Evelyn Laye (née Elsie Evelyn Lay; 10 July 1900 – 17 February 1996) was an English actress who was active on the London light opera stage, and later in New York and Hollywood. Her first husband, actor Sonnie Hale, left her for

Jessie Matthews Jessie Margaret Matthews (11 March 1907 – 19 August 1981) was an English actress, dancer and singer of the 1920s and 1930s, whose career continued into the post-war period. After a string of hit stage musicals and films in the mid-1930s, Ma ...

, earning much public sympathy for Laye. Her second husband was actor

Frank Lawton Frank Lawton Mokeley (30 September 1904 – 10 June 1969) was an English actor. His parents were stage players Daisy May Collier and Frank Lawton (I). His first major screen credit was ''Young Woodley'' (1930). In the mid-1930s, Lawton appea ...

, with whom she often appeared in stage productions.

Early years

Laye was born as Elsie Evelyn Lay in

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...

, London, and known informally as Boo. Her parents were both actors and her father a theatre manager.

Career

Lay made her first stage appearance in August 1915 at the Theatre Royal, Brighton as Nang-Ping in ''Mr. Wu'', and her first London appearance at the East Ham Palace on 24 April 1916, aged 15, in the revue ''Honi Soit'', in which she subsequently toured. For the first few years of her career she mainly played in musical comedy and operetta, including ''

The Beauty Spot ''The Beauty Spot'' was a 1909 musical comedy in two acts that played for 137 performances at the Herald Square Theatre in New York with music by Reginald De Koven, a book by Joseph W. Herbert and additional lyrics by Terry Sullivan. The musical ...

'' in 1917 and '' Going Up'' in 1918. Among her successes during the 1920s were ''

Phi-Phi ''Phi-Phi'' is an opérette légère in three acts with music by Henri Christiné and a French libretto by Albert Willemetz and Fabien Solar. The piece was one which founded the new style of French comédie musicale, the first to really use the ...

'' (1922), '' Madame Pompadour'' (1923), '' The Dollar Princess'', ''

Blue Eyes Eye color is a polygenic phenotypic character determined by two distinct factors: the pigmentation of the eye's iris and the frequency-dependence of the scattering of light by the turbid medium in the stroma of the iris. In humans, the p ...

'' (1928) and '' Lilac Time''. Laye made her Broadway debut in 1929 in the American première of

Noël Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time (magazine), Time'' magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combina ...

's '' Bitter Sweet'' and appeared in several early Hollywood film musicals. She continued acting in

pantomime Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speakin ...

s such as '' The Sleeping Beauty'' and ''

Cinderella "Cinderella",; french: link=no, Cendrillon; german: link=no, Aschenputtel) or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a folk tale with thousands of variants throughout the world.Dundes, Alan. Cinderella, a Casebook. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsi ...

''. In 1937, she appeared opposite Richard Tauber in the

C.B. Cochran Sir Charles Blake Cochran (25 September 1872 31 January 1951), generally known as C. B. Cochran, was an English theatrical manager and impresario. He produced some of the most successful musical revues, musicals and plays of the 1920s and 1930 ...

production of the operetta Paganini by

Franz Lehár Franz Lehár ( ; hu, Lehár Ferenc ; 30 April 1870 – 24 October 1948) was an Austro-Hungarian composer. He is mainly known for his operettas, of which the most successful and best known is '' The Merry Widow'' (''Die lustige Witwe''). Life ...

, at the Lyceum Theatre and on tour. Laye performed with an unnamed dog for the

VE Day Victory in Europe Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945, marking the official end of World War II in Europe in the Easte ...

edition of BBC's ''Music Hall''. After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Laye had less success, but she returned to the

West End West End most commonly refers to: * West End of London, an area of central London, England * West End theatre, a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London, England West End may also refer to: Pl ...

in 1954, in the musical ''Wedding in Paris''. She also acted several times opposite her second husband, actor

, including in the 1956 sitcom '' My Husband and I''. Other stage successes included ''Silver Wedding'' (1957; with Lawton), ''The Amorous Prawn'' (1959) and ''Phil the Fluter'' (1969). She was the subject of ''

This Is Your Life This Is Your Life may refer to: Television * ''This Is Your Life'' (American franchise), an American radio and television documentary biography series hosted by Ralph Edwards * ''This Is Your Life'' (Australian TV series), the Australian versio ...

