Madge Elliott

Leah Madeleine Elliott, known professionally as Madge Elliott, was born on 12 May 1896 in Fulham, London, and died on 8 August 1955. A dancer and actor, she became widely recognized as the wife and stage partner of Cyril Ritchard.

Elliott's family emigrated to Australia when she was a young child, settling in Toowoomba, Queensland, where her father, Nicholas Phillipps Elliott, worked as a surgeon and her mother, Frances Selina Curtis, raised the family. Elliott received her early education at a local grammar school. After the family relocated to Sydney, she trained as a dancer under Minnie Hooper and by 1911 had joined the children's ballet at the Melba-Williamson Opera Company.

It was Hooper who first attempted to pair Elliott with the actor Cyril Ritchard, though Elliott initially considered his dancing insufficient for a professional partnership. Despite that early reluctance, the two eventually formed a duo billed as "Madge and Cyril" and toured New Zealand together. In 1918 they appeared jointly in Yes, Uncle! and Going Up before temporarily separating to pursue independent careers. During that period Elliott relocated to London, where she made her West End debut in 1925. The partnership resumed in London in 1927, when producer Laddie Cliff engaged them to star in Lady Luck at the Carlton Theatre.

Elliott and Ritchard returned to Australia in 1932, appearing together in several musical productions, among them Blue Roses. On 16 September 1935 the couple married at St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney, an event that drew an estimated five thousand onlookers, with Elliott's four-yard veil drawing particular attention from the crowd.

Elliott's Broadway career included an appearance in 1950 in the play The Relapse. She died of bone cancer at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City on 8 August 1955.