as Rosalind (1911)
• Kismet, as Marsinah (1914)
• Chu Chin Chow, as Zahrat-al-Kulub (1916–1921)
• Julius Caesar, as Portia (1932)

Notes

References

• Fletcher, Chrissy, A Theatrical Life: The Many Faces of Oscar Asche 1871–1936 (2002, Fletcher)
  ISBN 0-9580497-1-8
  .
• Pearson, Hesketh. The Last Actor-Managers (London, 1950)
• Who was who in the Theatre, 1912–1976: a biographical dictionary of actors, actresses, directors, playwrights, and producers of the English-speaking theatre v. 1 Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1978.

• Lily Brayton at
  IMDb
• Lily Brayton's profile at the Emory University Shakespeare Project, with numerous photos at the Wayback Machine (archived 10 September 2006)
• Information about several of Brayton's Shakespeare roles at the Wayback Machine (archived 10 September 2006)
• Photo of Brayton as Marsinah in Kismet
• Profile from National Library of Australia
• List of Bensonian players at the Wayback Machine (archived 17 May 2008)
• Picture of Agnes Brayton