'' on two occasions, in August 1959 when she was surprised by

Eamonn Andrews Eamonn Andrews, (19 December 1922 – 5 November 1987) was an Irish radio and television presenter, employed primarily in the United Kingdom from the 1950s to the 1980s. From 1960 to 1964 he chaired the Radio Éireann Authority (now the RTÉ A ...

at the BBC Television Theatre, and in December 1990, when

Michael Aspel Michael Terence Aspel (born 12 January 1933) is an English retired television newsreader and host of programmes such as '' Crackerjack'', ''Aspel & Company'', '' Give Us a Clue'', ''This is Your Life'', '' Strange but True?'' and '' Antiques R ...

surprised her at Croydon's

Fairfield Halls Fairfield Halls is an arts, entertainment and conference centre in Croydon, London, England, which opened in 1962 and contains a theatre and gallery, and a large concert hall regularly used for BBC television, radio and orchestral recordings. F ...

Personal life

Married to the actor Sonnie Hale in 1926, Laye received widespread public sympathy when Hale left her for the actress

in 1928. She was initially very reluctant to abandon the marriage, but, despite a trial reconciliation, a divorce case eventually followed in 1930. She subsequently married actor

, to whom she remained married until his death.

Honours

Awarded a CBE in 1973, Laye continued acting well into her nineties. It was reported after Laye's death that the Queen Mother had petitioned the then

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

John Major Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdon, formerly Hunting ...

for Laye to be awarded the DBE (damehood).

Death

Laye died in a nursing home in

Pimlico Pimlico () is an area of Central London in the City of Westminster, built as a southern extension to neighbouring Belgravia. It is known for its garden squares and distinctive Regency architecture. Pimlico is demarcated to the north by Victor ...

, Central London from

respiratory failure Respiratory failure results from inadequate gas exchange by the respiratory system, meaning that the arterial oxygen, carbon dioxide, or both cannot be kept at normal levels. A drop in the oxygen carried in the blood is known as hypoxemia; a rise ...

in 1996, aged 95.

Filmography

* '' The Luck of the Navy'' (1927) - Cynthia Eden * '' One Heavenly Night'' (1931) - Lilli * '' Waltz Time'' (1933) - Rosalinde Eisenstein * '' Princess Charming'' (1934) - Princess Elaine * ''

Evensong Evensong is a church service traditionally held near sunset focused on singing psalms and other biblical canticles. In origin, it is identical to the canonical hour of vespers. Old English speakers translated the Latin word as , which becam ...

'' (1934) - Madame Irela * '' The Night Is Young'' (1935) - Elizabeth Katherine Anne 'Lisl' Gluck * '' I'll Turn to You'' (1946) - Herself (uncredited) * '' Make Mine a Million'' (1959) - Herself, Cameo appearance * '' Theatre of Death'' (1967) - Madame Angelique * '' Love, I Think'' (1970) - Cynthia Pitman * ''

Say Hello to Yesterday ''Say Hello to Yesterday'' is a 1971 British romantic comedy- drama film directed by Canadian Alvin Rakoff, on whose original story the film is based. Starring Jean Simmons and Leonard Whiting, it is 'a fast moving account of ten hours in the li ...

'' (1971) - Woman's mother * '' Never Never Land'' (1980) - Millie *''

My Family and Other Animals ''My Family and Other Animals'' (1956) is an autobiographical book by British naturalist Gerald Durrell. It tells in an exaggerated and sometimes fictionalised way of the years that he lived as a child with his siblings and widowed mother on ...

'' (1987) - Mrs. Kralefsky

References

External links

Performances listed in Theatre Archive, University of Bristol
* *
Photographs and literature

WP:ELNO {{DEFAULTSORT:Laye, Evelyn 1900 births 1996 deaths Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Deaths from respiratory failure English film actresses English musical theatre actresses English stage actresses People from Bloomsbury 20th-century English actresses 20th-century English singers 20th-century English women singers