Eileen Sharp

Eileen Nora Sharp (20 September 1900 – 25 March 1958) was an English singer and actress probably best known as the principal mezzo-soprano with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1923 to 1925. For a few years after that, she continued to act in the West End and on tour, but she left the stage after marrying in 1928, making some radio and television appearances in the 1930s.

Sharp as Mad Margaret in Ruddigore (1923)

Early life and D'Oyly Carte
Sharp in a 1922 postcard

Sharp was born in Brighton in 1900, the daughter of Louisa Jane (née Newman; 1869–1911) and Ernest Alfred Sharp (1867–c. 1918), a coal factor.[1][2] Her older brother, Ernest Granville Sharp (c. 1896–1916), was killed in the Battle of Gommecourt in 1916.[3][4] After studying at the Royal College of Music in London, where she was awarded a scholarship,[5] Sharp made her stage debut in December 1921 in The Lady of the Rose at the Prince's Theatre in Manchester in a chorus role.

In March 1922, at the age of 21, she was engaged by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and was immediately cast in the small roles of Kate in The Pirates of Penzance, the fairy Leila in Iolanthe, Peep-Bo in The Mikado, Ruth in Ruddigore and Vittoria in The Gondoliers.[6] From August 1922 to mid-1923 Sharp continued to play all of these roles, adding another small part, Saphir in Patience, to her repertoire. She also understudied principal mezzo-soprano Catherine Ferguson, occasionally playing her parts: Constance in The Sorcerer, Cousin Hebe in H.M.S. Pinafore, Edith in Pirates, Angela in Patience, the title role in Iolanthe, Melissa in Princess Ida, Pitti-Sing in The Mikado, Margaret in Ruddigore, Phoebe in The Yeomen of the Guard and Tessa in The Gondoliers.[7] When Ferguson left the company in July 1923 Sharp became the company's principal mezzo-soprano,[8] playing these parts (originally excepting Edith, which she took on from August 1924), performing them in repertory until June 1925, and becoming popular with audiences.[9][10]

Her appearance and acting won praise from reviewers, although her singing came in for criticism.[11] Writing in The Savoyard, R. F. Bourne said of her performance as Mad Margaret in Ruddigore:

Her interpretation of Margaret was a scintillating one, from her electrifying entrance in Act 1 and her tender and pathetic "To a Garden Full of Posies", to her scarcely controlled primness in "I Once Was a Very Abandoned Person", succeeded by her repeated outbursts in the dialogue which followed.[12]

She recorded two of her roles with D'Oyly Carte for HMV: Mad Margaret in Ruddigore (1924) and Melissa in Princess Ida (1925).[13][14]

Later years
Publicity shot: Henry Ainley and Sharp in The Moon and Sixpence (1925)

Sharp left the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1925, and during the next few years she appeared in several London productions and on tour.[8] In 1925 she played the maid in The Show at St. Martin's Theatre, Ata in an adaptation of The Moon and Sixpence at the New Theatre[15] and Posy (from 1925 to 1926) in Quinney's at the New Theatre.[16] Later in 1926 she was Myriem in Prince Fazil at the New Theatre, and in 1927 she played Adrienne in Noël Coward's The Marquise at the Criterion Theatre.[17] Of her appearance in The Marquise, co-star Godfrey Winn wrote:

It is always an ordeal to have the opening scene to play on the first night, but on this occasion [the scene was] greatly assisted by the gay bubbling insouciance of [Sharp].[18] Eileen Sharp was so pretty and unspoilt that I would have imagined that no one could have found fault with her, but unfortunately she was an incorrigible giggler, and we were both reported for this heinous crime in one of our scenes together.[19]

In 1928 she played Penelope Hillcourt in Down Wind at the Arts Theatre.[20] The same year she married Dr. Douglas Clive Shields (1902–1976), a Scottish consultant physician, in Paddington in London.[21] They had two sons: Bryan Douglas Clive Shields (born 1933) and Rodney Mark Shields (born 1935).[22] In 1938 Sharp appeared as Mavis Wilson in Love from a Stranger, a live BBC Television play directed by George More O'Ferrall.[23] She also acted in several BBC Radio dramas during the 1930s.[24]

Sharp died of a brain haemorrhage in Wimbledon in 1958, aged 57.[25] She was buried in the Shields family grave at Kensal Green Cemetery in London. In her will she left £458 1s 4d to her husband.[26]

Notes
  1. "Eileen Nora Sharp", 1901 England Census, Ancestry.com (pay to view)
  2. "Sharp, Eileen Nora", FreeBMD.org, ONS, accessed 16 November 2015
  3. MacDonald, Alan. "The Fallen of the 1/16th London Regiment (Queen's Westminster Rifles), 1st July 1916" Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Gommecourt.co.uk, c. 2007, accessed 24 November 2015
  4. Ernest Granville Sharp, UK, Soldiers Died in the Great War, 1914–1919, Ancestry.com (pay to view)
  5. "Awards To Music Students", The Times, 23 November 1918, p. 9
  6. Rollins and Witts, p. 140
  7. Rollins and Witts, p. 142
  8. Stone, David. "Eileen Sharp (1922–25)" Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, 6 September 2013, accessed 16 November 2015
  9. Rollins and Witts, pp. 144 and 146
  10. Eileen Sharp, Memories of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, accessed 30 November 2015
  11. "Gilbert and Sullivan", The Times, 5 February 1924, p. 8; and "The Gondoliers", The Times, 11 March 1924, p. 12
  12. R. F. Bourne, The Savoyard, September 1970, p. 21
  13. Shepherd, Marc. "The 1924 D'Oyly Carte Ruddigore", The Gilbert and Sullivan Discography, 28 November 2010, accessed 16 November 2015
  14. Shepherd, Marc. "The 1924 D'Oyly Carte Princess Ida", The Gilbert and Sullivan Discography, 29 April 2009, accessed 16 November 2015
  15. "Popular Actress to Wed Son of Scots Knight", The Evening Telegraph, 18 November 1925, p. 4
  16. "New Theatre", The Times, 4 December 1925, p. 12
  17. Coward, Noël. Coward Plays: 2: Private Lives; Bitter-Sweet; The Marquise; Post-Mortem, p. 142, A&C Black, 2014 ISBN 1408162180
  18. Godfrey Winn, Infirm Glory (Vol. 1) p. 231
  19. Winn, p. 238
  20. "Arts Theatre Club", The Times, 16 July 1928, p. 12
  21. Douglas C Shields, England & Wales, Marriage Index, 1916–2005, Ancestry.com (pay to view)
  22. "Eileen Nora Sharp", Eileen Nora Sharp Family Record, Ancestry.com (pay to view)
  23. "Love from a Stranger (1938)", BFI.org, accessed 16 November 2015
  24. Eileen Sharp, BBC Genome, accessed 24 November 2015
  25. "Shields, Eileen N.", FreeBMD.org, ONS, accessed 16 November 2015
  26. "Eileen Nora Shields", England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858–1966, Ancestry.com (pay to view)

Sources
  • Rollins, Cyril; R. John Witts (1962). The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in Gilbert and Sullivan Operas: A Record of Productions, 1875–1961. London: Michael Joseph. OCLC 504581419.
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