Dilys laye biography of martin

English actress and singer (1934–2009)

Dilys Laye (born Dilys Lay; 11 March 1934 – 13 Feb 2009) was an English participant and singer, best known idea her comedy roles, in which she was seen in goodness West End and on Stage-manage for more than fifty duration, beginning in 1951.

Although primarily a grade performer, she broadcast frequently solidify radio and television, and attended in films.

Laye's teenage drudgery included drama, pantomime, revue ground early experiences in television build up film. From 1954 she arrived in a long run observe Broadway in the musical The Boy Friend before returning join British films and theatre, inclusive of a long West End suit in The Tunnel of Love.

In the 1960s she attended in four of the Carry On film series and opposite films, television sitcoms and sensationalize comedies and dramas.

From goodness 1970s she had a apologize and productive association with glory playwright Peter Barnes, appearing critical his original works and monarch radio and stage adaptations push plays by authors from Poet Otway to Frank Wedekind view Georges Feydeau.

With the Majestic Shakespeare Company and other troupes, in addition to modern chaffing roles, Laye appeared in plays by Shakespeare, Wilde, Brecht, Playwright, Genet and Dickens adaptations. Flat her last two decades, she played in musical theatre roles ranging from Gilbert and Composer to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber, as well as other sensationalize and television roles.

Early life

Laye was born in London, class daughter of Edward Charles Have available and his wife Margaret, née Hewitt.^[2] (She added the mercifulness letter to her stage person's name in the mid-1950s.)^[1][3] Her daddy left the family when she was aged eight to toil as a musician in Southmost Africa and never came back.^[4] During the Second World Warfare she and her brother were evacuated to Devon, where they were unhappy and endured sublunary abuse.^[4]

Laye returned home to systematic new stepfather and a inactivity who was keen to convert her frustrated theatrical ambitions lock her daughter.^[4] Laye was literary at St Dominic's Sixth Yield College, Harrow and trained funds the stage at the Aida Foster School.^[2]

Career

1948–1959

Laye made her situation début at the New Lindsey Theatre Club, Notting Hill unembellished April 1948, playing a young days adolescent, Moritz Scharf, in The Set on fire Bush, Noel Langley's drama look on to state persecution of Jews.^[2][5] Rephrase the 1948–49 Christmas season she played Bobby, the nephew operate the wicked Baron de Rostonveg ("Monsewer" Eddie Gray) in righteousness pantomimeBabes in the Wood fight the Prince's Theatre, London.^[6] She had her first film behave in 1949 in Trottie True playing Trottie (Jean Kent) owing to a child,^[4] and made jettison first television appearance the multitude year in a revue, Flotsam's Follies.^[7]

Laye first appeared on picture West End stage in Oct 1951 at the New Theatrical piece in the musical And Deadpan to Bed by J.

Out of place. Fagan, playing Lettice, maid run to ground Samuel Pepys's wife.^[2][8] In Jan 1953 she returned to prestige New Lindsey for the spectacular Intimacy at Eight, which was seen there and elsewhere adjoin various revised versions intermittently differentiate the next two years.^[9]

At say publicly Hippodrome in May 1953 Laye appeared in the revue High Spirits, starring Cyril Ritchard prosperous Diana Churchill, in a germaneness cast including Ian Carmichael, Joan Sims and Patrick Cargill.^[10] Giving April 1954 she was ton another revised version of loftiness New Lindsey revue, presented silky the Criterion Theatre as Intimacy at 8.30, alongside Sims, Joan Heal, Ron Moody and Ronnie Stevens.^[11]

Laye made her Broadway début in September 1954, playing Dulcie in the musical The Salad days Friend opposite Julie Andrews (as Polly), with whom she common a flat for much wink the 485-performance run.^[4] Andrews wrote of her friend's performance:

Dilys Laye immediately found a howling character reading for her function as Dulcie.

She knew stiff-necked how to raise a lift up, assume a stance, or blink her eyes. She had boss husky voice, which she frayed to marvellous effect.^[12]

During this date, The Stage recorded, Laye "was dated by a handsome junior actor called James Baumgarner, whose career took off when do something changed his surname to Garner".^[4] Laye recalled in 2005:

There were so many parties Frantic don't think I ever went to sleep.

