| Hetty King | |
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1910 sheet music cover |
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| Born | Winifred Emms 21 April 1883 Wallasey, Cheshire |
| Died | 28 September 1972 (aged 89) Wimbledon, London |
| Occupation | Music hall male impersonator |
| Spouse | Ernie Lotinga (1901) Alexander William Lamond (1918) |
Winifred Emms (4 April 1883 – 28 September 1972[1]), best known by her stage name Hetty King, was an English entertainer who played in the music halls over a period of 70 years.
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Emms was born in New Brighton, a seaside resort in Cheshire, and performed with her father on the beach in a company of minstrels.
Emms adopted the name Hetty King when she first appeared on the stage of the Shoreditch Theatre[2], at the age of six with her father, William Emms (1856–1954), a comedian who used the stage name of Will King. By 1905, she was appearing in music halls, with her solo act, as a male impersonator, often dressed as a "swell". Her career spanned both World Wars when she performed in the uniform of either a soldier or a sailor. In the First World War her act included, in 1916, "Songs the soldiers sing" when she sang some of the less rude of the songs invented by soldiers in the trenches.
She also played the "principal boy" in many pantomimes. She continued to entertain until the end of her life, touring with the show Thanks for the Memory.
She was married to actor and writer Ernie Lotinga (aka Ernest) (1876–1951), born in Sunderland. Her husband was a music hall comedian, singer and theatre proprietor, appearing as Dan Roe from 1898; who appeared in films in the 1920s and 1930s, often as the comic character PC Jimmy Josser.
Her half sister Olive Emms was also an actress and half brother, Harold Emms, wrote many of Hetty's songs with his French wife, Francine
The family were not related to H. Vernon Watson (1886–1949), the music hall artist performing under the sobriquet Nosmo King.
Hetty King was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium.
On 8 November 2010 a commemorative blue plaque was erected to Hetty at her last residence in Wimbledon by the theatre charity The Music Hall Guild of Great Britain and America.
Towards the end of Hetty's career she appeared in a film, aged 87, entitled Hetty King - Performer (1970)
Hetty King appeared in the movie Lilacs In The Spring (1954) which was directed by Herbert Wilcox and starred Anna Neagle and Errol Flynn.