Only a few months ago Lady Bancroft, speaking at a matinée in aid of King George’s Pension Fund for Actors, made an amusing allusion to Madame Tussaud’s.
She had just been listening to the dialogue between Peg Woffington, played by Irene Vanburgh, and Triplet, and she said:
“When it was arranged that my husband should come from his retirement to play the part of Triplet, we were very much exercised where to find his old costume.
“Then, all at once, we remembered the last time we saw that costume was at Madame Tussaud’s.
“I said, ‘Of course you have been melted down by this time.’
“He said, ‘What do you think they have made of me? Perhaps Marshal Foch, perhaps President Poincaré, perhaps President Wilson. I only hope my figure has not been melted down to something in the Chamber of Horrors.’”
None laughed more heartily than the King at Lady Bancroft’s story.
It was in the spring of 1889, that the Bancrofts gave me several sittings. The merry laughter of the actress made the time pass quickly and my work a real joy.
