1954-12-18 — Page 9

S

THE CHINA-MAIL, SATURDAY," : DECEMBER 18, 1954 →

Fabulous Lady

ONE LAST TRIUMPH

O Gertie Lawrence-

WRB

married. She

had done the unex- pected thing.

We marvelled...chiefly because she had kept her secret so well. Yet this ap- extrovert prize parently

Kерt some of her secrete beyond the grave, Only hall # dozen people knew that she could no longer have

children...

In 1830 Gertie

Wha

rndsutst

creature, She WES glowingly фарру

น

br

married a lot,

вся

par! 121

In

addition

her

"Lady

Dark.

now

'',

In The

ran

Liertle

the

Theatre Wing of the British War Relief, served as Mayor of

sanised u

wir

New Rochelle, or- sules In hond Matison Square at midnight, xave a pint of blood a week for American solders, organise.l blood bank NO that Bri:inl soldiers could ke! American blood and vice versa.

She hurt a radio show that The paid her £3,750 week crilles thought it boring. Gertie. they sald, had to be seen to be

believed

Then Lieut. Aldrich was pro- He inuted Lieut.-Commander.

W 23

train

Southamptɛzi.

10 begin

Tov vxwx

England, and American boat Normandy landings.

-THEN TRAGEDY

THE STORY 30 FAR-Rumours of fomance followed Gertrude Lawrence throughout her life. She was seen everywhere with the celebritis of the theatre and social worlde Douglas Fairbanks, Rohald Colman, Noil Coward, an earl and a marquis, - -Than one day she›

Hie Ham mot a tall, sandy-haired, relaxed American' business' chan.

was Richard Aldrich. He was the man she chose,

With her hair dyed blonde, Garţia wani ayusicas to entertain the troops, But soon the toge turned into unadulterated torture

WIN

that passionate, Nobody in happy house knew that Gerlie

dying.

I think the But knew quite well that she contracted a mortai lness.

maid

had

In spite of the gigantic success of The King and 'I had? godaip began to say her step had lost its spring... that she looked her age that there was nothing quite so aging as dyed. red hair. (She dyed her hal to play Mrs Anna.)

Through the hot and clammy summer of 1951, Gertle battled on, as 'whispering about her "listless performance" grow around her. Only Dorothy, her maid, knew of the <vex- present bo:tle of aspirin, the tear that Gertie somehow held at bay.

She left for hte holiday en Cape Cod. When she arrived back in New York she seemed perfectly, fit-tanned and rested. Nobody, lenst of all Gertic hinted at the malignant tumour that was destroying her.

Gertle came back into "The King and I on Monday, August 11, 1952. se

Concluding the GERTRUDE

LAWRENCE STORY

by

NANCY SPAIN

was always in

pain. During

that

tragic

Kort-

night William Hood, ho

uffeur, never left the

theatre. alood

He

by her

The beloved ghi went straight with the car, somehow sure he to her fortune teller. Gertic, Only her

knew how the cald

mysteriously, would often she took aspirin and other only succeed in

a role that pain-killing tablets. Nobody began and ended with "A.” knew if she suffered or not This was a secret that took with her.

Gertie

Perhaps that enchan ing

dimmed î the speaking voice was

Lile" Twice she was accused of not "speaking up"-once by a lone

volco in the gullery, once by Queen Mary herself.

"Lady in the Dark" continued to do phenomenal business.

IL

ran for thre: years. But much as she enjoyed her part as the psychopathic magazine editress, Liza Elluit, Gerue felt forlorn. Her husband was overstas, Pam was married to Doctor William Cahan. So Gertie pulled every string togel to England,

It was 1944 before she arrived discom- Among the bombs, the

furts and the wati'y •uclays.

+

Einest Hemingway went with Mary. her, carried her luggage,

he tolis."

Suld

"

wont Це

Criticism

Gertie plunged into one of the most exhausting parts ever written for a woman un the musc: stage.

Her costumes weighed 281b each.

They were so heavy that the hoops of her crinoline were replaced by aluminiumy and bamboo,

She mnde jako of her misery, old witty storics tu sympathetic reporters. Only Gertie knew that she was ing herdelt.

would be. needed. And when the curtain feil Gertio did not go on tolking now as she used to In the old days, saying, that needed to wind down." She lay back on the cushions of her car-utterly destroyed.

she

She

Saturday gave in un August 10. She was admitted to the Baker Pavilion of the

New York Hospital. The im mediate diagnosis was "an aduto disorder of the liver." She was fed intravenously.

