Dilys Lay

Dilys Laye, born Dilys Lay on 11 March 1934 in London, England, was an English actress and singer whose career in theatre, film, radio, and television spanned more than fifty years. She died on 13 February 2009. Trained at the Aida Foster School and educated at St Dominic's Sixth Form College, Harrow, she was the daughter of Edward Charles Lay and his wife Margaret, née Hewitt. Her father departed when she was eight years old to work as a musician in South Africa and did not return. During the Second World War, she and her brother were evacuated to Devon, an experience she later described as unhappy and marked by physical abuse. She returned home to a mother who channeled her own unfulfilled theatrical ambitions into her daughter's upbringing.

Laye made her stage debut in April 1948 at the New Lindsey Theatre Club in Notting Hill, playing the boy Moritz Scharf in Noel Langley's drama The Burning Bush. That same Christmas season she appeared as Bobby in the pantomime Babes in the Wood at the Prince's Theatre, London. Her first film role came in 1949 in Trottie True, in which she played the title character as a child, and her first television appearance followed in 1950 in the revue Flotsam's Follies. She made her West End debut in October 1951 at the New Theatre in the musical And So to Bed by J. B. Fagan, playing Lettice, maid to Samuel Pepys's wife. In 1953 she appeared at the Hippodrome in the revue High Spirits, which starred Cyril Ritchard and Diana Churchill and featured Ian Carmichael, Joan Sims, and Patrick Cargill in supporting roles.

Her Broadway debut came in September 1954, when she opened in the musical The Boy Friend, playing Dulcie opposite Julie Andrews, who portrayed Polly. The two shared a flat for much of the production's 485-performance run, which continued into 1955. It was the last time she performed under the name Dilys Lay; upon returning to Britain she added an e to her stage surname and was billed as Dilys Laye for the remainder of her career.

Back in Britain, Laye appeared in several films during the 1950s, including The Belles of St Trinian's in 1954, Blue Murder at St Trinian's and Doctor at Large in 1957. That same year she appeared in The Crystal Heart at the Saville Theatre, a production that closed after five performances. Also in December 1957 she played Estell Novick in the non-musical comedy The Tunnel of Love at Her Majesty's Theatre, a production that ran for more than a year despite mixed notices, with Laye and co-star Ian Carmichael receiving particular praise. In 1959 she joined Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop to play Redhead in a musical adaptation of Wolf Mankowitz's novel Make Me an Offer, first at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East and subsequently at the New Theatre.

In the 1960s Laye made four appearances in the Carry On film series. She replaced an unwell Joan Sims at three days' notice to play Flo Castle in Carry On Cruising in 1962, then returned as Lila in Carry On Spying in 1964, Mavis Winkle in Carry On Doctor in 1967, and Anthea Meeks in Carry On Camping in 1969. Her television work during this period included an episode of the BBC sitcom The Rag Trade in 1962 and six episodes of The Bed-Sit Girl in 1965, in which she co-starred with Sheila Hancock. In 1967 she had a cameo in Charlie Chaplin's film A Countess from Hong Kong, playing a scene opposite Marlon Brando. That same year she appeared in the West End comedy Say Who You Are alongside Carmichael, Cargill, and Jan Holden. In 1968 she moved into more dramatic territory, playing Mrs Shin in Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuan at the Oxford Playhouse, with Hancock in the title role.

A significant and enduring professional relationship began in 1973 when Laye started working with playwright Peter Barnes, first playing Gertrude in his BBC radio adaptation of the early seventeenth-century comedy Eastward Ho! The following year she made her first appearance with the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing Theresa Diego in Barnes's historical drama The Bewitched, a role she continued when the production transferred to the Aldwych Theatre in May 1974. In 1976 Barnes directed her at the Old Vic in The Frontiers of Farce, a double bill of his adaptations of one-act plays by Frank Wedekind and Georges Feydeau, in which she starred alongside Leonard Rossiter, John Stride, and John Phillips. Their collaboration extended through the late 1970s to include radio adaptations of Wedekind's Lulu, in which she played Countess Geschwitz, Thomas Middleton's A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, and The Two Hangmen, a radio cabaret of songs, poems, and sketches by Wedekind and Brecht. Her television work in 1975 included co-starring with Reg Varney in the ITV sitcom Down the 'Gate.

In 1981 Laye appeared in and co-wrote the ITV comedy series Chintz. She continued her work with Barnes that same year, playing Lady Dunce in his radio adaptation of Thomas Otway's The Soldier's Fortune and performing his monologue The Theory and Practice of Belly-Dancing. Throughout her later decades she took on roles in works by Shakespeare, Wilde, Beckett, Genet, and in Dickens adaptations, as well as musical theatre productions ranging from Gilbert and Sullivan to works by Sondheim and Lloyd Webber.