Jessie Matthews
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Jessie Matthews, OBE (March 11, 1907 - August 19, 1981) was a popular British actress, dancer, and singer of the 1930s, whose career continued into the post-war period.
She was born in relative poverty the East End of London, one of 16 children of a fruit and vegetable seller, and first appeared on the stage in 1912; she made her film debut in 1923 in the silent film "The Beloved Vagabond."
In 1925, she married actor Henry Lytton, Jr., the first of her three husbands (the second and longest marriage being to actor-director Sonnie Hale; the third to military officer, Lt. Brian Lewis). All of her marriages ended in divorce and all were marred by affairs, miscarriages and stillbirths. With Hale she had one adopted daughter, Catherine Hale, who married to become the Countess Grixoni. Matthews had many failed relationships, including a romance with Prince George, Duke of Kent, and some of her much publicized temperamental behavior and emotional tempestuousness can be traced to the secret but lifelong psychological trauma that resulted from becoming pregnant after a sexual assault at the age of 16 by a friend of the then Prince of Wales.
She was acclaimed as the first performer of numerous popular songs of the 1920s and 1930s, including "Room With a View" by Noël Coward and "Let's Do It (Let's Fall In Love)" by Cole Porter. After a string of hit 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, and on her part reluctantly, rejected.
Matthews' initial fame reached its height with her lead role the 1932 stage production of Ever Green, a musical by Rodgers and Hart, at its time the most expensive musical ever mounted on a London stage. After the box office success of the 1934 cinematic version (Evergreen), the newly composed song Over My Shoulder was to become Jessie's personal theme, later giving its title to her autobiography and to a 21st Century musical stage show of her life story.
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, but her popularity waned in the 1940s after a string of only moderately successful films (now being directed by soon to be ex-husband Hale) and as fashions changed her accent was often parodied for being affectedly posh.
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 in the BBC's long-running radio serial, Mrs Dale's Diary (aka The Dales).
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 glamourous 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 The Good Old Days.
In 1964 she played the lead role in the original run of the groudbreaking play The Killing of Sister George, later filmed starring [Beryl Reid].
Matthews was awarded a well-deserved 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 (TV series) and a [[1] highly regarded episode] of the ITV mystery anthology Tales of the Unexpected.
She had suffered from periods of ill-health throughout her life and eventually died of cancer at the age of 74 in Britain, but not before, in the final year of her life, staging an acclaimed series of cabaret shows in New York which won her a coveted New York Theatre Critics award.
Matthews was the focus of a British episode of This Is Your Life in the 1960s, and a posthumous biography from the BBC's Timewatch series in the mid 1980s.
[edit] Filmography
- The Beloved Vagabond (1923)
- Straws in the Wind (1924)
- Out of the Blue (1931)
- The Midshipmaid (1932)
- There Goes the Bride (1932)
- Friday the 13th (1933)
- The Good Companions (1933)
- The Man from Totonto (1933)
- Strauss's Great Waltz (aka Waltzes from Vienna) (1933)
- Friday the 13th (1934)
- Evergreen (1934)
- First a Girl (1935)
- It's Love Again (1936)
- Gangway (1937)
- Head Over Heels in Love/Head Over Heels (1937)
- Climbing High (1938)
- Sailing Along' (1938)
- Forever and a Day (1943)
- Candles At Nine (1944)
- tom thumb (1958)
- The Hound of the Baskervilles (1977)
[edit] Bibliography & Sources
Over My Shoulder, by Jessie Matthews and Muriel Burgess Publisher: WH Allen (16 Sep 1974) ISBN 0-491-01572-0
Jessie Matthews - A Biography, by Micheal Thornton Publisher: Hart-Davis (7 Oct 1974) ISBN 0-246-10801-0
