Mary Ellis
Encyclopedia
Mary Ellis was a long-lived star of the British stage best known for her roles in the genre of musical theatre
. After appearing with the Metropolitan Opera
beginning in 1918, later appearing opposite Enrico Caruso, she acted on Broadway
, creating the title role in Rose Marie
. In 1930, she emigrated to England, where she gained additional fame and continued to perform into the 1990s.
in 1897. She made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera
on December 14, 1918, in the world premiere of Puccini's
Il trittico
, creating the role of Genovieffa in Suor Angelica
, the second of the evening's three one-act operas. Later in the run, she also played Lauretta in the third opera of the triptych, Gianni Schicchi
. She also appeared in the premiere of L'oiseau bleu
by Albert Wolff, singing Mytyl, in 1919. While in the Metropolitan company she sang Giannetta in L'elisir d'amore
to Enrico Caruso's Nemorino and Fyodor in Boris Godunov
to Feodor Chaliapin
's Boris.
On the Broadway
stage, Ellis had the roles of street urchin and errand girl in Louis in 1921, the role of Nerissa in the 1922 production of Merchant of Venice and appeared during 1923 in Casanova with Katherine Cornell. She gained additional notice by creating the title role in Rudolf Friml
's operetta Rose Marie
in 1924 and played in The Taming of the Shrew
and The Crown Prince in 1927. In 1929 she acted the lead role of Becky Sharp in the Players' Club production of Vanity Fair, and played in 1930 in Children of Darkness opposite Basil Sydney
. She also played Leah in The Neighborhood Playhouse's 1925 adaptation of S. Ansky
's The Dybbuk.
In 1930 Ellis settled in London, having emigrated to England with her third husband, Basil Sydney
, whom she had married in 1929. There she starred in Jerome Kern
's Music in the Air
(1933) and then went on to her best known singing roles as the heroine of three Ivor Novello
operettas, Glamorous Night
(1935), The Dancing Years
(1939) and Arc de Triomphe (1943). She also appeared in a film version
of Glamorous Night in 1937.
For most of the Second World War, Ellis abandoned the theatre, performing welfare work in hospitals, and from time to time giving concerts to entertain members of the armed forces. Returning to the stage after the war, Ellis was successful in Noël Coward
's 1947 melodrama, Point Valaine, playing a hotel keeper in a sordid, clandestine relationship with an abusive West Indian. In 1948 she gave one of her most praised performances as the embittered Millie Crocker-Harris in Terence Rattigan
's The Browning Version. In 1952 she played Volumnia in Coriolanus
with Anthony Quayle
for the nine-month Stratford
season.
In 1954 Ellis was cast as Mrs. Erlynne in Coward's musical After the Ball
, but her singing voice had deteriorated drastically, and much of her music had to be cut. Coward blamed her performance for the relative failure of the show. She appeared in the 1960 movie The Three Worlds of Gulliver
and made her last stage appearance in 1970, playing Mrs Warren in Shaw
's Mrs Warren's Profession at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre
in Guildford
. She appeared in 1993 in the television series Sherlock Holmes and again in 1994, playing Mary Maberley.
Ellis published her memoirs in 1982 under the title Those Dancing Years. She died in London in 2003, aged 105.
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
. After appearing with the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
beginning in 1918, later appearing opposite Enrico Caruso, she acted on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
, creating the title role in Rose Marie
Rose Marie
Rose Marie is an American actress. As a child performer she had a successful singing career as Baby Rose Marie....
. In 1930, she emigrated to England, where she gained additional fame and continued to perform into the 1990s.
Biography
Ellis was born May Belle Elsas in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in 1897. She made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
on December 14, 1918, in the world premiere of Puccini's
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
Il trittico
Il trittico
Il trittico is the title of a collection of three one-act operas, Il tabarro, Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi, by Giacomo Puccini...
, creating the role of Genovieffa in Suor Angelica
Suor Angelica
Suor Angelica is an opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an original Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano. It is the second opera of the trio of operas known as Il trittico...
