POLLY THE DRESSER

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 11, 14 January 1933, Page 6

POLLY THE DRESSER

JOSE COLLINS'S TRIBUTE

'SHE'S WONDERFUL"

Some day, perhaps, when Justice queens it inviolably over all the world, a record will be compiled of those comparatively humble, folk who have smoothed the way to sueeess for the famous ones of the earth. lam thinking of valets, and cooks—and particularly of Polly, says a writer in the "Daily Mail." - ' . Polly has been dresser ,-to Miss Jose Collins—who as "Maid of.the Mountains" scaled the heights of musical comedy—for almost the whole of the latter's career. Tf you read Miss Collins's book about herself "which has just been published, you will observe that she calls Polly "wonderful." I met Polly in her heroine's dressingroom at the Victoria Palace, She is a serious little woman, whose dark hair is flecked with grey. "Let me see, now," she said; "I have been ;with Miss Collins for about seventeen years. I haven't-always been a dresser, you see. Why,. I ■ was only a chit of fourteen. when I started my theatre life. I sold programmes at the old Gaiety. Those were the times, if you like!" Polly was laughing softly—to herself, as though I wasn't there. "Was it very funny?" I asked, gently.

'' TEMPERAMENT.' •

Polly laughed aloud. "Funny? I should say she was!— Sarah Bernhardt, I mean. She' was a caution," Bhe was* I nsed to see her often, during what they called the French Seasons at the old Gaiety, and -I made sure that Sarah was crazy! You should have seen her fling her clothes about—and herself too—in her dressing-room. . . ' "They did say at the theatre that Sarah had brought her coffin with her but I never saw it. But I did see some? thing of her temper—or, I suppose it would be called, 'temperament ' wouldn't it?" ' ■ r ■ ' Polly chuckled. "Whatever it is " she went on, "I've had to do with a fair amount of it in my time. Miss Collins talks frankly enough about her own temperament in her book doesn't she? ' "I remember that once," when we were on tour in the provinces, her tern-1 perament very nearly parted us for ever. I sat up all night to catch the first train home in the morning I caught it—and then went back next day. I couldn't help it—l've always been a sort of mother to her, and I knew she couldn't get on without me.. "One night she came rushing into her dressing-room at Daly's and started pulling the pictures down from the walls and hurling them on the floor "I'm not going to play any more!" she cried, "I'm finished!'

"I just took no notice of her, and when all tho pictures were on the floor she suddenly burst out laughing and said: 'Go and get a man to clear up this mess, ana give him a couple of,

pounds. I'm staying on, after all.* That was the way with her."

"LITTLE JIGHTS."

"Miss Collins had a lovely suite of rooms at the Gaiety—practically a flat —?-and we used to have wonderful parties: birthday parties, wedding parties —all sorts of parties. And Miss Collins would sing and dance even better than she did on the stage! '■• ' "And the famous people who used to come to these parties! There were so many that they have all got mixed up m my mind, and I can't remember any; of them clearly, now." Polly thought that a dresser needed a great deal of tact and. patience. "What's that you're saying, Polly?" a merry voice cried at the half-open door. Miss Collins had arrived for the first of' the. four " performances she is just.now giving every day-singing four songs every time. "Ah!" she exclaimed, "Polly and I are the best of friends. I love her; it s true enough that she's been a mother to me. What I should have done without her I don't know. Thou 2 h —and thank goodness we have!" , Well, hurry up, now," Polly broke m, a new tone of command in her wTtiSr'Tajf^ g ° ~ *«