Anita Elson

Anita Elson, born Hannah Edelstein on 8 July 1898 in Pancras, London, England, was an English actress, dancer, and singer who worked professionally under the stage name Anita Elson. She died on 29 September 1985 in Newport Beach, California, at the age of 87. Her father, William Edelsten (1871–1951), was a Dutch theatrical manager, and her mother was Rebecca, née Levi (1874–1958). She had two siblings: an elder brother, Cecil John A. Edelstein (1896–1902), and a younger sister, Celestina Edelstein (1900–1922). Elson is the subject of three portraits held at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

During the early 1900s, Elson was among approximately fifty starlets whose images appeared on collector cards distributed by the Hignett cigarette company of Great Britain inside their CHESS cigarette packets. Her career centered on revue performances in both New York City and London during the early twentieth century. In February 1916, she appeared on Broadway in The Cohan Revue of 1916, which opened at the Astor Theatre in New York City. The production was written and managed by George M. Cohan, who composed the book, lyrics, and music. The cast included Valli Valli, Elizabeth Murray, Lila Rhodes, and Juliet Delf, among many others. Following success in the London production of Little Nellie Kelly, Elson secured a place in the cast of the 1924 Ziegfeld Follies. In London on 26 February 1926, she recorded a duet with Leo Franklyn as well as two songs with chorus and orchestra, all drawn from the revue Turned Up at the New Oxford Theatre; these recordings were released on HMV B2279-80.

On 7 January 1930, Elson married her first husband, Nicholas John Andrew Leyland Prinsep (1894–1983), an English stockbroker and the youngest son of the British painter Valentine Cameron Prinsep, at the Register Office in St George Hanover Square, London. The wedding ceremony was filmed on a camera given to the couple as a gift by the actor and comedian Leslie Henson. The couple honeymooned by traveling to Yokohama, Los Angeles, and New York, returning to Liverpool on 9 June 1930. On 30 January 1934, they sailed together to New York aboard the Île de France, returning to Southampton on 23 February 1934. During her marriage to Prinsep, Elson's legal name became Hannah Prinsep, and she occasionally used Anita Prinsep as a stage name. Her sister-in-law by marriage was the Canadian actress Margaret Bannerman. On 8 April 1936, following six years of marriage, Elson was granted a decree nisi of divorce from Prinsep in the London Divorce Court on the grounds of his adultery at a West End hotel. Prinsep subsequently married the actress Celia Glyn, born Cecilia Glynn Ouseley (1906–1984), known for her appearance in the crime film The House Opposite (1931).

Elson relocated to California in 1935. In January 1955, she married her second husband, John Howland Paddock (born 19 December 1892), an American retired mining engineer and former international polo player, taking the legal name Hannah Paddock and occasionally using Anita Paddock professionally. Paddock died from a heart ailment in Newport Beach, California, on 23 December 1963, at the age of 71. Elson maintained a close personal friendship with the actor and comedian Leon Errol, whose manager for more than thirty-five years was her father, William Edelsten. Errol and Edelsten died within twenty-four hours of each other in October 1951. Elson died at her Newport Beach home on 29 September 1985 and was interred alongside her husband at Fairhaven Memorial Park in Santa Ana, California.