CECIL HAINES

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 26, 1 February 1926, Page 16

CECIL HAINES

WELLINGTON'S OWN CHILD

ACTRESS

; At the age of six, Cecil Haincg, Wellington's own child actress, won the encomium from the late Frank Morton of being "the brightest and winsomest possible small dimpled girl." At nineteen, Cecil, now a member of the Guy Bates Post . Company, appearing at the Grand Opera House in "The Masquerader,", is still winsome, bright, and dimpled," and though no longer the small girl she used to be, is petite and dainty, and looks on life with a spontaneous appreciation of all the beauty of it. Cecil Haines, in her early childhood, attained a peculiar place in the affections of Wellington art lovers; by her versatility, by the purity of, her English, by the ability, unique in one so young, of interpretation and mimicry. Up till April last Miss Haines had. not boon on the stage for more than six years. Her past performance, strange to say, had been in the play m which she is making her appearance here, and then she took the part of the child in the play., It waa mainly owing to Mr. Bates's interest in Cecil Haines that her big chance came. He thought her the most gifted child he had everT>een associated with on the boards, and wanted to take her back to America. Educational considerations actuated her parents in declining the offer, and (she was put to school. Previous to Mr. Bates's eulogy, she had won praise from Mr. C. N. Baeyertz, who called her an infant prodigy. Before she was six she could recite Shakespeare and Dickens, and became a prominent figure at competitions; sixteen championship prizes to a child under seven is indeed a remarkable indication of that': child's talents. "When Hhe went to Australia, Cecil Haines again came into prominence by her performance of the precocious. Suds in "Seven Little Australians," and later in New Zealand was acclaimed as the life and soul of the piece. She also appeared in "Peter Pan" with Kathleen M'Donnell, and with Sydney James in "Pierrot Pie." This serious-minded girl loves flowers, books (her literary tastes are discriminating), and singing and dancing. She has studied at the New South Wales State Conservatorium for singing, and allied to Her elocutionary perfection is a sweetly modulated voice 1 that should stand her in .good stead throughout her career. Cnildwonder as she has been, and is, Cecil Haines is still unspoiled by her successes, and takes her work seriously, yet happily. '.''.'. '.-.