Beatrice
Gladys Lillie, Lady Peel (29
May 1894 – 20 January 1989), known as Bea Lillie, was a
Canadian-born British actress, singer and comedic performer. She began to
perform as a child with her mother and sister. She made her West End debut in 1914 and soon gained notice in revues and
light comedies, becoming known for her parodies of old-fashioned, flowery
performing styles and absurd songs and sketches. She debuted in New York in
1924 and two years later starred in her first film, continuing to perform in
both the US and UK. She was associated with revues staged by André Charlot and works of Noël Coward and Cole Porter, and frequently was paired with Gertrude Lawrence, Bert Lahr and Jack Haley. During World War II, Lillie was an inveterate entertainer of the
troops. She won a Tony Award in 1953
for her revue An Evening with Beatrice Lillie. Lillie was born in Toronto to
Irish-born John Lillie and his wife Lucie Ann (née Shaw). She had an elder
sister, Muriel (1893–1973), at one time an aspiring concert pianist who later
played the piano at silent movie houses, married firstly to the Egyptologist,
stage designer and writer Arthur Weigall, and secondly to Sir Brian Dean Paul, 6th Baronet of Rodborough. Her father was a cigar seller at the time of
Lillie's birth, later working as a guard at the Toronto city jail. He had been
a soldier in the British Army stationed in India, and on his honourable
discharge went to Toronto rather than returning to Ireland. Lucie Ann Lillie
(who had changed her name from "Lucy Ann"), who had "a modest
reputation as a concert singer" was the daughter of a Manchester
clothing retailer who had retired to a farm outside Toronto. Lillie performed in Ontario towns as
part of a family trio with her mother and older sister, Muriel, her father
running the family home in Toronto as a boarding house in their absence. Eventually, her mother took the girls to
London, England, where she made her West End début in the 1914 show Not Likely! Lillie
followed this with about a dozen London shows and musical revues until
1922. In her revues, Lillie developed her sketches, songs and parodies. These
won her lavish praise from The New York Times after
her 1924 Broadway début in André Charlot's Revue of 1924, starring Gertrude Lawrence.
In some of her best known bits, she solemnly parodied the flowery performing
style of earlier decades, mining such songs as "There Are Fairies at the
Bottom of Our Garden" and "Mother Told Me So" for every double
entendre. Other numbers ("Get Yourself a Geisha" and "Snoops the
Lawyer") showcased her exquisite sense of the absurd. Her performing in
such comedy routines as "One Dozen Double Damask Dinner Napkins", (in
which an increasingly flummoxed matron attempts to purchase said napkins)
earned her the frequently used sobriquet of "Funniest Woman in the
World".In 1926, she returned to New York City to perform. While in the
United States, she starred in her first film, Exit Smiling (1927), opposite fellow Canadian Jack Pickford, the younger brother of Mary Pickford. This was followed by a small role in The Show of Shows (1929)
and her only starring role in a sound feature film, Are You There? (1930).
After a 1927 tour on the Orpheum Circuit, Lillie returned to Broadway in Vaudeville at
the Palace Theatre in
1928 and performed there frequently after that.