28 Facts About Evelyn Laye

Evelyn Laye was an English actress and singer known for her performances in operettas and musicals.

Evelyn Laye entertained naval personnel during the Second World War.

Evelyn Laye was still working into her early nineties, and appeared at Carnegie Hall in New York in 1991 in a concert of Coward's music.

Elsie Evelyn Laye Lay was born in Bloomsbury, London, on 10 July 1900, the only child of Gilbert James Lay and his wife Evelyn Laye nee Froud.

Evelyn Laye's wife was well known for playing principal boy in provincial pantomimes under her stage name, Evelyn Stuart.

Evelyn Laye made her stage debut at the age of three, walking on in a production at Folkestone, but she dated her theatrical career from August 1915, when she appeared at the Theatre Royal, Brighton in the melodrama Mr Wu.

Evelyn Laye's father did not wish her to follow a stage career, but she persisted.

Evelyn Laye was then engaged for Daly's Theatre, where she consolidated her position as a top star, appearing in May 1923 in the title role in a revival of The Merry Widow, with a cast that included Carl Brisson, Derek Oldham and George Graves.

The Stage commented, "Miss Evelyn Laye is most charming as the Widow, both vocally and histrionically, and her impersonation, as a whole, must be taken as the crowning point of her career to date".

In January 1926 Evelyn Laye made her first radio broadcasts for 2LO, the forerunner of the BBC.

The marriage was not a success; within a year Laye found love letters written to Hale by Matthews, with whom he was then co-starring in C B Cochran's revue This Year of Grace, in which they sang the romantic duet by Noel Coward, "A Room with a View".

Evelyn Laye told Coward, "I'd rather scrub floors than work for him again".

Evelyn Laye played in two long-running London musicals, Helen and Give Me a Ring.

In 1934, having divorced Hale, Evelyn Laye married her second husband, the actor Frank Lawton.

In 1935 Evelyn Laye returned to the US, in a revival of Bitter Sweet in Los Angeles and then San Francisco, and appeared on Broadway in Sweet Aloes the following year.

In London Evelyn Laye played Princess Anna in Paganini with Richard Tauber in the title role, and in New York she played Natalie Rives in Between the Devil, co-starring with Jack Buchanan.

Evelyn Laye was sufficiently reconciled with Cochran to appear in his 1940 revue, Lights Up, at the Savoy, co-starring with Martyn Green and Clifford Mollison.

Evelyn Laye returned to musicals in 1942, playing Violet Gray in a revival of The Belle of New York at the London Coliseum.

Evelyn Laye appeared in pantomime as Prince Charming in Cinderella at His Majesty's and the Palladium.

Evelyn Laye began to appear in non-musical plays, touring with her husband in a new comedy, Elusive Lady and playing Lady Teazle in Basil Dean's production of The School for Scandal.

Back in England, Evelyn Laye was passed over for the leading role in the British premiere of The King and I in 1953, but made a successful return to the musical stage the following year as Marcelle Thibault in Wedding in Paris by Hans May and Vera Caspary, co-starring Anton Walbrook.

Evelyn Laye published a volume of memoirs, Boo To My Friends, in 1958.

At the Prince of Wales Theatre in January 1964 Evelyn Laye took over the role of Edith Lambert in Sumner Arthur Long's comedy Never Too Late, and in 1965 she and Lawton appeared in Somerset Maugham's 1921 comedy The Circle, first at the Ashcroft Theatre, and then at the Savoy.

In 1966, first at the Alhambra Theatre, Glasgow and then at the Piccadilly, Evelyn Laye returned to musicals, playing Annie Besant in Strike a Light.

The Stage commented, "The light of sparkling entertainment invariably comes when Gladys Cooper and Evelyn Laye indulge in their individual forms of rampage".

At the Adelphi Theatre in March 1969, Evelyn Laye took over the part of Lady Hadwell in the musical Charlie Girl from Anna Neagle, and at the Palace in November of that year she played Mrs Fitzmaunce in David Heneker's musical Phil the Fluter, in which she sang "They Don't Make them Like that any More", written by the composer as a tribute to her longevity on stage.

Evelyn Laye remained in the cast after Crawford left; after giving nearly 800 performances in the role she left the run in March 1973.

Evelyn Laye died of heart failure at a nursing home in Westminster, on 17 February 1996.