Cicely Courtneidge

Dame Esmerelda Cicely Courtneidge was born on 1 April 1893 in Sydney, Australia, while her father, the Scottish producer and playwright Robert Courtneidge, was touring the country with the J. C. Williamson company. The family relocated to England in 1894. Her mother, Rosaline May Adams, performed under the stage name Rosie Nott and came from a theatrical family of her own: her mother was the singer and actress Cicely Nott, and her sisters included Ada Blanche, a prominent pantomime performer. Courtneidge was educated in England and spent two years as a teenager in Switzerland before returning to begin her acting career with her parents' encouragement.

Her stage debut came in 1901, when she was eight years old, playing the fairy Peaseblossom in her father's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Prince's Theatre, Manchester. Her London West End debut followed at the Apollo Theatre in the comic opera Tom Jones in 1907, a work with a libretto co-written by her father. She took over the starring role of Eileen Cavanagh in the long-running Edwardian musical comedy The Arcadians from Phyllis Dare in 1910, and the following year appeared in one of the two leading female roles in The Mousmé alongside Florence Smithson. In September 1913, she played Lady Betty Biddulph in The Pearl Girl, a production that also featured her aunt Ada Blanche and, in the role of Robert Jaffray, a 21-year-old Jack Hulbert making his professional debut. Courtneidge and Hulbert next starred together in The Cinema Star in June 1914, an adaptation of the 1913 German comic opera Die Kino-Königin, which played to full houses at the Shaftesbury Theatre until anti-German sentiment brought the run to an abrupt halt following the outbreak of war in August 1914.

Courtneidge and Hulbert became engaged in 1914, though Robert Courtneidge required them to wait two years before marrying. They wed in February 1916. After her father suffered a series of failures and temporarily withdrew from production, no other producers offered Courtneidge leading roles in musical comedy, and she turned to music hall variety. The Times later described this transition as the first step in a new career as a comedienne specializing in cameo character sketches. By 1918 she had established herself as a music hall artist in both the provinces and London. She also made her pantomime debut that year.

Courtneidge and Hulbert collaborated professionally as well as matrimonially, planning to work together in revue and musical comedy. Their first revue, Ring Up, by Eric Blore and Ivy St. Helier, opened at the Royalty Theatre in 1921. In 1923 they appeared in The Little Revue, produced by Hulbert, which launched what became a series of five successive productions described as uninterrupted successes over eight years, with both performers in starring roles. These shows played the West End and toured the United Kingdom. In 1925, the Hulberts brought their current revue, By the Way, to Broadway, marking Courtneidge's debut on the American stage. The New York Times described the show as beguiling. The fourth production in the series, Clowns in Clover, included one of Courtneidge's most celebrated sketches, Double Damask, written by Dion Titheradge.

During the 1930s, Courtneidge appeared in twelve British films as well as one Hollywood production, work she found highly lucrative. She and Hulbert also recorded for Columbia and His Master's Voice during this period before returning to the stage in the late 1930s. During the Second World War, she entertained the armed forces and raised funds for the troops. She subsequently appeared in the comedy Under the Counter, in which she received strongly positive notices and which she also brought to Broadway, extending her Broadway career through 1947. In 1951 and 1952, she starred in Ivor Novello's musical Gay's the Word, one of her most notable later successes. Through the remainder of the 1950s she concentrated on revues and straight plays.

From the mid-1960s onward, Courtneidge focused on non-musical theatre, appearing in the West End and on tour in both serious and comic plays. During her final West End run in 1971, she marked seventy years on the stage. She continued working for a further five years before retiring. Courtneidge died on 26 April 1980 at the age of 87.