Life and career
Beryl May Jessie ("Wendy") Toye was born in London. She initially worked as a dancer and choreographer both on stage and on film, collaborating with the likes of directors Jean Cocteau and Carol Reed. She directed the original production of Bless the Bride in 1947.
Toye's debut film short, The Stranger Left No Card (1952), won the Best Fictional Short Film prize at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival, while her Christmas-themed short On the Twelfth Day… (1955) received an Oscar nomination in the Best Short Subject category. She directed films from the early 1950s until the early 1980s. Toye also was an advisor to the Arts Council and lectured in Australia.
She was attacked and robbed in her maisonette in Westminster on 27 November 1956. Two men stole jewellery and money.
On 6 January 1958, she appeared as Roy Plomley's Guest on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs. Her choices were wide-ranging, including Bach, Mahler and Lena Horne. She was the head of the jury at the 13th Berlin International Film Festival in 1963.
Among the many charities supported by Dr Toye were the Theatrical Guild (formerly the Theatrical Ladies' Guild), where she helped backstage and front-of-house staff, and became president, and the Actors' Charitable Trust, to which she was recruited by Noël Coward, and of which she was vice president.
Toye married Edward Selwyn Sharp in 1940; they divorced in 1950. She was awarded the Silver Jubilee Medal in 1977, and appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1992 for services to the arts. She was made an honorary D. Litt. in 1996 by the City University. Wendy was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1991 when she was surprised by Michael Aspel at the Wimbledon Theatre.
She died on 27 February 2010 at Hillingdon Hospital, Greater London.
She refused to write or authorise a biography during her lifetime, in spite of encouragement by her friends and family. Her theatrical archive is mostly in the Wendy Toye Archive, V&A Theatre & Performance Department, THM/343 of the Victoria and Albert Museum, with some items in the University of Bristol Theatre Collection.
This list is a collation from three biographical dictionaries, an obituary and the information web sites from some of the theatres.
Produced a ballet on the colours of the rainbow at the London Palladium aged 10 1927-28
1st professional appearance: Moth Midsummer Night's Dream Old Vic April 1930
Winner, European Championship Solo Amateur competition at C.B. Cochrane's Charleston Ball at the Albert Hall 1926
Dancer, choreographer and actress
choreographer Mother Earth (Savoy) 1929
Marigold (later Phoebe) & produced dances Toad of Toad Hall 1931-32
danced and choreographed for Camargo Society, Sadler's Wells Ballet, Rambert, British Ballet 1930s (early)
Danced in The Miracle (Lyceum Theatre) 1932
Masked Dancer in Ballerina (Gaiety Theatre) 1933
Member of Ninette de Valois' original Vic-Wells ballet. Principal Dancer in The Golden Toy (Coliseum) 1934
Toured with Anton Dolin's Ballet 1934-35
Dancer in Tulip Time (Alhambra) 1935
Touring as principal dancer & choreographer with Markova-Dolin ballet 1935
Love and How to Cure it (Globe) 1937
Choreographer for George Black's productions (including Black and Blue, Black Velvet, Black Vanities, Strike a New Note, Strike it Again) 1937-44
Gay Rosalinda (Palace Theatre) 1945-48
Follow the Girls 1945
Principal Girl in pantomime Simple Simon (Birmingham)1947
Winnie Tate in Annie Get your Gun (London Coliseum) 1947
Ballet-hoo de Wendy Toye (Paris) 1948
Three's Company in Joyce Grenfell Requests the Pleasure (Fortune) (choreography) 1954
Big Ben, Bless the Bride, Tough at the Top (Adelphi for C.B. Cochrane) 1946
And So to Bed (New) 1951
Second Threshold (Vaudeville) 1950s???
