Wish Wynne

Wish Wynne (1882-1931) was a British music hall performer and radio actress.[1]

Life

Wish Wynne was born Ethel Constance Eliza Gilchrist in Croydon on 19 February 1879 [2]of Irish parents. She made her first stage appearance aged 12 in the pantomime Dick Whittington at Drury Lane. She subsequently became a music hall act, with character songs and comic monologues which she accompanied herself on the piano.[1] In 1910 Wynne made her American debut, and she returned to tour there in 1912.[3] E. V. Lucas, writing in the Pall Mall Gazette in 1911, praised Wynne as "a new variety of singer" and "a performer whose every word is of value".[4][5]

Wynne made her West End acting debut as Janet Cannot in Arnold Bennett's The Great Adventure, produced by Granville Barker. The play opened in March 1913 and enjoyed a successful run until November 1914.[6] Bennett referred to Wynne in his journal as a "genius".[7] She was profiled as "Wish Wynne: The Hit of the London Season" in Nash's Magazine for August 1913.[4]

For the next decade, Wynne divided her time between the music hall and the theatre, touring South Africa, Australia, the United States and South America. She first broadcast on radio in 1924, building a popular broadcast reputation for fairy stories told in Cockney dialect.[1]

In 1927 she acted in Double Dan, a farce by Edgar Wallace.[8]

She died in St. Bartholomew's Hospital on 14 November 1931 aged 52. The Times obituarist wrote:

She had been in ill health for some time, and had a severe operation in 1930. The public knew nothing of her state of health; and, in order to keep an engagement to broadcast last Saturday night, she left her sickbed in St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. When her work was done she collapsed, and death followed two or three days of coma. She will be sorely missed by a very large public of admirers.[9]

The funeral was held at Kensal Green Cemetery.

References
  1. 'Wish Wynne: Stage, "Halls," and Wireless Star Dead', The Manchester Guardian, 13 Movember 1931.
  2. Saint John The Baptist, Croydon, Surrey, England, 1891 Census
  3. Dr. B. S. Jones (2016). Archives of the Heathens Vol. I: Tales of a Secret Society on the Rms Mauretania 1908 to 1914. Xlibris US. pp. 67–9. ISBN 978-1-5144-7684-0.
  4. Theodore Dreiser (2004). Renate von Bardeleben (ed.). A Traveler at Forty. University of Illinois Press. p. 840. ISBN 978-0-252-02913-4.
  5. Edward Verrall Lucas (1925). "Wish Wynne". Loiterer's Harvest: A Book of Essays. Methuen. pp. 102–.
  6. Margaret Drabble (2012). Arnold Bennett: A Biography. Faber & Faber. pp. 219–20. ISBN 978-0-571-28746-8.
  7. Erik Barnouw (1996). Media Marathon: A Twentieth-century Memoir. Duke University Press. p. 82. ISBN 0-8223-1728-1.
  8. J. P. Wearing (2014). The London Stage 1920-1929: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 513. ISBN 978-0-8108-9302-3.
  9. The Times Obituary 13 November 1931
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