Coralie Blythe

Coralie Blythe, born Caroline Maud Blyth on 28 January 1881 in Bow, London, was an English actress and singer who worked steadily in the West End, British provincial theatres, and on Broadway. The eldest of three children born to William Thomas Blyth, a publican, and his wife Jane, née Finley, an actress, Blythe was the sister of dancer Vernon Castle. Her mother died in 1897. She is remembered for her roles in Edwardian musical comedy and for her numerous postcard photographs. She married actor Lawrence Grossmith, a son of the comic actor, singer, and writer George Grossmith, in London on 2 June 1904, though banns for the marriage had first been read as early as May 1896.

Blythe began her theatrical career in her teens, taking on West End roles that included replacing Marie Studholme as Gladys Stourton in the Edwardian musical A Gaiety Girl in 1894 and appearing in the Christmas pantomime Santa Claus that same year. She subsequently performed in chorus roles at George Edwardes's Gaiety Theatre in London across several productions, among them The Circus Girl, A Runaway Girl, A Greek Slave, San Toy, and The Messenger Boy. In 1900 she toured Britain in San Toy, and in 1901 she appeared in The Silver Slipper at the Lyric Theatre in London before taking the small role of Maisie in The Toreador later that year. She also held three named roles in Edwardes productions at the Prince's Theatre in Bristol: Lucille in The Circus Girl during 1897 and 1898, Ada Branscombe in Three Little Maids in 1902, and a role in The Orchid from 1904 to 1905.

By the mid-1900s Blythe had established herself as a popular postcard subject and a recognizable presence in Edwardian musical comedy. She played Louise in Mr Popple of Ippleton at the Apollo Theatre in 1905 and was Gretchen in Two Naughty Boys at the Gaiety in 1906, followed by the role of Susie in The Girl Behind the Counter at Wyndham's Theatre the same year. In 1906, producer Lew Fields invited Blythe and her husband Grossmith to perform in New York; she brought her brother Vernon Castle with her. That year, all three appeared at the Herald Square Theatre on Broadway in the musical revue About Town, marking Blythe's Broadway debut.

Following her return to London, Blythe appeared in The White Chrysanthemum and played Ethel Trevor in The Three Kisses, with music by Howard Talbot and lyrics by Percy Greenbank and Leedham Bantock, at the Apollo Theatre in 1907. In 1908 she took on the role of Mitzi in The Girls of Gottenberg and appeared as Phyllis Tuppet in a revival of Dorothy at the New Theatre. She returned to the Prince's Theatre in Bristol for The Gay Gordons from 1908 to 1909 and played Martje in The Girl in the Train from 1910 to 1911. Between those engagements, in 1909, she played Cesarine de Noce in The Dashing Little Duke at the Hicks Theatre in London and toured as Consuelo in Havana.

Blythe returned to Broadway in 1915 when she and Grossmith appeared in Nobody Home, a musical comedy by Bolton and Rubens with music by Jerome Kern, which transferred to the Princess Theatre in 1916. For the remainder of her career she continued to move between the United States and Great Britain, appearing in musical comedies in both countries. On 23 May 1928 she sailed from Britain to the United States, where she died on 24 July 1928 at the age of 47. She was buried beside her brother Vernon Castle at Woodlawn Cemetery in New York City. Lawrence Grossmith, who died in 1944, was buried beside her.