A GAIETY GIRL

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 February 1937, Page 4

A GAIETY GIRL

HER TRAGIC DEATH. With misfortune dogging her footsteps in old age, a former George Edwardes Gaiety Girl, whose beauty < made her the toast in London society t during her heyday, has died in tragic j circumstances, says the “Daily Ex- < press.” ' * She mysteriously disappeared from , a house in Battersea, and on the fourth 1 day of a search her body was dis-41 covered in the stone area. She is be- i lieved to have fallen accidentally from the top of some steps and broken her < neck. To her neighbours the woman, who ; brought laughter to the lives of many, i was known aS Mrs Frances Wallis, i but her real name was Mrs Frances Stacey, believed to be 65 years of age. When she played the lead in shows presented by Mr Oscdr Barrett her stage name was Miss Maud Guest. She figured in musical comedy with George Robey, and as a child was painted by Maria Brooks. The picture, which was hung in the Royal Academy, is entitled “I Wonder If It Is True.” Mrs Stacey was first missed when she failed to keep an appointment with the occupiers of the flat above her, who had arranged that she should listen-in at their apartment. It was the tenant of this flat, a Mr Senior, who subsequently found her body. She had apparently missed her step when trying to open the door at night, and fallen 12ft into the area. One of the first persons to visit Mrs Stacey’s flat after the tragedy was a well-dressed and cultured-voiced woman of about thirty-eight. Speaking with emotion, this woman, who refused to reveal her name, said, “I have lost the greatest friend I ever had.” FRIEND OF HENRY IRVING. . “Mrs Stacey,” the woman added, “was a well-known dancer, and was one of the first Gaiety girls employed by the famous • theatrical producer, George Edwardes. Among her friends she counted the late Sir Henry Irving, and it is only fifteen years since she retired from the stage.” The daughter, who did not disclose her married name, told the story of her mother’s last days. “In films and on the stage I am Bettina Campbell,” the daughter declared, “bu,t my private life is my own. My, 1 mother was a beautiful woman. She J was well known as a Gaiety Girl and as an actress in comic opera. She had many admirers and was one of the outstanding beauties of her day. My mother amassed quite a fortune : and she was careful with it. I marI ried well and went abroad. I was devoted to her, but when she grew older | she got very depressed and got diffl- ? cult to live with. I tried to keep her i in the position which she had always | known, and for several years she = used to go with me to the south of = France. She saved enough for a | small weekly allowance which she I eked ou,t by acting as a housekeeper [ to an old friend. | “My mother was very proud, and, | rather than meet old friends, who had | known her in the gay champagne | days, she moved to Battersea, and as- = sumed the name of Wallis. She said f to me: T do not want anyone to know = me now. I do not wish people to' | know that I have reached hard = times.’ ” | The daughtei 1 added that when she = learned her mother had been ill she = went and stayed with her, and waited f up all night for her return when she = first disappeared. | The last act in Mrs Stacey’s little | home was the removal of faded photo- = graphs, relics of the Gaiety days, from f the walls.