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Jessie Matthews

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Years active
  
1919–1981

Name
  
Jessie Matthews


Role
  
Actress

Children
  
Catherine Hale-Monro

Jessie Matthews wwwvamacukdataassetsimage00081826722006

Full Name
  
Jessie Margaret Matthews

Born
  
11 March 1907 (
1907-03-11
)
London, England

Occupation
  
Actress, singer, dancer

Died
  
August 19, 1981, Eastcote, United Kingdom

Spouse
  
Brian Lewis (m. 1945–1959), Sonnie Hale (m. 1931–1944), Henry Lytton (m. 1926–1929)

Albums
  
100% Jessie Matthews, Vol. 3, Journey's End, Vol. 1

Movies
  
Evergreen, First a Girl, Waltzes from Vienna, Tom Thumb, The Good Companions

Similar People
  
Sonnie Hale, Victor Saville, Jack Buchanan, Russ Tamblyn, Evelyn Laye

Jessie matthews it s love again 36 climactic number


Jessie Matthews, OBE (11 March 1907 – 19 August 1981) was an English actress, dancer and singer of the 1920s and 1930s, whose career continued into the post-war period.

Contents

Jessie Matthews Berwick Street and the rivals in love Jessie Matthews

After a string of hit stage musicals and films in the mid-1930s, Matthews developed a following in the USA, where she was dubbed "The Dancing Divinity". Her British studio was reluctant to let go of its biggest name, which resulted in offers for her to work in Hollywood being repeatedly rejected.

Jessie Matthews Jessie Matthews The Diva of Debauchery Daily Mail Online

Jessie matthews documentary 1 of 3


Early Life

Jessie Matthews Jessie MatthewsAnnex

Jessie Margaret Matthews was born in a flat behind a butcher's shop at 94 Berwick Street, Soho, London, in relative poverty, the seventh of sixteen children (of whom eleven survived) of a fruit-and-vegetable seller. She took dancing lessons as a child in a room above the local public house at 22 Berwick Street.

Stage Career

She went on stage on 29 December 1919, aged 12, in Bluebell in Fairyland, by Seymour Hicks, music by Walter Slaughter and lyrics by Charles Taylor, at the Metropolitan Music Hall, Edgware Road, London, as a child dancer

Jessie Matthews Jessie Matthews Found a GraveFound a Grave

She made her film debut in 1923 in the silent film The Beloved Vagabond. She had a small part in Straws in the Wind (1924).

Jessie Matthews Miss Jessie Matthews Jessie Matthews Pinterest Jessie

Matthews was in the chorus in Charlot's Review of 1924 in London. She went with the show to New York, where she was also understudy to the star, Gertrude Lawrence. The show moved to Toronto, and when Lawrence fell ill she took over the role and was given great reviews.

Stage Star

Jessie Matthews British actress Jessie Matthews 1907 1981 wearing a romantic

Matthews was acclaimed in the United Kingdom as a dancer and as the first performer of numerous popular songs of the 1920s and 1930s, including "A Room with a View" by Noël Coward and "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love" by Cole Porter.

Matthews' fame reached its initial height with her lead role in Charles B. Cochran's 1930 stage production of Ever Green, premiered at the Alhambra Theatre Glasgow, a musical by Rodgers and Hart that was partly inspired by the life of music hall star Marie Lloyd, and her daughter's tribute act resurrection of her mother's acclaimed Edwardian stage show as Marie Lloyd Junior. At its time Ever Green, which included the first major revolving stage in Britain, was the most expensive musical ever mounted on a British stage.

Film Star

Matthews' first major film role was in Out of the Blue (1931). She was in two films directed by Albert de Courville, The Midshipmaid (1932) and There Goes the Bride (1932).

Matthews enjoyed great success with [[The Good Companions (1933 film)|The Good Companions] (1933) directed by Victor Saville, although it was more of an ensemble film. She starred in The Man from Toronto (1933).

Waltzes from Vienna (1933) was an operetta directed by Alfred Hitchcock, followed by Friday the Thirteenth (1933).

She was in the film version of Evergreen (1934) which featured the newly composed song Over My Shoulder which was to go on to become Matthews' personal theme song, later giving its title to her autobiography and to a 21st-century musical stage show of her life.

She was in First a Girl (1935) as a cross dresser, then It's Love Again (1936), where she had an American co-star Robert Young. Exhibitors voted her the sixth biggest star in the country that year.