, the second of the evening's three one-act operas. Later in the run, she also played Lauretta in the third opera of the triptych, Gianni Schicchi
Gianni Schicchi
Gianni Schicchi is a comic opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, composed in 1917–18. The libretto is based on an incident mentioned in Dante's Divine Comedy. The work is the third and final part of Puccini's Il trittico —three one-act operas with...
. She also appeared in the premiere of L'oiseau bleu
L'oiseau bleu
L'oiseau bleu is an opera in four acts by the French composer and conductor Albert Wolff. The libretto by Maurice Maeterlinck is based on his 1908 play of the same name.-Performance history:...
by Albert Wolff, singing Mytyl, in 1919. While in the Metropolitan company she sang Giannetta in L'elisir d'amore
L'elisir d'amore
L'elisir d'amore is an opera by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. It is a melodramma giocoso in two acts...
to Enrico Caruso's Nemorino and Fyodor in Boris Godunov
Boris Godunov (opera)
Boris Godunov is an opera by Modest Mussorgsky . The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece. Its subjects are the Russian ruler Boris Godunov, who reigned as Tsar during the Time of Troubles,...
to Feodor Chaliapin
Feodor Chaliapin
Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin was a Russian opera singer. The possessor of a large and expressive bass voice, he enjoyed an important international career at major opera houses and is often credited with establishing the tradition of naturalistic acting in his chosen art form.During the first phase...
's Boris.
On the Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
stage, Ellis had the roles of street urchin and errand girl in Louis in 1921, the role of Nerissa in the 1922 production of Merchant of Venice and appeared during 1923 in Casanova with Katherine Cornell. She gained additional notice by creating the title role in Rudolf Friml
Rudolf Friml
Rudolf Friml was a composer of operettas, musicals, songs and piano pieces, as well as a pianist. After musical training and a brief performing career in his native Prague, Friml moved to the United States, where he became a composer...
's operetta Rose Marie
Rose Marie
Rose Marie is an American actress. As a child performer she had a successful singing career as Baby Rose Marie....
in 1924 and played in The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1591.The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the Induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Sly into believing he is actually a nobleman himself...
and The Crown Prince in 1927. In 1929 she acted the lead role of Becky Sharp in the Players' Club production of Vanity Fair, and played in 1930 in Children of Darkness opposite Basil Sydney
Basil Sydney
Basil Sydney was an English actor who made over fifty screen appearances, most memorably as Claudius in Laurence Olivier's 1948 film of Hamlet. He also appeared in classic films like Treasure Island , Ivanhoe and Around the World in Eighty Days , but the focus of his career was the legitimate...
. She also played Leah in The Neighborhood Playhouse's 1925 adaptation of S. Ansky
S. Ansky
Shloyme Zanvl Rappoport , known by his pseudonym S. Ansky , was a Russian Jewish author, playwright, and researcher of Jewish folklore....
's The Dybbuk.
In 1930 Ellis settled in London, having emigrated to England with her third husband, Basil Sydney
Basil Sydney
Basil Sydney was an English actor who made over fifty screen appearances, most memorably as Claudius in Laurence Olivier's 1948 film of Hamlet. He also appeared in classic films like Treasure Island , Ivanhoe and Around the World in Eighty Days , but the focus of his career was the legitimate...
, whom she had married in 1929. There she starred in Jerome Kern
Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...
's Music in the Air
Music in the Air
Music in the Air is a musical written by Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern . It introduced songs such as "The Song Is You", "In Egern on the Tegern See" and "I've Told Ev'ry Little Star"...
(1933) and then went on to her best known singing roles as the heroine of three Ivor Novello
Ivor Novello
David Ivor Davies , better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. Born into a musical family, his first successes were as a songwriter...
operettas, Glamorous Night
Glamorous Night
Glamorous Night is a musical with a book and music by Ivor Novello and lyrics by Christopher Hassall, Novello's collaborator in six of the eight Novello musicals staged between 1935 and 1951...
(1935), The Dancing Years
The Dancing Years
The Dancing Years is a musical with book and music by Ivor Novello and lyrics by Christopher Hassall. The piece is one of Novello's most popular musicals...
