Louie Pounds
Encyclopedia
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
singer and actress, known for her performances in musical comedies
Edwardian Musical Comedy
Edwardian musical comedies were British musical theatre shows from the period between the early 1890s, when the Gilbert and Sullivan operas' dominance had ended, until the rise of the American musicals by Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, George Gershwin and Cole Porter following World War I.Between...
and in mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was a professional light opera company that staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas. The company performed nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere, from the 1870s until it closed in 1982. It was revived in 1988 and...
.
Originally intended for a secretarial career, Pounds joined the chorus of a George Edwardes
George Edwardes
George Joseph Edwardes was an English theatre manager of Irish ancestry who brought a new era in musical theatre to the British stage and beyond....
show in 1890 and quickly achieved advancement to leading roles in burlesque and musical comedy. In 1899, she joined the D'Oyly Carte company, where she created several roles. She was the youngest of five siblings who appeared with D'Oyly Carte. Her older brother Courtice
Courtice Pounds
Charles Courtice Pounds , better known by the stage name Courtice Pounds, was an English singer and actor known for his performances in the tenor roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and his later roles in Shakespeare plays and Edwardian musical comedies.As a young member...
was a principal tenor with the company in the 1880s and '90s, and her three sisters, Lily, Nancy and Rosy, also appeared with the company. After four years with D'Oyly Carte, Pounds resumed her career in musical comedies and non-musical plays, later switching from juvenile to character parts. Her career continued into the 1930s.
Early days
Pounds was born in Brompton, KensingtonBrompton, Kensington
Brompton is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is roughly defined by a triangle formed by the Brompton Cemetery, Old Brompton Road/Brompton Road and Walton Street/Fulham Road.-Development:...
, London. She originally studied to become a secretary, attending the Metropolitan School of Shorthand in Chancery Lane
Chancery Lane
Chancery Lane is the street which has been the western boundary of the City of London since 1994 having previously been divided between Westminster and Camden...
. In the early 1890s she suffered from the obsessional devotion of a man who had been at the shorthand school with her, and eventually he was imprisoned for threatening to kill her.
Pounds made her first professional stage appearance in 1890 as a chorus girl under the management of George Edwardes
George Edwardes
George Joseph Edwardes was an English theatre manager of Irish ancestry who brought a new era in musical theatre to the British stage and beyond....
. After three months he gave her a small role in Joan of Arc at the Opera Comique
Opera Comique
The Opera Comique was a 19th-century theatre constructed in Westminster, London, between Wych Street and Holywell Street with entrances on the East Strand. It opened in 1870 and was demolished in 1902, to make way for the construction of the Aldwych and Kingsway...
in January 1891. The following year, she was in Blue-Eyed Susan, by F. Osmond Carr , as Daisy Meadows, in which she "had not much to do but wear smart costumes and look pretty, and so far succeeded". Later that year she played Lord Soho in the burlesque Cinder Ellen up too Late
Cinder Ellen up too Late
Cinder Ellen up too Late is a musical burlesque written by Frederick Hobson Leslie and W. T. Vincent, with music arranged by Meyer Lutz from compositions by Lionel Monckton, Sidney Jones, Walter Slaughter, Osmond Carr, Scott Gatti, Jacobi, Robertson, and Leopold Wenzel. Additional lyrics were...
, with Edwardes's company, on tour and in London. In 1893 she appeared in Edwardes's musical, In Town
In Town (musical)
In Town is a musical comedy written by Adrian Ross and James T. Tanner, with music by F. Osmond Carr and lyrics by Ross. It was produced by George Edwardes at the Prince of Wales Theatre, opening on 15 October 1892, and transferred to the Gaiety Theatre on 26 December 1892, running for a...
, in London and on tour, and the following year she was one of the stars of the hit musical A Gaiety Girl
A Gaiety Girl
A Gaiety Girl is an English musical comedy in two acts by a team of musical comedy neophytes: Owen Hall , Harry Greenbank and Sidney Jones . It opened at Prince of Wales Theatre in London, produced by George Edwardes, on 14 October 1893 and ran for 413 performances. The show starred C...
