BOMBS AND SMILES

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 89, 11 January 1923, Page 4

BOMBS AND SMILES

THE CULT OF MISS LEE WHITE To have “carried on,” entertaining London *and soldiers on leave from the trenches during seventeen air raids on the city was one of the accomplishments of Miss Lee White, who, like the proverbial mother-in-law, came from America to stay four weeks and stayed eight years instead. She arrived in Wellington yesterday, after a season of English revito in Australia,., where she renewed the acquaintance of thousands of returned soldiers, who remembered that she was the only one of London’s leading actresses— among them were Doris Keane, Shirley Kellogg, and Violet Lorraine —who had trie physique and nerve to go through her performances in those dreadful periods of moonlight when the Gothas and Taubes exacted heavy toll from the metropolis. The theatre was just opposite the Hotel Cecil, which became the headquarters of. the Royal Flying Corps, and close against the Charing Cross, one of the most important of London’s railway termini, and thus was in the zone of fire. Miss white eschews Press interviews, believing that her art should speak for itself, but expressed, through her husband, Air. Clay Smith, the pleasure it gave her to be at last in New Zealand, after being disappointed on the occasion of their visit to Australia two years ao-o. As a matter of fact it was not until midnight on the day before the boat sailed from Sydney that their tom of the Dominion was finally determined UP “our home on the Finchley Road, just near Lord’s, was a regular colonial ‘hano'-out,’ where we met hundreds of Now Zealand soldiers,” said Mr. Smith. Both he and Ins wife are Anglicised Americans, of Scottish extraction, and were married in Glasgow. Ho was brought up in London since early boyhood. and learned all his music at Kennington Road, just adjacent to AVestminster, in the same atmosphere where Cinquevalh and bandow got their “variety” training. Miss Lee White holds the record of eleven successes, in London in legitimate revue, which she intends introducing into New Zealand. In a sense they are pioneering this form of entertainment, and it rests with the pecpie, said Mr. Smith, whether will have more of it. It was not in great vogue during the war, but has now come to stay. He traced tho vogue for lighter entertainment, from comedy to opera-bouffe, musical comedy, vaudeville, the war-time style, to revue, which has b.een the most successful. In the production of most of the songs Mr. Smith has had a hand, either as composer or collaborator. Tho first piece to be shown will be a revue known as “Bran Pie,” which had a lengthv run in London, with Mr. Smith and Miss Lee White as/ leads, and the second a musical comedy, both “dressed” by Reville, of Hanover Square, who made Princess Mary’s wedding gown. The songs are of the happy-go-lucky tvpe, but with a meaning more than the ordinary music-hall number holds, and introducing amusing couplets at tho end of the chorus, with a lyric of more than ordinary consequence. AVith the company are three English artists making their first appearance in New Zealand ; one of them a brother of Miss Violet Lorraine. whose son"', “If You Were thehOnly Girl in tho” World,” camo to be popularly termed the marching anthem of the colonial troops in tho field. They are being piloted through New Zealand by •Mr. "Robert Greig, the producer, of “Chu Chin Chow.”