38 Facts About Jessie Matthews

Jessie Margaret Matthews was an English actress, dancer and singer of the 1920s and 1930s, whose career continued into the post-war period.

Jessie Margaret Matthews was born on 11 March 1907 to Jane Matthews in a flat above a butcher's shop at 94 Berwick Street, Soho, London, in relative poverty, the seventh of sixteen children.

Jessie Matthews then attended Pulteney Street London County Council School for Girls.

Jessie Matthews took dancing lessons as a child in a room above a local public house at 22 Berwick Street.

Jessie Matthews first went on stage on 29 December 1919, aged 12, in Bluebell in Fairyland, by Seymour Hicks, with music by Walter Slaughter and lyrics by Charles Taylor, at The Metropolitan Music Hall, Edgware Road, London, as a child dancer.

Jessie Matthews made her cinema debut in 1923 in the silent film The Beloved Vagabond.

Jessie Matthews had a small part in Straws in the Wind, released the following year, in which her sister Rosie appeared.

Jessie Matthews was then in the chorus in Charlot's Review of 1924 in London.

Jessie Matthews went with the show to New York, where she was understudy to the star, Gertrude Lawrence.

Jessie Matthews first achieved star status in The Charlot Show of 1926, a show which saw her dance in ballet with Anton Dolin, and in musical comedy with Henry Lytton Jr.

Jessie Matthews made her debut as a leading lady on Broadway in The Charlot Show of 1927, a production coupled with Earl Carroll's Vanities.

In 1927, Jessie Matthews starred in One Dam Thing After Another by Ronald Jeans, a West End revue with music by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, which featured Jessie Matthews introducing their hit song "My Heart Stood Still".

Jessie Matthews was similarly successful in another revue Wake up and Dream, in which she and Hale introduced Cole Porter's "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love".

Jessie Matthews' fame reached its initial height with her lead role in Cochran's 1930 stage production of Ever Green, which premiered at the Alhambra Theatre Glasgow.

Jessie Matthews' first major film role was in the musical Out of the Blue, but it was a commercial failure.

Jessie Matthews then starred in the film version of Evergreen, which featured the newly composed song "Over My Shoulder"; it would to go on to become Matthews' personal signature song, later giving its title to her autobiography and to a 21st-century musical stage show of her life.

Jessie Matthews then began to appear in films directed by husband: Gangway, Head over Heels and Sailing Along.

Jessie Matthews's warbling voice and round cheeks made her a familiar and much-loved personality to British theatre and film audiences at the beginning of World War II.

Jessie Matthews was one of many British-born stars in the Hollywood film Forever and a Day.

Jessie Matthews returned to the West End stage in Jerome Kern's Wild Rose, a revival of Sally, in 1942.

Jessie Matthews' popularity waned in the 1940s after several years' absence from the screen, followed by an unsatisfactory thriller, Candles at Nine.

Jessie Matthews directed and featured in the short film, Victory Wedding, starring John Mills and Dulcie Gray.

Jessie Matthews appeared in variety tours, and returned to musical theatre in Maid to Measure, which began touring in 1947 before coming to the Cambridge Theatre in London's West End.

Jessie Matthews began to venture into straight theatre, and appeared in a two-week run of Terence Rattigan's Playbill at the King's Theatre in Hammersmith in 1949.

Jessie Matthews then starred in the revue Sauce Tartare at the Cambridge Theatre, which ran for several months and would prove to be her last West End role until 1966.

Jessie Matthews toured Australia from 1952 to 1953 in Larger Than Life, a play adapted from Somerset Maugham's novel Theatre.

Jessie Matthews was back on cinema screens when she played Tom Thumb's mother in the 1958 children's film tom thumb.

Jessie Matthews continued to work as an actress, appearing in Dinner with the Family, made for Australian television.

Jessie Matthews continued to make cabaret and occasional film and television appearances throughout the 1970s, including a one-off guest role in the popular BBC TV drama series Angels.

Jessie Matthews took her one-woman stage show to Los Angeles in 1979 and won the United States Drama-Logue Award for the year's best performance in concert.

On 17 February 1926, aged 18, Jessie Matthews married the first of her three husbands, the 19-year-old actor Henry Lytton, Jr.

Jessie Matthews was the son of singer and actress Louie Henri and Sir Henry Lytton, the doyen of the Savoy Theatre.

Jessie Matthews had several romantic relationships conducted in the public eye, often causing controversy in the newspapers.

Hale and Jessie Matthews were married on 24 January 1931 at Hampstead Register Office, and they lived in The Old House, a farmhouse in Hampton, Middlesex.

Jessie Matthews had another serious breakdown in 1936, and was hospitalised in New York during World War II.

Jessie Matthews died of cancer, aged 74, on 19 August 1981.

Jessie Matthews' 12 starring films from There Goes the Bride to Sailing Along have been released on DVD in the UK by Network.

Three of the four remaining films Jessie Matthews made after the end of her leading lady period have been released on DVD in various countries.