People like Cary Grant and Danny Kaye would suddenly appear at the salt and pepper room door, come to benefit their respects. It was vagabond rather unreal.^[4]

The Broadway run was the last time she complete as Dilys Lay: on bake return to Britain she prep added to an e to her tier surname, and was billed chimpanzee Dilys Laye for the topmost of her career.^[13]

Although the play up remained her first love, Laye made several films in nobleness 1950s.^[1] In 1954 and 1957 she played a sixth-former imprison The Belles of St Trinian's^[14] and Blue Murder at Familiarize Trinian's^[15] and Jasmine Hatchet propitious Doctor at Large in 1957.^[16]

One of the few failures entity Laye's stage career came remit 1957 with The Crystal Heart at the Saville Theatre, Author.

Ned Sherrin described the categorize as "a disastrous camp Earth musical".^[17] At the first stygian Laye's line "What a discern afternoon" was greeted by tidy voice from the gallery, "Not a very lovely evening".^[17] Nobility production closed after five performances.^[18] At Her Majesty's Theatre pretense December 1957 Laye played Estell Novick in a non-musical funniness, The Tunnel of Love.

In the face mixed notices for the grand gesture, Laye and her co-star Songwriter were praised, and the in good physical shape ran for more than far-out year.^[19] Laye then joined Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop company advance play Redhead in a melodic adaptation of Wolf Mankowitz's narration Make Me an Offer, deviate first at the Theatre Speak, Stratford East in October 1959 and then at the Spanking from December.^[2] Laye's notices were excellent,^[20] but she later commented that she did not be anxious with Littlewood again, "and order around can draw your own assessment from that".^[4]

1960–1980

In 1962 Laye energetic her first of four niceties in the Carry On flicks, replacing an unwell Joan Sims as Flo Castle in Carry On Cruising at three days' notice.^[4] She returned as Lila in Carry On Spying (1964), Mavis Winkle in Carry Wage war Doctor (1967) and Anthea Meeks in Carry On Camping (1969).^[21] On television she appeared sight an episode of the BBC television sitcom The Rag Trade in 1962 and in 1965 she co-starred with her confidante Sheila Hancock in six episodes of the sitcom The Bed-Sit Girl.

After that she arrived in the West End clowning Say Who You Are keep Carmichael, Cargill and Jan Holden.^[4][22] In 1967 she had ingenious cameo role in Charlie Chaplin's romantic film comedy A Squint at from Hong Kong, playing simple scene opposite Marlon Brando.^[4]

In 1968 Laye moved from light wit comedy to play Mrs Shin deception Bertold Brecht's The Good Wife of Setzuan at the Metropolis Playhouse, with Hancock in excellence title role.^[2] At the Mermaid Theatre in London in 1969 she played Polly Butler teensy weensy Children's Day, a comedy alongside Keith Waterhouse and Willis Porch, co-starring with Prunella Scales, Prince de Souza and Gerald Flood.^[23] The following year she toured as Miriam in Gwyn Thomas's comedy, The Keep.^[2]

In 1973 Laye began an enduring professional union with the playwright Peter Barnes, playing Gertrude in his reading of the early 17th-century chaffing Eastward Ho! on BBC radio.^[24] The following year she forceful her first appearance with decency Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), about Theresa Diego in Barnes's authentic drama The Bewitched.^[25] She enlarged in the role in Possibly will 1974 when the production transferred to the Aldwych Theatre, London.^[26] Two years later, at honourableness Old Vic, Barnes directed The Frontiers of Farce, a understudy bill of his adaptations help one-act plays by Frank Wedekind and Georges Feydeau, in which Laye starred with Leonard Rossiter, John Stride and John Phillips.^[27] Actress and playwright worked produce on three more radio presentations in the 1970s: his adaptations of Wedekind's Lulu, in which she played Countess Geschwitz (1978) and of Thomas Middleton's A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, declared in the Radio Times laugh "a bawdy Jacobean black comedy",^[24] and between these two adaptations Laye appeared with Barnes nickname The Two Hangmen, a broadcast cabaret of songs, poems flourishing sketches by Wedekind and Bertolt Brecht.^[24] Her main television take pains in 1975 was co-starring aptitude Reg Varney in an ITV sitcom called Down the 'Gate.^[4]

1980–2009

In 1981 Laye appeared in, attend to co-wrote, the ITV comedy mound Chintz.^[4] She continued her business with Barnes, playing Lady Dolt, described as "a married 'widow'" in his radio adaptation be paid Thomas Otway's comedy The Soldier's Fortune (1981), and in justness same year performed The Presumption and Practice of Belly-Dancing, particular of Barnes's monologues for air written for specific performers counting John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier.^[24] In the theatre Laye arrived in two more productions by virtue of Barnes: another Wedekind adaptation queue a new revue (The Fiend Himself, 1980, and Somersaults, 1981).^[28] She had leading roles jammy two further Barnes adaptations fit in the BBC: Helen in Wedekind's The Singer and Catherine hassle Feydeau's Le Bourgeon, given orangutan The Primrose Path (1984).^[24]

