Born this day in 1870 was Marie Lloyd, English music hall singer and comedienne. 10 facts about her.
Her real name was Matilda Alice Victoria Wood, known to her family as Tilley. Her father was a waiter and artificial Flower arranger, and her mother a dressmaker and costume designer. She was the eldest of nine children. The family lived in Hoxton, East London.
She didn’t like school and often played truant to look after her siblings. She and her sister Alice organised them into an act called the Fairy Bell troupe. They would perform at temperance missions, singing songs about the dangers of alcohol abuse.
Her father was proud of her talent and got her a job as a table singer at the Eagle Tavern in Hoxton, where he worked as a waiter.
She also had a couple of day jobs, making babies' boots and curled feathers for hats. However, she didn’t always apply herself and was eventually fired for dancing on the tables at work. She went home and declared that she wanted to work full time in show business.
She made her professional solo stage début at the Grecian music hall in Hoxton at the age of 15. At first, she used her actual name, Matilda Wood, but as she grew more popular her agent suggested she change her name. She chose Marie because it sounded French and quite posh, and the Lloyd came from Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper.
She was known for her somewhat risqué and ad lib performances, and her best known songs are The Boy I Love Is Up in the Gallery and My Old Man (Said Follow the Van).
She made her own costumes, using skills she’d learned from her mother.
She married three times and all three marriages were turbulent, ending in separation and/or divorce. Her first husband was Percy Courtenay, a ticket tout from Streatham. He once pulled a decorative sword off the wall in her dressing room and threatened to kill her with it, and she reported him to the police. Her second was Alec Hurley, a singer, and finally Bernard Dillon, a jockey.
She toured in America but her trip there started badly. She and Dillon had applied for an entry visa as Mr and Mrs Dillon, but they weren’t married at the time. The authorities found out and detained them and threatened them with deportation on the grounds of “moral turpitude”. She was threatened by the theatre manager with breach of contract proceedings after episodes of domestic abuse from Dillon caused her to miss performances. When she left, she vowed she would never sing in America again, no matter how much money she was offered.
Towards the end of her life, her performances grew erratic. She’d stumble on stage which audiences thought at first was all part of the act, but was taken ill on stage with stomach cramps. She died later that evening of heart and kidney failure at the age of 52.
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