. In 1895 she appeared with Marie Tempest
Marie Tempest
Dame Marie Tempest DBE was an English singer and actress known as the "queen of her profession".Tempest became the most famous soprano in late Victorian light opera and Edwardian musical comedies. Later, she became a leading comic actress and toured widely in North America and elsewhere...
, Leonora Braham
Leonora Braham
Leonora Braham , born Leonora Lucy Abraham, was an English opera singer and actress primarily known as the creator of principal soprano roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas....
and Sybil Grey
Sybil Grey
Sybil Grey was a British opera singer during the Victorian era best known for creating a series of minor roles in productions by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, including roles in several of the famous Gilbert and Sullivan operas, between 1880 to 1888...
in another Edwardes hit, An Artist's Model
An Artist's Model
An Artist's Model is a two-act musical by Owen Hall, with lyrics by Harry Greenbank and music by Sidney Jones, with additional songs by Joseph and Mary Watson, Paul Lincke, Frederick Ross, Henry Hamilton and Leopold Wenzel. It opened at Daly's Theatre in London, produced by George Edwardes and...
, in London, and appeared in the same show on a three-month tour in America. She next played in Gentleman Joe (The Hansom Cabby)
Gentleman Joe
Gentleman Joe, The Hansom Cabbie is a farcical musical comedy with music by Walter Slaughter and a libretto by Basil Hood.It opened at that Prince of Wales Theatre on 2 March 1895 and ran for a very successful 391 performances. The show was written as a vehicle for the comedian Arthur Roberts...
on a provincial tour. In 1896–98 Pounds played Dorothy Travers in The French Maid
The French Maid
The French Maid is a musical comedy in two acts by Basil Hood, with music by Walter Slaughter, first produced at the Theatre Royal, Bath, England, under the management of Milton Bode on the 4 April 1896. It then opened London's Terry's Theatre under the management of W. H...
in a pre-London tour and then in the West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
. In 1897, at Terry's Theatre
Terry's Theatre
Terry's Theatre was a West End theatre on Strand, in the City of Westminster, London. Built in 1887, it became a cinema in 1910 before being demolished in 1923.-History:...
, she played in a series of special matinée performances of adaptations by Basil Hood
Basil Hood
Basil Willett Charles Hood was a British librettist and lyricist, perhaps best known for writing the libretti of half a dozen Savoy Operas and for his English adaptations of operettas, including The Merry Widow. He embarked on a career in the British army, writing theatrical pieces in his spare...
and Walter Slaughter
Walter Slaughter
Walter Alfred Slaughter was an English conductor and composer of musical comedy, comic opera and children's shows. He was engaged in the West End as a composer and musical director from 1883 to 1904.-Life and career:...
of Hans Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen was a Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet noted for his children's stories. These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Snow Queen," "The Little Mermaid," "Thumbelina," "The Little Match Girl," and "The Ugly Duckling."...
fairy stories. Her major West End role in 1898 was in the breeches role
Breeches role
A breeches role is a role in which an actress appears in male clothing .In opera it also refers to any male character that is sung and acted by a female singer...
of Prince Rollo in Her Royal Highness.
D'Oyly Carte years
In 1899, while Pounds was performing in a revueRevue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...
, A Dream of Whitaker's Almanack, at the Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and glass building originally erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace's of exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in...
, Sir Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
approached her about the forthcoming season at the Savoy Theatre
Savoy Theatre
The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre located in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre opened on 10 October 1881 and was built by Richard D'Oyly Carte on the site of the old Savoy Palace as a showcase for the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan,...
. She joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was a professional light opera company that staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas. The company performed nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere, from the 1870s until it closed in 1982. It was revived in 1988 and...
