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Beatrice Lillie
From Outcyclopedia, the free and queer encyclopedia. Beatrice Lillie (29 May 1894 - 20 January 1989), often billed as "Queen Bea" and "The Canadian Catastrophe," was the outstanding comedic actress of her time. She was born Beatrice Gladys Lillie (not, as is sometimes claimed, as Constance Sylvia Munsfird) in Toronto, Ontario in Canada. Beatrice Lillie began performing in Toronto and other Ontario towns as part of a family trio with her mother and older sister Muriel. Eventually, her mother took the two girls to England where she made her West End debut in 1914. She was noted primarily for her stage work in revues and light comedies, frequently paired with Gertrude Lawrence, Bert Lahr and Jack Haley. Beatrice Lillie took advantage of her gift for witty satire that made her a stage success for more than 50 years. In her revues, she utilized sketches, songs, and parody that in her 1924 New York debut won her lavish praise from the New York Times. In 1926 she returned to New York City to perform. While there, she starred in her first film, Exit Smiling, in which she did a memorable turn in male drag, opposite fellow Canadian Jack Pickford. From then until the approach of World War II, Lillie repeatedly crisscrossed the Atlantic to perform on both continents. Lillie is associated particularly with the works of Noel Coward, though Cole Porter also wrote songs for her. She made few appearances on film, appearing in a cameo role as a temperance league revivalist in Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) and as Mrs. Meers in Thoroughly Modern Millie. She won a Tony Award in 1953 for her revue An Evening With Beatrice Lillie and made her final stage appearance in High Spirits, the musical version of Coward's Blithe Spirit. After seeing An Evening with Beatrice Lillie, British critic Ronald Barker wrote, "Other generations may have their Mistinguett and their Marie Lloyd. We have our Beatrice Lillie and seldom have we seen such a display of perfect talent." She married, on 20 January> 1920 at the church of St. Paul, Drayton Bassett, Fazely, near Tamworth, Staffordshire, England to Sir Robert Peel, 5th Baronet and became Lady Peel. Their only child, Robert, the 6th Baronet, was killed in action aboard the HMS Tenedos in Colombo Harbour in 1942. She eventually separated from her husband but never divorced until he died in 1934. In 1948, she met the singer/actor John Philip Huck, a gentleman 28 years her junior who became her friend and companion. She retired from the stage due to Alzheimer's disease and passed away in 1989 at Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire. John Philip Huck died of a heart attack the day after her passing and is interred next to her in a cemetery near Peel Fold. Beatrice Lillie has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Some obituaries made note of her hobby, collecting obituaries of people who had died under unusual and tragically comic circumstances. Tony Awards:
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External links: Canadian Women in Theatre and Dance Internet Broadway Database Entry Entry added 6 February, 2005. This article uses material from the Wikipedia article, "Beatrice Lillie." All text is available for use under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (see Copyrights for details). DISCLAIMER: This is not an adult site, and does not contain any pornographic images or material. Any references to sex or other adult material or behavior is made from a purely academic standpoint. Images used on this site are credited whenever possible, and any whose copyright status is in dispute will be gladly removed or credited upon request. Not all persons listed on this site are or were openly homosexual, but reasonable conclusions about their sexuality may and has been made from diaries, letters, and other writings and accounts made by them and/or those who knew them. Several others are heterosexual and are included here for the impact, whether positive or negative, they have made on queer culture and history. |
