Daisy Burrell

Background

Daisy Ratton was born in Wandsworth in 1892, although according to Who Was Who in the Theatre 1912–1976 she was born in Singapore in 1893.

She had a complicated family history, marred by early deaths. Her grandfather, Charles George Ratton, was a stockbroker from an Anglo-Portuguese Roman Catholic family. He married Isabella Iphigenia de Pavia and they lived at Stoke Newington, but he died in 1873, aged only 25, leaving a young son and daughter. His widow, Daisy's grandmother, remarried the next year and died in 1890, aged 42. In 1891, Daisy's father, Charles Morris Ratton, married Ethel Eaglesfield Griffith, the daughter of another stockbroker, but in 1892, the year Daisy Ratton was born, he died at the age of 24. Her mother, Ethel Ratton, later became the partner of Henry S. Burrell, a licensed victualler who was licensee of the Clarence Hotel, Stoke Newington, and the Swan Hotel, Hythe. They had a son, John, and a daughter, Edwina Ethel. As the years passed, the Burrell family lived mostly in Kent, at Hythe and Folkestone.

Early career

Taking her step-father's surname, at least as a performer, Burrell first appeared on stage at the London Hippodrome in July 1903, playing the part of Kitty in The Redskins, a water spectacular by Alicia Ramsey. She went on to study at the Guildhall School of Music.

On leaving there, she went into pantomime at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and first came to wide attention in 1910, appearing at the Vaudeville Theatre in The Girl in the Train. After closing in London this production, starring Burrell, went on tour until 1911.

After that she was with George Edwardes's touring company for six years, appearing in the hit Edwardian musical comedies The Marriage Market, Peggy, The Sunshine Girl and others. In The Marriage Market, she played a midshipman. In 1912 she sang the part of Juliette in a production of Franz Lehár's operetta The Count of Luxembourg, and the next year appeared in his Gipsy Love.

She played a boy, David Playne, in the original cast of Lonsdale, Unger, and Rubens's new musical Betty, which opened at the Prince's Theatre, Manchester on Christmas Eve, 1914, and transferred to Daly's Theatre in the West End on 24 April 1915. Interviewed in the Daily Sketch dated May 11, 1915, Burrell said this was the first time she had originated a part in London, and while she loved playing at Daly's, she was "tremendously envious of skirts and pretty clothes".

Marriages

In October 1912, under her real name of Daisy Ratton, Burrell married George Carleton (1887–1957), of Stoke Newington, a commercial traveller. In 1919, she filed a petition for the restitution of conjugal rights, and in 1920 she petitioned for divorce. By 1924 they were divorced, and on 1 November that year she married secondly Herbert William Young.

Films and later career

Burrell's first screen role came in The Valley of Fear (1916), an early Sherlock Holmes film, in which she was the leading lady. She was offered the part after the producer G. B. Samuelson saw her playing Cinderella at the London Palladium. Burrell was represented by Julian Wylie, who boasted in The Stage Year Book: "During 1916 I made Contracts for the following Artistes: Bairnsfather's "Fragments from France", Daisy Burrell, Gladys Cooper, Phyllis Dare, ... Mabel Love ... Vesta Tilley, Madge Titheradge &c. &c." Several other film roles followed. In her second film, Just a Girl (1916), she plays the Australian heiress Esmeralda, who spurns an English lord (played by Owen Nares) to marry a miner.

In a 1917 film of Little Women she was Amy, the youngest of the four girls. In April 1920, a theatrical gossip column described her as "Miss Daisy Burrell, the well-known musical comedy star". Later the same year The Straits Times called her "Daisy Burrell, the golden-haired film star". In The Last Rose of Summer (1920), "a melodramatic tale of a spinster betrayed for the sake of a valuable tea set", she again had a leading role. In December 1920 she received good reviews for her part in The Pride of the Fancy, a silent film about a champion boxer.

During her years on the silver screen, Burrell continued to appear on stage. On 23 November 1916 she took part in the inaugural performance at the new St Martin's Theatre, the first night of Fred Thompson's extravaganza Houp La!, playing Aggie, and this production ran until late February 1917. In April 1917 she opened in a revue called £150 at the Ambassadors Theatre. In September 1918 she took the leading role of Desirée in Emmerich Kálmán's operetta Soldier Boy at the Apollo Theatre, succeeding Vera Wilkinson. In 1919 she played Mollie Maybud in Nobody's Boy at the Garrick Theatre. In May 1919 she was the cover girl for an issue of the magazine Pictures and Picturegoer.

In 1920 Burrell returned to pantomime in the title role of Julian Wylie and James W. Tate's Cinderella at the Empire Theatre, Sheffield, continued in 1921 at the Empire, Cardiff, with Stanley Lupino. From December 1922 to March 1923 she appeared again as Cinderella for Wylie & Tate at the London Hippodrome, opposite Clarice Mayne as Prince Charming and Lupino as Buttons, this production running to 176 performances. The Times said of Burrell's Cinderella "She sings, dances and acts with equal ease."

In May 1924 Burrell entered a competition promoted by the sculptor and Royal Academician F. W. Pomeroy (1856–1924), who had offered a prize "for the most perfect pair of feet". She tied with the dancer Margery Prince for the first prize of £50, and The Miami News reported that Burrell had been chosen eight times to play Cinderella on account of the daintiness of her feet. Pomeroy died on 26 May.

In July 1924 she joined a touring company for George M. Cohan's musical Little Nellie Kelly, playing the lead part of Nellie. In late August, she was taken ill and Patrina Carlyon stepped into the role. By this point in her stage career she was represented by the Akerman May Agency, of 16 Green Street, London WC2. Who Was Who in the Theatre, 1912–1976 records no performances for Burrell after 1924, which was the year of her second marriage, but until February 1925 The Stage continued to carry a notice that she was disengaged. However, Palmer's British Film Actors' Credits, 1895–1987 identifies her with the Daisy Burrell who played two minor parts in the British films Woman to Woman (1946) and Green Fingers (1947), as does the online database of the British Film Institute. She later appeared in one BBC Television play, The Golden Year (1951) and disappeared from the performing record again after that.

The National Portrait Gallery in London has fourteen portrait photographs of Burrell by Bassano, dated between 1919 and 1922. Several of these are in Cinderella costume, and four include Clarice Mayne.

Burrell died on 10 June 1982, a few days short of her 90th birthday, leaving an estate of £66,170. Her address at the time was 203, Nell Gwynn House, Sloane Avenue, London SW3.

Filmography

Burrell appeared in the following films: