BIG FIGURES

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 2, 3 July 1933, Page 10

BIG FIGURES

THEATRICAL FORTUNES

A former Nottingham tank clerk, who wrote a sketch for a local musichall, and from that beginning became a famous /theatrical', author and manager, recently left moro than £150,000. This man was Sir George Dance, who died last October and whoso will has been proved at £157,272, with net personalty £53,973, being one of the biggest theatrical fortunes, left by any manager or. dramatist in England, says, an overseas paper. Although Mr. George Dance (as he then was) met with, great success in his earlier days as the author of musical comedies—he' wrote "The Nau'tch Girl," "A Modem Don Quixote," and "A Chinese Honeymoon," the last-named being, performed . more than 1000 times in the West Endit was. probably in his capacity of a theatrical director that he made the bigger proportion of his fortune. It was he who convinced the late George Edwardes of the goldmine waiting in the provinces for first-class touring companies of current London musical comedy successes. In association with him, Mr. Dance sent on tour a succession of,shows which brought to provincial playgoers for the first time musical comedy productions on a highclass scale. > . •■• • In 1922, when the Old Vie. was threatened with having to close owing to lack of money needed for structural alterations, Mr. Dance gave anonymously £30,000 to the famous theatre in memory of the enjoyment he got there as a boy. He was,knighted the following year. . . Other large theatrical fortunes in Great Britain have been: — ' ■ •' ' ■■ £ " Mr. B. DOyly Carto 240,817 Sir Charles Wyndhani .. 197,035 Lady Wyndham 178,000 Sir Squire Bancroft .... 174,535 Mr. Prank Curzon 181,588 Sir W. S. Gilbert ........ 111,971