Matthews started to appear in films directed by husband Sonnie Hale: Gangway (1937), Head over Heels (1937) and Sailing Along (1938). She did Climbing High (1938) directed by Carol Reed. In 1938 she was the fourth biggest British star.

World War Two

Her distinctive warbling voice and round cheeks made her a familiar and much-loved personality to British theatre and film audiences at the beginning of World War II. She was one of many stars in Forever and a Day (1943).

Her popularity waned in the 1940s after several years' absence from the screen followed by an unsatisfactory thriller, Candles at Nine (1944).

Post War Career

Post-war audiences associated her with a world of hectic pre-war luxury that was now seen as obsolete in austerity-era Britain. In the late 1940s she ran an amateur theatre group at the Theatre Royal in Aldershot.

After a few false starts as a straight actress she played Tom Thumb's mother in the 1958 children's film, and during the 1960s found new fame when she took over the leading role of Mary Dale in the BBC's long-running daily radio soap, The Dales, formerly Mrs Dale's Diary.

Live theatre and variety shows remained the mainstay of Matthews' work through the 1950s and 1960s, with successful tours of Australia and South Africa interspersed with periods of less glamorous but welcome work in British provincial theatre and pantomimes. She became a stalwart nostalgia feature of TV variety shows such as The Night of a Thousand Stars and in 1977 appeared in a Jubilee edition of The Good Old Days, to celebrate Her Majesty The Queen's Silver Jubilee, alongside another Royal favourite, Max Bygraves.

Later Career

Jessie Matthews was awarded an OBE in 1970 and continued to make cabaret and occasional film and television appearances through the decade including one-off guest roles in the popular BBC series Angels and an episode of the ITV mystery anthology Tales of the Unexpected. She memorably played Wallis Simpson's "Aunt Bessie" Merriman in the 1978 Thames TV series Edward & Mrs. Simpson.

She took her one-woman stage show to Los Angeles in 1979 and won the United States Drama Logue Award for the year's best performance in concert.

Personal life

In 1926 she married the first of her three husbands, actor Henry Lytton, Jr., the son of singer and actress Louie Henri and Sir Henry Lytton the doyen of the Savoy Theatre. They divorced in 1929.

Matthews had several romantic relationships conducted in the public eye, often causing controversy in the newspapers. The most notorious was her relationship with the married Sonnie Hale. A high-court judge denounced her as an "odious" individual when her love letters to Hale were used as evidence in the case of his divorce from his wife, actress/singer Evelyn 'Boo' Laye.

It took some time for Matthews' popularity to recover from this scandal. "If I ceased to be a star", she wrote in a piece for Picturegoer in 1934, "all that interest in my home life would evaporate, I believe. Perhaps it is the price one has to pay for being a star".

Her second and longest marriage (1931–1944) was to actor-director Sonnie Hale; the third to military officer, Lt. Brian Lewis, both marriages ending in divorce.

With Hale she had one adopted daughter, Catherine Hale-Monro, who married Count Donald Grixoni on 15 November 1958; they eventually divorced but she remained known as Catherine, Countess Grixoni.

Matthews suffered from periods of ill-health throughout her life and eventually died of cancer, aged 74. She is buried at St Martin's Church, Ruislip.

Theatre

  • Bluebell in Fairyland (1919)
  • Music Box Review (1923)
  • London Calling! (1923)
  • Charlot's Review of 1924 (1924)
  • Charlot Show of 1926 (1926)
  • One Dam Thing after Another (1927)
  • This Year of Grace (1928)
  • Wake Up and Dream (1929)
  • Ever Green (1930)
  • Hold My Hand (1931)
  • Box office ranking

    For a number of years, British film exhibitors voted her among the top ten stars in Britain at the box office via an annual poll in the Motion Picture Herald.

  • 1936 – 6th most popular star, 2nd most popular British star
  • 1937 – 3rd
  • 1938 – 4th
  • Home video

    Matthews' 12 starring films from There Goes the Bride to Sailing Along have been released in the UK by Network DVD. The same films, except for Waltzes from Vienna and Evergreen, have also been released on DVD in the US by VCI Entertainment In France, Waltzes from Vienna has been released on DVD under its local title, Le Chant du Danube by Universal, who paired it with another Hitchcock-directed film, Downhill (1927). Climbing High has also been released on French DVD by Elephant Films, as La Grande escalade.

    Three of the four remaining films Matthews made after the end of her leading lady period (Forever and a Day, Tom Thumb and The Hound of the Baskervilles) have been released on DVD in various countries.