She passed into u CONTI at 5.30 am on Saturday, Septem- kill-ber. 6, 1952. Sho died three

hours later, with her

husband CUMMONED. to the

at her bedside. Four nundred Royal Box, Gertie

She had seven changes asked if Her Majesty

in müts away her dog ran hewling and. I"-one the "The King

of into the hall of her souse on Cape enjoying

two

Cod, where he stood and shiver- play, had any erill- which had to be over in cism to make. "I do minutes 12 seconds, in a port- ed and would not be comforted. dressing-room in the That was how Dorothy, her hard able find it a little

maid, know she was dead.

Was

to hear," said Queen Wings. Every time she stepped tnto the dressing-room she had to crawl under a curtain,

can't hear,"

we

"There's one thing I definitely

Gertle,

don't like about this play," said

Gertle: "Im the buile for whom "There, dears, you sce

must all speak up," sald Gertle to the young principals, Michael

"I never get a chance Gough and Ann Leon. "Oh to sit on anything that has a

sald

back to it and me a Victorian only you I Queen Mary,

lady what has to sit prim and Then "September Tide" closed upright Oht my aching back," and

Gertie went to Hollywood to make the flin of "The Glass Menagerie."

From London Gertle overseas

entertain "to troops," She had iyed her hair blonde. She would sing Well, Mademoiselle" and crack a few jokes.

"An's

Her Beachhead

But this part of a faded Southern Belle wasn't right for her. Now she know she needed CHE established her a glamorous star role. For own beachhead Brondway hadn't seen her since In Normandy, two 1944 and maybe Broadway was, months after Day. forgetting her.

But what were her aches and pains to Gertle? She Was roaring success. She was back on Broadway with a bang. And off-stage she contined to pre- Was nothing tend that there wrong with her.

She was sworn in. as an air The part must rald warden of Sector A, Zone

She swamA usliure come soon. Otherwise it would 1, of New York City. She was

of

from a landing crafi, be too late. wearing a pair vast trunks and

was "It borrowed brassiérè. glorious,"

she

sald, as she innded, dripping,

Sho

To her fans

/ HERE was an autopsy. Surgeons found that she had died of cancer of the

one ilver in

of its most acute forma,

$64,000 Gertie left £22,000), willing liar clothes, personal possessions and two-thirds of her estate to be Pamela, her daughter, to held in trust for her until she is 40. To her husband she left one-third of her estate, and he determined to devote It to

cancer research. made a Doctor of Fine Arts in two Universities, became

To her fans she left a thou- ° But the part turned up. Ham- Prosessor of Dramatic Art at

memories-all of them and

Columbia. of Rodgers, merstein

gloried in her sand academic quelineations, rear poetry. "Oklahoma" and "South Pacific" now

she refused to be fame, planned to make a.musical But now based on "Anna and the King photographed before br of Slam." Would Gertie care to class, where previously she had been most co-operative. And play Anna?

But after this Gertie's ENSA tour began to a ghastly grind Galety only survived the first Low days. She hadn't enough to eat. Sho suffered "Stomach do Normandy"

from

(a

polite word for dysentery). She got, within 12 miles of Le Havre before she found it was enemy-

occupleth

Gertle was getting more, and more tired. And she was not the huge success with the troops They that she had expected. did not understand her wise- eracks, only her most senti- mental songs would "go." "It was wonderful," said Gertie afterwards. "It was fine. But it was

unadulterated torture."

sheer,

hungry, feeling her self- conddenco slowly disappearing, Gertle crept back to America,

to her little wooden house on

Cape Cod to recuperate.

It was while she was there that her friend, best-selling Daphne Du Maurier, sent her a play. Gertio know what would "go over big" in New York.

Mac, in London,

She

She know what would bec ITPU Denhoe's play, "SOEMORRO

#71d

cald be a hit in Jane, Gertle, were to play, it would

then, Gertle

The S1-year-old war horse"of;

the ithantre had airendly amelt

But he'ahid: that the

of "Septembar Tide bing she had ever

1

after Cables from England beggėd that Gertie should be buried in London, whère sho was.hort. Her husband could not agree. He buried her. `at Upton, Massachusetts, in a family grave where eight generations of. Aldriches lie at rest,

This grave is now the focus. of an Ainerican pilgrimage. No- America Can Lorget one in Gertrude Lawrence. Streets have been named for hòr; there is to be a theatre called after her.

On Broadway, on Shaftsbury Avenue in September the lights wont out. For three minuted we were silent, remembering a who little girl from Clapham

had dunced her way so lightly. through hardship to the NY, "She made me laugh,

Boy's Noel Coward. That is why I mis her so."

On Fifth Avenue the Presby terian Church, built, to hold 800, was packed with a crowd of 1,800 who came to pay ¦ her homage. The lat of mourners nead Fika. à volume of Who's

the Theatre,

Who

But an old couple, outside in Fifth Avencheld hands.. They had eeen: Chertofether

Erivato #LAYSIA SDS: WIN part of their honeymoon.

(And

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