Marie Lloyd.—I can give two “flashlights” of Marie Lloyd. One, when I saw her at the Tivoli, when she wore a striped satin bathing-costume, and carried a most diminutive towel; the other, when I saw her at the Palladium, and spent one of the most enjoyable thirty minutes of my life. Was she vulgar? I suppose so; but it was a “clean” vulgarity, which left no nasty taste behind it; it was a happy, healthy vulgarity, and when it was over you came home and remembered the artistry which was the essential quality of all she said and did. I met her at a charity concert I arranged at the Alhambra during the war; I know she came all the way from Sheffield to appear. We had an auction sale of butter, eggs, pheasants, and so forth. Poor Laurie de Freece was the auctioneer, and he was suffering from a very bad throat; his voice was dreadfully hoarse. He stuck bravely to his work, and when he got to the pheasants Marie Lloyd could bear it no longer. She put her head round the side of the “back cloth” and said, “Five pounds, me—Marie Lloyd. I can’t bear to hear you going on with that voice; it’s awful.” When Harry died, she said to a woman who knew both Marie Lloyd and me, “I did think of sending her a wire, and then I thought of writing a letter (Marie Lloyd, who never wrote letters if she could avoid doing so!), then somehow—I didn’t do either. Will you just say to Eva Moore that you’ve seen me, and say, ‘Marie’s very sorry’?” Already she is becoming almost a legendary figure; men and women will tell stories of Marie Lloyd long after the songs she sang are forgotten. Personally, to me she will always rank as one of the world’s great artists, and I like to remember that, when I was given the sympathy of so many loving men and women, Marie Lloyd too was “very sorry”.
CHAPTER X
STORIES I REMEMBER
“When you know as much of life as I do, you will see a jest in everything.”—Bad Hats.
“Tell me a story”—that was what we used to ask, wasn’t it? And when the story was told it was of knights, and lovely ladies, and giants who were defeated in their wickedness by the prince, and the story ended—as all good stories should end—“and they lived happy ever after”.
As we grew older we still wanted stories, but, because we found life lacked a good deal of the laughter we had expected to find, we wanted stories to make us laugh. I am going to try and tell you “true stories that will make you laugh”. If they are new, so much the better; but if they are old—well, are you too old yourself to laugh again?
Frank Curzon objected, and very rightly, to ladies wearing large hats at matinées. He objected so strongly that everyone heard of the fight to the death between Frank Curzon and the matinée hat, “The Lady and the Law Case”. One day, at a meeting of West End managers, when arrangements were being made for some big matinée, Frank Curzon proposed something which Herbert Tree opposed. There was some argument on the matter, and at last Tree launched his final bolt: “My friend, Frank Curzon,” he said, “is evidently talking through his matinée hat.”
George Edwardes had a servant who stuttered very badly. He had been with Edwardes, “man and boy”, for many years, and at last attended his master’s funeral. He was telling the glories of the ceremony to someone, and said: “It was a l-l-lovely funeral! S-s-some b-boy sang a s-s-solo; he s-ang it b-b-beautifully; I expected any m-m-minute to see the G-guvenor sit up and say, ‘G-give him a c-c-contract!’”
George Edwardes was once interviewing a lady for the chorus at the Gaiety; he asked her, “Do you run straight?” “Yes, Mr. Edwardes,” was the reply, “but not very far, or very fast.”
He once gave a supper party at the old Waldorf Hotel, which at that time was literally overrun with mice. G. P. Huntly was present, and, among others, Mr. Blackman, one of George Edwardes’s managers. All dined well—and many not wisely. Presently G. P. Huntly saw a mouse on the curtain, and the dreadful fear assailed him that perhaps “it wasn’t really a mouse—not a real mouse, anyway”. He turned to Mr. Blackman and said, “Did you see that?” “See what?” asked the other. Huntly pointed to the curtain. “That mouse on the curtain.” By that time the mouse had moved, and Blackman replied in the negative. In a minute Huntly asked the same question again: “See that mouse?” Blackman (who by this time had seen it), to “rag” him, said “No.” Poor Huntly turned very white, rose from his seat, and said, “Ah!—Good-night!” and went home.
Alfred Lester and Mr. W. H. Berry—at one time, at least—did not “get on”. One morning Lester was going to interview Edwardes about something, and Edwardes, knowing about this “rift in the theatrical lute”, warned Blackman before Lester came, “Now, on no account mention Berry! Let’s have a nice, quiet, pleasant interview; keep Berry out of it,” and so on. When Alfred Lester came into the room, Edwardes stretched out his hand and said cordially, “Well, Berry, how are you, my boy? Sit down.”