23 Facts About Cicely Courtneidge

Dame Esmerelda Cicely Courtneidge was an Australian-born British actress, comedian and singer.

Cicely Courtneidge appeared in 12 British films in the 1930s, and one in Hollywood, finding this work to be very lucrative.

Cicely Courtneidge then had a long run in Under the Counter, a comedy in which she received glowing notices.

In 1901, at the age of eight, Cicely Courtneidge made her stage debut as the fairy Peaseblossom in her father's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Prince's Theatre, Manchester.

Cicely Courtneidge was educated in England and, for two teenage years, in Switzerland.

Robert Cicely Courtneidge cast her in small ingenue roles in his productions.

Cicely Courtneidge's first starring role was Eileen Cavanagh in the long-running Edwardian musical comedy The Arcadians, which she took over from Phyllis Dare in 1910.

Cicely Courtneidge has appeared in her father's productions in the West End and on tour.

Cicely Courtneidge returned to variety, appearing at the London Coliseum in 1922.

The fourth in the series, Clowns in Clover, contained one of Cicely Courtneidge's most celebrated sketches, "Double Damask", by Dion Titheradge, in which her character, Mrs Spooner, and two shop assistants become entangled in tongue-twisters.

When Cicely Courtneidge's 1932 recording of the sketch was reissued in 1972, The Gramophone said, "it is an enduring classic comedy sketch as funny now as it was then".

Cicely Courtneidge was amused to find that in eight weeks in a film studio she could earn more than she could in a year in the theatre.

Cicely Courtneidge recorded Noel Gay's "There's Something About a Soldier", which she sang in Soldiers of the King.

Cicely Courtneidge did not return to the theatre until October 1937, playing the dual roles of Mabel and her daughter Sally in the musical Hide and Seek, co-starring with Bobby Howes, produced by Hulbert.

Cicely Courtneidge toured in Hulbert Follies, and Full Swing, which she and Hulbert then brought to the Palace Theatre.

Together with other prominent performers including Robert Donat and Florence Desmond, Cicely Courtneidge led professional opposition to a wartime proposal to allow theatres to open on Sundays.

Hulbert and Cicely Courtneidge then took the play to Australia, where it fared better.

Cicely Courtneidge radiates the authentic glitter of Shaftesbury Avenue; she brings genuine starshine to Castlereagh Street.

Cicely Courtneidge knows all the tricks in the trouper's basket, and she rings the changes from dry humour to dewy sentiment, from song to dance, from pathos to Hungarian hotcha, and from all moods to subtle mimicry as quick as a naughty wink.

In 1950, Cicely Courtneidge was cast in one of her greatest successes, Ivor Novello's musical Gay's the Word.

In 1964, Cicely Courtneidge accepted the role of Madame Arcati in the London production of High Spirits, a musical adaptation of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit.

In 1969, Cicely Courtneidge turned to television, playing a working-class role as "Mum" in the first series of the LWT comedy On the Buses, opposite Reg Varney.

Hulbert died in 1978; Cicely Courtneidge died two years later, shortly after her 87th birthday, at a nursing home in Putney, survived by her only child, a daughter.