, creating the part of "Heart's Desire" in The Rose of Persia
The Rose of Persia
The Rose of Persia; or, The Story-Teller and the Slave, is a two-act comic opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by Basil Hood. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 29 November 1899, closing on 28 June 1900 after a profitable run of 211 performances...
in 1899. She also appeared as the title character in the companion piece Pretty Polly (libretto by Basil Hood, music by François Cellier
François Cellier
François Arsène Cellier , often called Frank, was an English conductor and composer. He is best known for his tenure as music director and conductor of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company during the original runs and early revivals of the Savoy operas.-Life and career:Cellier was born in South Hackney,...
that played with The Rose of Persia and later with the first revival of Patience
Patience (opera)
Patience; or, Bunthorne's Bride, is a comic opera in two acts with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. First performed at the Opera Comique, London, on 23 April 1881, it moved to the 1,292-seat Savoy Theatre on 10 October 1881, where it was the first theatrical production in the...
). Pounds was at the Coronet Theatre in the summer of 1900 in Hood's The Great Silence.
The Emerald Isle
The Emerald Isle; or, The Caves of Carrig-Cleena, is a two-act comic opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and Edward German, and a libretto by Basil Hood. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 27 April 1901, closing on 9 November 1901 after a run of 205 performances...
. Her reviews were enthusiastic: "Miss Louie Pounds so far carries off the honours … that she is allotted the sweetest airs, and does justice to them with her dulcet contralto voice.… Pretty of face and comely of figure, she makes the most winsome of colleens, and 'tis a lucky … Mr. Henry Lytton
Henry Lytton
Sir Henry Lytton was an English actor and singer who was the leading exponent of the comic patter-baritone roles in Gilbert and Sullivan operas in the early part of the twentieth century...
to be the accepted sweetheart of such a purty lassie." Pounds next played Christina in another Savoy piece, Ib and Little Christina
Ib and Little Christina
Ib and Little Christina refers to two theatrical adaptations by Basil Hood of the 1855 fairy tale by Hans Andersen of the same name.The first was a play styled "A Picture in 3 Parts", with incidental music by Arthur Bruhns and was first produced at the Prince of Wales Theatre, opening on 15 May...
, after which, she played the title role in the first revival of Iolanthe
Iolanthe
Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy operas and is the seventh collaboration of the fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan....
(1901–1902). Next at the Savoy were two original works by Hood and Edward German
Edward German
Sir Edward German was an English musician and composer of Welsh descent, best remembered for his extensive output of incidental music for the stage and as a successor to Arthur Sullivan in the field of English comic opera.As a youth, German played the violin and led the town orchestra, also...
. Pounds played "Jill-all-alone" in Merrie England
Merrie England (opera)
Merrie England is an English comic opera in two acts by Edward German to a libretto by Basil Hood. The patriotic story concerns love and rivalries at the court of Queen Elizabeth I, who is portrayed as jealous of the affection of Sir Walter Raleigh for Bessie Throckmorton. Its sunny depiction of...
(1902), and Joy Jellicoe in A Princess of Kensington
A Princess of Kensington
A Princess of Kensington is an English comic opera in two acts by Edward German to a libretto by Basil Hood, produced by William Greet. The first performance was at the Savoy Theatre, London, on 22 January 1903 and ran for 115 performances....
(1903). Following the latter's London run and subsequent provincial tour, Pounds left the D'Oyly Carte company, which vacated the Savoy Theatre at that time.
Later career
Along with many of her colleagues from A Princess of Kensington, Pounds next appeared at the Adelphi TheatreAdelphi Theatre
The Adelphi Theatre is a 1500-seat West End theatre, located on the Strand in the City of Westminster. The present building is the fourth on the site. The theatre has specialised in comedy and musical theatre, and today it is a receiving house for a variety of productions, including many musicals...
in another hit Edwardian musical comedy
Edwardian Musical Comedy
Edwardian musical comedies were British musical theatre shows from the period between the early 1890s, when the Gilbert and Sullivan operas' dominance had ended, until the rise of the American musicals by Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, George Gershwin and Cole Porter following World War I.Between...
, The Earl and the Girl
The Earl and the Girl
The Earl and the Girl is a musical comedy in two acts by Seymour Hicks, with lyrics by Percy Greenbank and music by Ivan Caryll. It was produced by William Greet and opened at the Adelphi Theatre in London on 10 December 1903. It transferred to the Lyric Theatre on 12 September 1904, running for...
