Ivor Novello was a Welsh actor, dramatist, singer and composer who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century.
Lionel Barrymore was an American actor of stage, screen and radio as well as a film director. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul (1931), and remains best known to modern audiences for the role of villainous Mr. Potter in Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life.
Stanley Augustus Holloway was an English actor, comedian, singer and monologist. He was famous for his comic and character roles on stage and screen, especially that of Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady. He was also renowned for his comic monologues and songs, which he performed and recorded throughout most of his 70-year career.
Lynn Fontanne was an English actress. After early success in supporting roles in the West End, she met the American actor Alfred Lunt, whom she married in 1922 and with whom she co-starred in Broadway and West End productions over the next four decades. They became known as "The Lunts", and were celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic.
Noel Gay was born Reginald Moxon Armitage. He also used the name Stanley Hill professionally. He was a successful British composer of popular music of the 1930s and 1940s whose output comprised 45 songs as well as the music for 28 films and 26 London shows. Sheridan Morley has commented that he was "the closest Britain ever came to a local Irving Berlin". He is best known for the musical, Me and My Girl.
Me and My Girl is a musical with music by Noel Gay and its original book and lyrics by Douglas Furber and L. Arthur Rose. The musical is set in the late 1930s and tells the story of an unapologetically unrefined cockney gentleman named Bill Snibson, who learns that he is the 14th heir to the Earl of Hareford. The action is set in Hampshire, Mayfair, and Lambeth.
Eric Blore Sr. was an English actor and writer. His early stage career, mostly in the West End of London, centred on revue and musical comedy, but also included straight plays. He wrote sketches for and appeared in variety. In the 1930s Blore acted mostly in Broadway productions. He made his last London appearance in 1933 in the Fred Astaire hit Gay Divorce. Between 1930 and 1955 he made more than 60 Hollywood films, becoming particularly well known for playing butlers and other superior domestic servants. He retired in 1956 for health reasons, and died in Hollywood in 1959 at the age of 71.
Beatrice Gladys Lillie, known as Bea Lillie, was a Canadian-born British actress, singer and comedic performer.
Roland Young was an English-born actor. He began his acting career on the London stage, but later found success in America and received an Academy Award nomination for his role in the film Topper (1937).
William Brian de Lacy Aherne was an English actor of stage, screen, radio and television, who enjoyed a long and varied career in Britain and the US.
"The Lambeth Walk" is a song from the 1937 musical Me and My Girl. The song takes its name from a local street, Lambeth Walk, once notable for its street market and working class culture in Lambeth, an area of London. The tune gave its name to a Cockney dance made popular in 1937 by Lupino Lane.
Stanley Richard Lupino Hook, known professionally as Stanley Lupino, was an English actor, dancer, singer, librettist, director and short story writer. During the 1930s, Lupino appeared in a successful series of musical comedy films, often based on his already popular stage shows.
George Arliss was an English actor, author, playwright, and filmmaker who found success in the United States. He was the first British actor to win an Academy Award – which he won for his performance as Victorian-era British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli in Disraeli (1929) – as well as the earliest-born actor to win the honour. He specialized in successful biopics (such as Disraeli, Voltaire, and Cardinal Richelieu, as well as light comedies (which included The Millionaire and A Successful Calamity.
The Britannia Theatre (1841–1900) was located at 115/117 High Street, Hoxton, London. The theatre was badly damaged by a fire in 1900, forcing the sale of the lease. The site was reused as a Gaumont cinema from 1913 to 1940, before being demolished to make room for a more modern cinema which was never built. Housing has now been built on the site, which is marked by a London Borough of Hackney historic plaque.
Sidney Bracey was an Australian-born American actor. After a stage career in Australia, on Broadway and in Britain, he performed in more than 320 films between 1909 and 1942.
Wallace Lupino was a British-born stage and film actor who was a member of the Lupino family. He appeared in 63 films between 1918 and 1945, most often with his older brother, Lupino Lane. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and died in Ashford, Kent, England.
George Windsor Graves was an English comic actor. Although he could neither sing nor dance, he became a leading comedian in musical comedies, adapting the French and Viennese opéra-bouffe style of light comic relief into a broader comedy popular with English audiences of the period. His comic portrayals did much to ensure the West End success of Véronique (1904) The Little Michus, and The Merry Widow (1907).
The Lambeth Walk is a 1939 British musical comedy film directed by Albert de Courville and starring Lupino Lane, Sally Gray and Seymour Hicks. It was an adaptation of the 1937 musical Me and My Girl, and was released under that title in the U.S. The film takes its British title from the play's best known song, "The Lambeth Walk". The star of the musical, Lupino Lane, reprised his lead role in the film.
Thomas Leamore was an English music hall and variety comic performer, dancer and singer.
Reginald Crompton was a British solicitor, stage actor and silent film screenwriter. A bass-baritone, he created several minor roles in the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.
