Violet Vanbrugh
Biography
Violet Vanbrugh (1867-1942) was the elder sister of Irene Vanbrugh. Both became distinguished actresses.
Violet acted in the companies of the Kendals (with whom she toured America) and Henry Irving. In 1894, with her new husband, the actor Arthur Bourchier, she went to the USA and they both played with Augustin Daly’s Company in New York.
Vesta Tilley
Biography
Vesta Tilley (1864-15) was Britain’s most popular male impersonator and one of the country’s most successful music hall performers.
Born Matilda Alice Victoria Powers, she was the second of thirteen children fathered by an ex-factory worker who, using the name Harry Ball, presented his own comedy act in the halls and was a sometime theatre manager. [...]
Sybil Arundale
Biography
Sybil Arundale (1882-1965) was born Sybil Kelly. At the age of 11, she started what was to be a long and varied stage career, performing with her sister, Grace, in an act billed as ‘The Sisters Arundale’.
The music-hall double-act survived for a few years and, although Sybil afterwards continued to perform in vaudeville and pantomime, [...]
George Alexander
Biography
Sir George Alexander (1858-1918) became an actor in 1879 – rather than becoming a financier as his parents had wished. He joined Henry Irving at the Lyceum in 1881 and stayed until 1889. Shortly after leaving, he became the lessee of the St. James’s Theatre where he was the first British producer of many [...]
Simon Callow
Biography
Simon Callow, the British actor and director, was born in 1949. He attended Queen’s College, Belfast, for a year but left to train at London’s Drama Centre. After various provincial work, including small parts in Edinburgh and two months in repertory at Lincoln, he made his London debut in a Traverse Theatre production of C. [...]
Shirley Booth
Biography
Shirley Booth (1898-1992) was a distinguished and versatile actor. After working in stock companies for six years, she made her New York with Humphrey Bogart in Hell
Sheila Gish
Biography
Sheila Gish (born 1942) has, since the early 1980s, been in the front rank of British actresses. She was born in Lincoln and made her acting debut at school in the role of the psychotic Jonathan Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace. She trained at RADA and then played in repertory at Birmingham and Pitlochry. [...]
Seymour Hicks
Biography
Sir Seymour Hicks (1871-1949) was a distinguished actor-manager, playwright and early film star, whose theatrical career extended for more than 60 years.