(1903). Over the next twenty years she appeared in numerous musicals and plays, including The Catch of the Season
The Catch of the Season
The Catch of the Season is an Edwardian musical comedy by Seymour Hicks and Cosmo Hamilton, with music by Herbert Haines and Evelyn Baker and lyrics by Charles H. Taylor, based on the fairy tale Cinderella...
at the Vaudeville Theatre
Vaudeville Theatre
The Vaudeville Theatre is a West End theatre on The Strand in the City of Westminster. As the name suggests, the theatre held mostly vaudeville shows and musical revues in its early days. It opened in 1870 and was rebuilt twice, although each new building retained elements of the previous...
(1905). At the same theatre in 1906, Pounds starred with her brother Courtice
Courtice Pounds
Charles Courtice Pounds , better known by the stage name Courtice Pounds, was an English singer and actor known for his performances in the tenor roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and his later roles in Shakespeare plays and Edwardian musical comedies.As a young member...
in the hit musical The Belle of Mayfair
The Belle of Mayfair
The Belle of Mayfair is a musical comedy composed by Leslie Stuart with a book by Basil Hood, Charles Brookfield and Cosmo Hamilton. The story is inspired by the Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet....
. A review in The Daily Graphic praised both siblings. Another reviewer wrote, "Miss Louie Pounds has never been seen to better advantage. She looks a typical English girl, and her singing of 'And the weeping willow wept' is quite inimitably artistic".
In 1908, Pounds played Lydia in a revival of the Victorian hit, Dorothy
Dorothy (opera)
Dorothy is a comic opera in three acts with music by Alfred Cellier and a libretto by B. C. Stephenson. The story involves a rake who falls in love with his disguised fiancée.It was first produced at the Gaiety Theatre in London on in 1886...
, "a part which did not tax the qualities of this accomplished actress". In 1909, she played in The Dashing Little Duke (again with her brother), and then appeared on Broadway in The Dollar Princess
The Dollar Princess
The Dollar Princess is a musical in three acts by A.M. Willner and Fritz Grünbaum , adapted into English by Basil Hood , with music by Leo Fall and lyrics by Adrian Ross. It opened in London at Daly's Theatre on 25 September 1909, running for 428 performances...
in 1909–1910, following which she toured in South Africa. Popular theatre stars of the period endorsed products, and Pounds was often photographed for this purpose. By 1910 she had started to appear in character roles, such as the wife and mother in The Girl in the Train
The Girl in the Train
Die geschiedene Frau , is an operetta in three acts by Leo Fall with a libretto by Victor Léon, after Victorien Sardou's Divorçons!...
and, in 1913, Patty in J.M. Barrie's Quality Street
Quality Street (play)
Quality Street is a comedy in four acts by J. M. Barrie, written before his more famous work Peter Pan. The story is about two sisters who start a school "for genteel children"....
, Madame Jollette in Toto in 1916, and another humorously manipulative wife in The Title in 1919.
Pounds retired in 1923 but reappeared on stage in 1926. She played Widow Windeatt in the 1928 Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
film The Farmer's Wife
The Farmer's Wife
The Farmer’s Wife is a silent film, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.It was based on a play of the same name by British novelist, poet and playwright Eden Phillpotts, best known for a series of novels based on Dartmoor, in Devon.-Synopsis:...
. In 1937 she toured as Mrs Bennett with Angela Baddeley
Angela Baddeley
Angela Baddeley, CBE , born Madeline Angela Clinton-Baddeley, was an English actress best remembered for her role as Mrs Bridges in the period drama Upstairs, Downstairs...
and Glen Byam Shaw
Glen Byam Shaw
Glen Byam Shaw was an English actor and theatre director, known for his dramatic productions in the 1950s and his operatic productions in the 1960s and later....
in a stage adaptation of Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England...
.
Pounds wrote an article, "Memories of an Earlier Iolanthe", that appeared in the March 1931 issue of The Gilbert & Sullivan Journal.
Pounds died in Southsea
Southsea
Southsea is a seaside resort located in Portsmouth at the southern end of Portsea Island in the county of Hampshire in England. Southsea is within a mile of Portsmouth's city centre....
at the age of 98.