    Legacy

    Matthews was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1961, and a posthumous biography from the BBC's 40 Minutes (1987), Catch A Fallen Star.

    A memorial plaque on her childhood dance venue, 22 Berwick Street, Soho, was unveiled on 3 May 1995 by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Ruthie Henshall.

    Filmography

    Actress
    1980
    Tales of the Unexpected (TV Series) as
    Hazel
    - A Picture of a Place (1980) - Hazel
    1979
    ITV Playhouse (TV Series) as
    Lady Bluett
    - The Winter Ladies (1979) - Lady Bluett
    1978
    Edward & Mrs. Simpson (TV Mini Series) as
    Aunt Bessie Merryman
    - The Abdication (1978) - Aunt Bessie Merryman
    - Proposals (1978) - Aunt Bessie Merryman
    - The Decision (1978) - Aunt Bessie Merryman
    - Venus at the Prow (1978) - Aunt Bessie Merryman
    1978
    The Hound of the Baskervilles as
    Mrs. Tinsdale
    1977
    Jubilee (TV Series) as
    Nanny Webster
    - Nanny's Boy (1977) - Nanny Webster
    1976
    Angels (TV Series) as
    Mrs. Toomey
    - My Patient (1976) - Mrs. Toomey
    1976
    ITV Sunday Night Drama (TV Series) as
    Mrs. Heppley
    - The Nicest Man in the World (1976) - Mrs. Heppley
    1973
    Dolly (TV Series) as
    Mrs. Wiggins
    - The Other Lady (1973) - Mrs. Wiggins
    1962
    ITV Play of the Week (TV Series) as
    Postmistress General
    - The Apple Cart (1962) - Postmistress General
    1959
    Dinner with the Family (TV Movie)
    1958
    Tom Thumb as
    The Parent: Anne
    1955
    A Connecticut Yankee (TV Movie)
    1949
    Sauce Tartare (TV Movie)
    1944
    Candles at Nine as
    Dorothea Capper - Heiress
    1944
    Victory Wedding (Short) as
    Narrator (voice)
    1943
    Forever and a Day as
    Mildred Trimble
    1938
    Climbing High as
    Diana
    1938
    Sailing Along as
    Kay Martin
    1937
    Gangway as
    Pat Wayne
    1937
    Head Over Heels in Love as
    Jeanne Colbert
    1936
    It's Love Again as
    Elaine
    1935
    First a Girl as
    Elizabeth
    1934
    Evergreen as
    Harriet Green
    1934
    Strauss' Great Waltz as
    Resi Ebezeder
    1933
    Friday the Thirteenth as
    Millie the Non-Stop Variety Girl
    1933
    The Man from Toronto as
    Leslie Farrar
    1933
    The Good Companions as
    Susie Dean
    1932
    Midshipmaid Gob as
    Celia Newbiggin
    1932
    There Goes the Bride as
    Annette Marquand
    1931
    Out of the Blue as
    Tommy Tucker
    1924
    Straws in the Wind as
    The Village Maiden (uncredited)
    1923
    This England as
    Edward, Prince of Wales
    1923
    The Beloved Vagabond as
    Pan
    Writer
    1937
    Round the Film Studios (TV Series) (narrative script - 2 episodes)
    - No. 1: Pinewood Part 7 (1937) - (narrative script)
    - No. 1: Pinewood Part 2 (1937) - (narrative script)
    Director
    1944
    Victory Wedding (Short)
    Soundtrack
    2019
    Mrs Lowry & Son (performer: "Over My Shoulder")
    2019
    The Souvenir (performer: "Souvenir of Love")
    2012
    Great West End Theatres (TV Series documentary) (performer - 2 episodes)
    - Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (2012) - (performer: "Everything's in Rhythm with My Heart")
    - Prince of Wales Theatre (2012) - (performer: "Everything's in Rhythm With My Heart")
    1976
    Angels (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode)
    - My Patient (1976) - (performer: "You'll Never Know" - uncredited)
    1958
    Tom Thumb (performer: "After All These Years" - uncredited)
    1944
    Candles at Nine (performer: "I'd Like to Share With You")
    1938
    Sailing Along (performer: "Trusting My Luck", "Souvenir of Love", "My River", "Your Heart Skips a Beat" - uncredited)
    1937
    Gangway (performer: "When You Gotta Sing, You Gotta Sing", "Lord and Lady Whoozis", "Moon or No Moon", "Gangway")
    1937