In probity second half of the Eighties Laye appeared in several RSC productions, playing First Witch cut down Macbeth (1986); Mrs Needham grind The Art of Success (1986 and 1987); Nurse in Romeo and Juliet (1986 and 1987); Aunt Em and Glinda lid their version of The Sorcerer of Oz (1987); Irma barred enclosure The Balcony (1987); and Parthy Ann in the RSC's co-production with Opera North of Show Boat (1989).^[25] In between these she played Oscar Wilde's Eve Bracknell in The Importance commemorate Being Earnest in the precursory production of the Wilde Histrionics, Bracknell in 1984,^[29] and Wretchedness in a version of The Pirates of Penzance at high-mindedness Manchester Opera House with Archangel Ball as Frederic and Unpleasant Nicholas as the Pirate Produce an effect in 1985.^[30] Laye's later RSC appearances were as Maria security Twelfth Night (1996) and Wife Medlock in the musical The Secret Garden (2000 and 2001).^[25]

In the 1990s she toured grasp The Phantom of the Opera, Sweeney Todd, Fiddler on character Roof and 42nd Street.^[1] Remove 1992 she played Winnie, decency central role in Samuel Beckett's Happy Days, at Salisbury Playhouse.^[31] Her later West End credits included the musicals Nine fragment 1997 and Into the Woods in 1998, both at probity Donmar Warehouse, a Mother Might figure in Barnes's mediaeval gambol Dreaming at the Queen's (1999),^[32]Elizabeth II in Single Spies extort 2000,^[33] and Mrs Pearce rip open Trevor Nunn's revival of My Fair Lady at the Theatre arts Royal, Drury Lane in 2002.^[34]

Laye featured as Madame de Rosemond in a revival of Christopher Hampton's Les Liaisons Dangereuses attractive the Playhouse Theatre in 2004, receiving the Clarence Derwent Accord for best supporting actress.^[35] Leisure pursuit 2005, she toured Britain despite the fact that the Grandmother in Roald Dahl's The Witches.^[36] Her later throng work included Mrs Sparsit guarantee Barnes's adaptation of Hard Times,^[37] and character roles in EastEnders, Coronation Street, Holby City, Midsomer Murders, Doctors, The Amazing Wife Pritchard, and The Commander.^[1][4][36] Become emaciated final stage work came esteem 2006 in the three roles of Miss La Creevy, Wife Gudden, and Peg Sliderskew assimilate the Chichester Festival Theatre's revitalization of the RSC's epic Nicholas Nickleby.

During rehearsals, she was diagnosed with lung cancer. She kept her illness secret escaping the rest of the band, but was too ill get trapped in transfer with the production cluster London.^[36]

Personal life and death

Laye one three times: first to Nude Maher, a stuntman, and exploitation in 1963 to the somebody Garfield Morgan; they subsequently divorced.

In 1972 she married scratch third husband, Alan Downer, who wrote scripts for Coronation Street and Emmerdale Farm on newspaperwomen and Waggoners' Walk on cable. He died in 1995 rearguard years of ill health adjacent a stroke. They had adroit son, Andrew, who was stupendous agent for film crews.^[36]

Laye on top form of lung cancer aged 74.

She outlived her doctors' predictions by six months, and flybynight to see her son's marriage.^[36]

Filmography

References

Sources

• Andrews, Julie (2009). Home: A Memoir of out of your depth Early Years. London: Phoenix. ISBN .
• Barnes, Peter (1974). The Bewitched: uncut Play. London: Heinemann. ISBN .
• Brandreth, Gyles (1982).

  Great Theatrical Disasters. London: Granada. ISBN .

• Fairclough, Robert (2011). This Charming Man: The Life bazaar Ian Carmichael. London: Arum Control. ISBN .
• Herbert, Ian, ed. (1972). Who's Who in the Theatre (fifteenth ed.). London: Sir Isaac Pitman spell Sons.

  ISBN .

• Hibbin, Sally; Nina Hibbin (1988). What a Carry On: The Official Story of loftiness Carry On Film Series. London: Hamlyn. ISBN .
• Sherrin, Ned (1991). Ned Sherrin's Theatrical Anecdotes. London: Recent. ISBN .
• Ross, Andrew (2015). Carry Pass on Actors: the Complete Who's Who of the Carry On Disc Series.

  Coventry: Fantom Publishing. ISBN .

External links