Cicely Courtneidge

Dame Esmerelda Cicely Courtneidge (1 April 1893 – 26 April 1980) was an Australian-born British actress, comedian, and singer whose remarkable career spanned more than seven decades. Born in Sydney to a theatrical family while her father, the Scottish producer Robert Courtneidge, was touring Australia with the J. C. Williamson company, she made her stage debut at the age of eight as the fairy Peaseblossom in her father's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Prince's Theatre, Manchester. By the time she was 16, she was appearing in West End productions, and she was quickly promoted to major roles in her father's Edwardian musical comedies, including the lead in The Arcadians and one of the two leading female roles in The Mousmé alongside Florence Smithson. In 1916, she married the actor and dancer Jack Hulbert, with whom she formed both a professional and matrimonial partnership that lasted until his death 62 years later. After financial setbacks in the early 1930s caused by their financial manager's speculation, Courtneidge and Hulbert temporarily went their separate ways to pay off creditors, with Courtneidge appearing in 11 British films and one Hollywood film during the decade. She returned to the stage in 1937 with the musical Hide and Seek co-starring Bobby Howes, and later achieved great success in Under the Counter, a comedy about wartime black market that resonated strongly with British audiences and ran for two years. Notable among her other triumphs was her performance as the lead in Ivor Novello's musical Gay's the Word from 1951 to 1952, for which she received glowing reviews and was appointed CBE in 1951. During the Second World War, she devoted much of her time to entertaining the armed forces, presenting nightly three-hour shows to raise funds, and then forming a small company which she took to Gibraltar, Malta, North Africa, and Italy to perform for the services and hospitals. In her later years, she transitioned to non-musical theatre, including a notable performance in The L-Shaped Room (1962) as an elderly lesbian, and celebrated 70 years on the stage in 1971 during her last West End run in the farce Move Over, Mrs Markham at the Vaudeville Theatre, before being appointed DBE in 1972. She continued to work for several more years, with one of her final appearances being a royal gala performance at the Chichester Festival Theatre in June 1977 celebrating the Queen's Silver Jubilee, before her death in 1980.