(1939) and Arc de Triomphe (1943). She also appeared in a film version
Glamorous Night (film)
Glamorous Night is a 1937 British drama film directed by Brian Desmond Hurst and starring Mary Ellis, Otto Kruger and Victor Jory. It is an adaptation of the play Glamorous Night by Ivor Novello.-Cast:* Mary Ellis ... Melitza Hjos...
of Glamorous Night in 1937.
For most of the Second World War, Ellis abandoned the theatre, performing welfare work in hospitals, and from time to time giving concerts to entertain members of the armed forces. Returning to the stage after the war, Ellis was successful in Noël Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
's 1947 melodrama, Point Valaine, playing a hotel keeper in a sordid, clandestine relationship with an abusive West Indian. In 1948 she gave one of her most praised performances as the embittered Millie Crocker-Harris in Terence Rattigan
Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan CBE was one of England's most popular 20th-century dramatists. His plays are generally set in an upper-middle-class background...
's The Browning Version. In 1952 she played Volumnia in Coriolanus
Coriolanus
Gaius Marcius Coriolanus was a Roman general who is said to have lived in the 5th century BC. He received his toponymic cognomen "Coriolanus" because of his exceptional valor in a Roman siege of the Volscian city of Corioli. He was then promoted to a general...
with Anthony Quayle
Anthony Quayle
Sir John Anthony Quayle, CBE was an English actor and director.-Early life:Quayle was born in Ainsdale, Southport, in Lancashire to a Manx family....
for the nine-month Stratford
Royal Shakespeare Theatre
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre is a 1,040+ seat thrust stage theatre owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company dedicated to the British playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is located in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon - Shakespeare's birthplace - in the English Midlands, beside the River Avon...
season.
In 1954 Ellis was cast as Mrs. Erlynne in Coward's musical After the Ball
After the Ball (musical)
After the Ball is a musical by Noel Coward, based on Lady Windermere's Fan.After a provincial tour, the musical premiered at the Globe Theatre, London, on 10 June 1954 and ran for 188 performances until 20 November 1954...
, but her singing voice had deteriorated drastically, and much of her music had to be cut. Coward blamed her performance for the relative failure of the show. She appeared in the 1960 movie The Three Worlds of Gulliver
The Three Worlds of Gulliver
The Three Worlds of Gulliver is a 1960 Columbia Pictures fantasy film loosely based upon the 18th-century English novel Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. The film stars Kerwin Mathews as the titular character, June Thorburn as his fiancée Elizabeth, and child actor Sherry Alberoni as...
and made her last stage appearance in 1970, playing Mrs Warren in Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
's Mrs Warren's Profession at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre
Yvonne Arnaud Theatre
The Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford, Surrey presents in-house productions which often tour and transfer to London's West End. Other performances include opera, ballet and pantomime. Named after the actress Yvonne Arnaud, the company has two performance venues, a main theatre and the smaller Mill...
in Guildford
Guildford
Guildford is the county town of Surrey. England, as well as the seat for the borough of Guildford and the administrative headquarters of the South East England region...
. She appeared in 1993 in the television series Sherlock Holmes and again in 1994, playing Mary Maberley.
Ellis published her memoirs in 1982 under the title Those Dancing Years. She died in London in 2003, aged 105.
Filmography
- Bella Donna (1934)
- All the King's HorsesAll the King's Horses (1935 film)All the Kings Horses is a 1935 American comedy musical film directed by Frank Tuttle, starring Carl Brisson and Mary Ellis. The film tells the story of a film actor who changes places with a Ruritanian prince...
(1935) - Paris in Spring (1935)
- Fatal Lady (1936)
- Glamorous Night (1937)
- The Astonished HeartThe Astonished Heart (film)The Astonished Heart is a 1950 drama film directed by Terence Fisher. It stars Celia Johnson and Noel Coward and is based on his play The Astonished Heart.-Plot:...
(1949) - The Magic BoxThe Magic BoxThe Magic Box is a fictional magic shop in the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon. It is located in Sunnydale and was last owned and operated by Rupert Giles, and served as the primary headquarters of the Scooby Gang for seasons five and six.-Ownership history:The shop went...
(1951) - The Three Worlds Of Gulliver (1960)