Wild Thyme (Duke of York's) 1955
Lady at the Wheel (Lyric, Hammersmith) 1958
As you like it (Old Vic) 1959
Majority of One (Phoenix) 1960
Virtue in Danger (Mermaid and Strand) 1963
Robert & Elizabeth (Lyric) 1964
On the Level (Saville) 1966
Show Boat (Adelphi) 1971
She Stoops to Conquer (Young Vic) 1972
Soldiers Tale (Young Vic & Edinburgh Festival) 1967
The Great Waltz (Drury Lane) 1970
Cowardy Custard (Mermaid) 1972
Stand and Deliver (Roundhouse) 1972
The Englishman Amused (Young Vic) 1974
Follow the Star (Westminster) 1976
Oh Mr. Porter (Mermaid) 1977
Colette (Comedy) 1980
This Thing called Love (Ambassadors) 1984
Barnum (Victoria Palace) (assoc producer) 1985
Singin' in the Rain (London Palladium) (assoc producer) 1983
Get the Message (Molecule) 1987
Ziegfeld (London Palladium) 1988
Family and Friends (Sadler's Wells) 1988
Till we Meet Again concert (Royal Festival Hall) 1989
Captain Beaky's Heavens Up (Palace) 1990
The Sound of Music (Sadler's Wells) 1992
Under their Hats (King's Head) 1994
Gala (Last night of old Sadler's Wells Theatre) 1996
R loves J 1973
The Confederacy 1974
Follow the Star 1974
Made in Heaven 1975
Make me a World 1976
Miranda 1987
Gingerbread Man 1981
Songbook 1988
Moll Flanders 1990
The Drummer 1991
See How they Run 1992
The Anastasia File 1994
Lloyd George Knew My Father 1995
Warts and All, Rogues to Riches 1996
30 Not Out 1997
Boots with Strawberry Jam (Nottingham Playhouse) 1968
Once more with Music (Theatre Royal, Brighton) 1976
Barnum (Manchester Opera House) (assoc producer) 1984
Laburnum Grove (Watford Palace) 1987
Mrs. Dot (Watford Palace) 1988
Cinderella (Watford Palace) 1989
Penny Black (Wavendon) 1990
Mrs. Pat's Profession (workshop with Cleo Laine) 1991
Dance for Gods, Conversations (??Stephenville) 1979
Gala tribute to Joyce Grenfell 1985
Feu d'artifice, Marigny Theatre, Paris (co-director & choreographer) date unknown
Peter Pan, (Imperial, New York) (co-director & choreographer) 1950
Shakespeare Quatercentenary Latin American tour 1964
Noel and Gertie (Princess Grace Theatre Monte Carlo) 1984
Celimar (Shaw Festival, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada) 1984
Madwoman of Chaillot (Shaw Festival, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada) 1985
Torville & Dean Ice Show World Tour (assoc producer) 1985
Kiss me Kate (Aarhus & Copenhagen) 1986
Unholy Trinity (Stephenville Festival) 1986
When that I was (Manitoba Theater Center) 1988
Oh! Coward (Playhouse Hong Kong) 1989
The Kingfisher (Vienna English Theatre) 1993
The Sound of Music (Vienna English Theatre) 1993
Under their Hats (Vienna English Theatre) 1995
The Seraglio (Bath Festival) 1967
The Impresario, Don Pasquale (Phoenix Opera) 1968
The Mikado (Ankara) 1982
Der Apotheker, la Serva Padrona (Aix-en-Provence festival) 1991
Bluebeard's Castle 1957
The Telephone 1957
Russalka 1959
Die Fledermaus 1959
Orpheus in the Underworld 1960
La Vie Parisienne 1961
The Italian Girl in Algiers 1968
La Cenerentola, The Merry Widow 1979
Orpheus in the Underworld 1981
Esmi Divided 1957
Cliff in Scotland c. 1965
Girls Wanted - Istanbul (BAFTA nomination) 1969
Trial by Jury 1982
Actress
Invitation to the Waltz (1935)
Director
The Stranger Left No Card (1952)
The Teckman Mystery (1954)
On the Twelfth Day... (1955)
Raising a Riot (1955)
All for Mary (1955)
Three Cases of Murder (1955)
True as a Turtle (1957)
We Joined the Navy (1962)
The King's Breakfast (1963)
