Louie Pounds

Louisa Emma Amelia Pounds, known professionally as Louie Pounds, was an English singer and actress born on 12 February 1872 in Brompton, Kensington, London. She worked across musical comedy, burlesque, and mezzo-soprano roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company over a career that extended into the 1930s. She died on 6 September 1970 in Southsea at the age of 98.

Pounds originally trained for a secretarial career, attending the Metropolitan School of Shorthand in Chancery Lane. Her professional stage debut came in 1890 as a chorus girl under the management of George Edwardes. Within three months, Edwardes cast her in a small role in Joan of Arc at the Opera Comique in January 1891. The following year she appeared in Blue-Eyed Susan, by F. Osmond Carr, as Daisy Meadows, and later that same year took the role of Lord Soho in the burlesque Cinder Ellen up too Late with Edwardes's company, performing both on tour and in London. In 1893 she appeared in Edwardes's musical In Town, and in 1894 was among the leading performers in A Gaiety Girl. In 1895 she appeared alongside Marie Tempest, Leonora Braham, and Sybil Grey in An Artist's Model in London, then toured the production in America for three months. A provincial tour in Gentleman Joe followed, after which she played Dorothy Travers in The French Maid from 1896 to 1898, first on a pre-London tour and then in the West End. In 1897 she participated in a series of special matinée performances at Terry's Theatre, consisting of adaptations by Basil Hood and Walter Slaughter of Hans Andersen fairy stories. Her major West End role in 1898 was the breeches part of Prince Rollo in Her Royal Highness.

In 1899, while performing in the revue A Dream of Whitaker's Almanack at the Crystal Palace, Pounds was approached by Sir Arthur Sullivan about the forthcoming season at the Savoy Theatre. She joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and created the role of Heart's Desire in The Rose of Persia that same year. She also appeared as the title character in the companion piece Pretty Polly, with a libretto by Basil Hood and music by François Cellier. In the summer of 1900 she appeared at the Coronet Theatre in Hood's The Great Silence. In 1901 she created the role of Molly O'Grady in The Emerald Isle for D'Oyly Carte, earning enthusiastic notices that praised her dulcet contralto voice and her portrayal of the character. She subsequently played Christina in Ib and Little Christina and then took the title role in the first revival of Iolanthe from 1901 to 1902. Two further original works at the Savoy followed: she played Jill-all-alone in Merrie England in 1902 and Joy Jellicoe in A Princess of Kensington in 1903. After the London run and provincial tour of the latter production, Pounds departed the D'Oyly Carte company. She was the youngest of five siblings to appear with the organization; her brother Courtice was a principal tenor with the company in the 1880s and 1890s, and her three sisters, Lily, Nancy, and Rosy, also performed with D'Oyly Carte.

Following her departure from D'Oyly Carte, Pounds appeared at the Adelphi Theatre in The Earl and the Girl in 1903, alongside many colleagues from A Princess of Kensington, and at the same theatre played the Princess in the pantomime Little Hans Andersen that same year. In 1905 she appeared in The Catch of the Season at the Vaudeville Theatre. In 1906, also at the Vaudeville Theatre, she starred alongside her brother Courtice in The Belle of Mayfair, a production that drew favorable notices for both siblings. A reviewer in The Daily Graphic praised her performance, and another critic wrote that her singing of And the weeping willow wept was quite inimitably artistic. In 1908 she played Lydia in a revival of the Victorian musical Dorothy. In 1909 she appeared in The Dashing Little Duke, again with her brother Courtice.

That same year, Pounds made her Broadway appearance in The Dollar Princess, a run that extended into 1910. The engagement was followed by a tour in South Africa. By 1910 she had begun transitioning to character roles, including the wife and mother in The Girl in the Train. In 1913 she played Patty in J. M. Barrie's Quality Street, in 1916 she appeared as Madame Jollette in Toto, and in 1919 she took a role in The Title. In 1920 and 1921 she played the comic role of Alcolom in the first Australian production of Chu Chin Chow alongside C. H. Workman as Ali Baba. Pounds retired in 1923 but returned to the stage in 1926. In 1928 she appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's film The Farmer's Wife as Widow Windeatt. In 1937 she toured as Mrs. Bennett in a stage adaptation of Pride and Prejudice alongside Angela Baddeley and Glen Byam Shaw. Pounds also contributed to Gilbert and Sullivan scholarship, publishing an article titled Memories of an Earlier Iolanthe in the March 1931 issue of The Gilbert and Sullivan Journal.