"OLD KATE” DIES

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 August 1936, Page 5

"OLD KATE” DIES

FORMERLY STAGE STAR.

LONDON, July 11.

“Old Kate,” a match seller in Aldwych, or Kate Lucille Foote, as she was once known, died this week in a London County Council institution. She was familiar to thousands who every day passed her pitch, just where the buses halt at the corner of Aldwych and the Strand. She sat there in sunshine or rain, swathed in clothes, with a red flannel scarf about her neck, her face towards the Gaiety Theatre, the successor of the theatre where once lights had flashed her name. For “Old Kate.” had been an actress, had travelled extensively, entertained lavishly, and been well-known in Continental Casinos.

During the 11 years she occupied her pitch, she made many friends, and through them the gossip of the theatre still filtered through to her. Kate wan the daughter of an American colonel. She first went on the stage when she was 20, and from parts in an American three-shows-a-day circuit was soon playing leading roles in well-known theatres. She was with George Edwardes in London, at the Gaiety Theatre, for three or four years. Kate was married three times and each of her husbands left her a fortune. Her first husband was reputed to be an Australian merchant. Her last left her £25,000. Some time afterwards she went to Monte Carlo casino with a party of friends, won thousands of pounds, lost them again, and returned to London with little money but the bare fare. She sought work in vain, and, at last, grey-haired, she became one of London’s match-sellers. “I have been a fool,” was how she summed up her life. Early this year Kate was ill, but twice she returned to the pitch. The matron of Cecil House, Waterloo-road, where Kate lived, states that she was about 70 years of age. and had been ill for some time. She kept her dignity to the last. From time to time, one of her regular customers, knowing that her health was breaking down, would send her home in a taxi, and if any special gift came their way at the Cecil House they would set it aside for Kate. Old Kate left about £2 and 58 boxes of matches, with instructions that on her death they should be sent to a friend of hers, who had often helped her with a shilling or two. Other pathetic relics included her snuff box, but there was nothing in her , possessions relating to her earlier days. One account of her death states that she destroyed all the relics of her past when she was taken away to the insti- . tution.