1. Ada Reeve gained fame in Edwardian musical comedies in the 1890s.
20 Facts About Ada Reeve
1. 2.
Ada Reeve found considerable success on tour in Australia, South Africa, America and other places in pantomime, variety and vaudeville in the new century.
3.
Ada Reeve's father was Samuel Isaacs, an actor who changed his name to Charles Reeves, and her mother was Harriet Reeves, a dancer.
4.
Ada Reeve made her first appearance on the stage at the age of four in the pantomime Red Riding Hood on Boxing Day 1878 at the Pavilion Theatre, Whitechapel and continued to play in pantomimes.
5.
Ada Reeve performed the song in a demure costume of a flounced dress and bonnet, letting the audience in on the racy innuendos of the song through knowing winks and gestures.
6.
Ada Reeve married actor Bert Gilbert in 1894, and returned to starring in provincial pantomimes and touring as Haidee in Don Juan.
7.
Ada Reeve soon became known for her role in one of George Edwardes' earliest musical comedies at the Gaiety Theatre, starring as Bessie Brent, the title role in The Shop Girl opposite Seymour Hicks.
8.
Ada Reeve was pregnant and had to be replaced in the role by Hicks' wife, Ellaline Terriss.
9.
Ada Reeve returned in All Abroad at the Criterion Theatre, and as the title character in The Gay Parisienne at the Duke of York's Theatre.
10.
Ada Reeve starred as Robin Hood and later Maid Marion in Williamson's pantomime Babes in the Wood, drawing popular and critical praise.
11.
However, the marriage with Gilbert had turned sour, with Ada Reeve claiming extreme cruelty and petitioning for divorce while still in Australia.
12.
Still in 1898, Reeve played the role of "Madame Celeste" in Milord, Sir Smith, followed by the role of Cleopatra in The Great Caesar in 1899.
13.
Ada Reeve joined the cast of the hit musical San Toy, in 1901, playing Dudley and later taking over the title role from Marie Tempest.
14.
Ada Reeve remarried in 1902 to Wilfred Cotton, a manager and actor who was the uncle of Lily Elsie.
15.
In 1906, Ada Reeve toured South Africa with her husband, becoming very popular.
16.
Ada Reeve played the title role in the 'Christmas 1908 and 1909 pantomimes of Jack and the Beanstalk, with George Robey as her stage mother.
17.
Ada Reeve was absent from England from 1929 to 1935.
18.
The film's central premise is a reversal of traditional gender roles, in which Ada Reeve plays a domineering wife who smokes a cigar and departs for her club while her husband sits at home embroidering.
19.
Ada Reeve appeared in a total of nine movies and continued her stage work in the 1940s and 1950s.
20.
Ada Reeve was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1956 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the King's Theatre, Hammersmith, London.