    Head Over Heels in Love (performer: "Head Over Heels", "May I Have the Next Romance with You", "Don't Give a Good Gosh Darn", "Looking Around Corners for You", "There's That Look in Your Eyes Again", "Through the Courtesy of Love", "Advertising Jingles - Gents Outfitters, Dental Cream, Chewing Gum" - uncredited)
    1936
    It's Love Again (performer: "It's Love Again", " (I Nearly Let Love Go) Slipping Through My Fingers", "Got To Dance My Way To Heaven" - uncredited)
    1935
    First a Girl (performer: "It's Written All Over Your Face", "Say The Word And It's Yours", "Every thing's In Rhythm With My Heart", "Half and Half" - uncredited)
    1934
    Evergreen ("When You've Got a Little Springtime in Your Heart" (1934), "Over My Shoulder" (1934), uncredited) / (performer: "Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow-Wow" (1892), "I Wouldn't Leave My Little Wooden Hut for You" (1905), "When You've Got a Little Springtime in Your Heart" (1934), "If I Give In to You" (1930), "Dear, Dear" (1930), "Dancing on the Ceiling" (1930), "Over My Shoulder" (1934) - uncredited)
    1933
    The Good Companions (performer: "Three Wishes", "Let Me Give My Happiness to You" - uncredited)
    1932
    Midshipmaid Gob (performer: "One Little Kiss from You" - uncredited)
    1932
    There Goes the Bride (performer: "I'll Stay With You", "I'm Looking For You" - uncredited)
    Self
    1980
    Night of One Hundred Stars (TV Movie) as
    Self
    1970
    Looks Familiar (TV Series) as
    Self - Guest
    - Episode dated 17 April 1980 (1980) - Self - Guest
    - Episode #1.0 (1970) - Self - Guest
    1958
    This Is Your Life (TV Series documentary) as
    Self
    - Andrew Sachs (1980) - Self
    - Jessie Matthews (1961) - Self
    - Alicia Markova (1960) - Self
    - Minnie Barnard (1958) - Self
    1977
    The Good Old Days (TV Series) as
    Self - Performer
    - Episode #25.10 (1977) - Self - Performer
    1977
    Night of 100 Stars (TV Special) as
    Self
    1976
    A World of Music (TV Series) as
    Self
    - Another Opening, Another Show (1976) - Self
    1975
    Celebrity Squares (TV Series) as
    Self
    - Episode #1.22 (1975) - Self
    1970
    A Birthday Gala Tribute Noel Coward (TV Special) as
    Self - Performer
    1970
    Going for a Song (TV Series) as
    Self - Customer
    - Episode dated 31 May 1970 (1970) - Self - Customer
    1964
    Juke Box Jury (TV Series) as
    Self - Panellist
    - Episode #1.415 (1967) - Self - Panellist
    - Episode #1.253 (1964) - Self - Panellist
    1967
    Dee Time (TV Series) as
    Self
    - Episode #2.11 (1967) - Self
    1967
    Studio of the Stars: The Elstree Story (TV Movie documentary) as
    Self
    1965
    Stars and Garters (TV Series) as
    Self
    - Episode #3.10 (1965) - Self
    1964
    The Kathy Kirby Show (TV Series) as
    Self - Guest
    - Episode #1.1 (1964) - Self - Guest
    1963
    A Hundred Years Underground (Documentary short) as
    Self - Actress
    1954
    Spice of Life (TV Series) as
    Self
    - Jessie Matthews (1954) - Self
    1947
    Life Is Nothing Without Music (Short) as
    Self
    1947
    Variety (TV Series) as
    Self
    - Episode dated 9 December 1947 (1947) - Self
    1937
    Round the Film Studios (TV Series) as
    Self - Actress
    - No. 1: Pinewood Part 7 (1937) - Self - Actress
    - No. 1: Pinewood Part 2 (1937) - Self - Actress
    Archive Footage
    2022
    My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock (Documentary) as
    Self
    2007
    BBC London News (TV Series documentary) as
    Self - Actress
    - Episode dated 28 February 2007 (2007) - Self - Actress
    1999
    Great Performances (TV Series)
    - The Rodgers & Hart Story: Thou Swell, Thou Witty (1999)
    1987
    Forty Minutes (TV Series documentary)
    - Catch a Fallen Star (1987)
    1987
    Best of British (TV Series documentary)
    - The All Singing All Dancing Show (1987)
    1980
    On the Road (TV Movie documentary) as
    Susie Dean
    1964
    Highlight: The Singing Cinema

    References

    Jessie Matthews Wikipedia


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