Valli Valli
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Valli Valli (February 11, 1882 – November 4, 1927) was a musical comedy actress and silent film performer born in Berlin, Germany. She was from an old English family and lived most of her life in England. Her brother was a captain in the Royal Fusiliers who fought in France in World War I. Her brother, Philip Curtiss, wrote Mummers in Mufti in 1921.[1] Her sister was actress Ida Valli.[2]
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[edit] Early years and stage work
Valli, born Valli Knust,[3] was educated in London, England and Paris, France. As a twelve-year-old, she made her first stage appearance in Gentle Ivy (1894) at Terry's Theatre in London. She demonstrated her theatrical skill in Berlin in 1895 with a successful run in the musical Morocco Bound. She returned to England's Drury Lane Theatre, performing the role of the dancing doll in Cinderella the following Christmas.
A strikingly beautiful woman, Valli played mostly in England thereafter, appearing in The Queen of Hearts, Purple Road and The Duke's Motto, among other pieces.[2] She toured the United States a number of times, the last being in a New York City performance of Miss Millions in 1919.[4] This was at the Punch and Judy Theater. Her first American tour came with the operetta, Veronique, in 1905. Valli played the part of Sophie. She returned in 1908 in the musical Kitty Grey. This was followed the next autumn by an appearance in the long-running American version of The Dollar Princess (1909). Valli had the role of Alice Cowder. In 1916, she participated in George M. Cohan's The Cohan Revue.
[edit] Motion pictures and later years
Valli made four motion pictures in the years 1915 and 1916. One of these is The Turmoil, a Columbia Pictures adaptation of a Booth Tarkington novel. Valli's character is Mary Vertrees, a lady with an aristocratic bearing. Child actor, George LeGuere, is in the film's cast. Her other screen credits are for appearances as Mary Page in The High Road (1915), Beth Coventry in The Woman Pays (1915), Marian Delmar in Her Debt of Honor (1916). In 1917, she married Louis Dreyfus, head of the music publishing house Harms, Day and Hunter and later a theatrical producer.
Valli Valli died at her home in Hampstead, England in 1927, survived by her husband.
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- List of Valli's Broadway roles
- Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, Valli Valli, Starred In The Turmoil, January 15, 1916, Page 10.
- New York Times, Valli Valli, Star Of Operettas, Dies, November 5, 1927, Page 19.
