VAUDEVILLE STAR WHO WHIPPED A GENERAL

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6944, 25 June 1929, Page 4

VAUDEVILLE STAR WHO WHIPPED A GENERAL

Not many theatre and music-hall folk can remember May Belfort, the forme* London stage star, whose death in conditions of extreme poverty in California was announced recently. She'was described in a Beuter telegram from Santa Barbara as “the darling of the London music halls in the ’nineties.” But Mr. Billy Merson and a brother of tho Egbert Brothers—the famous “Happy Dustmen”—wero unable to recall even her name, says the ‘Evening News.’ Neither could Mr. George Foster, ono of tho most important theatrical agents, who might be called tj, veteran in his business and is a mine of information about the shows and players of years ago. - , . Mr. George Eobey, however, remembered Miss Belfort, as an excellent serio-comic of the London halls in tho ’nineties and tho early years of the present century. Mr. Chance Newton, tho author of several books about tho- theatres and tho halls, 3aid Miss Belfort was a very clever artist. “In appoarance she reminded me of Bessie Belwood,” he said. “She figured in a sensational incident when she publicly horse-whipped a Boor War general.” It is clear that the dead woman had In her timo tasted the sweets of fame. Sho had earned the plaudits of audiences in London, Johannesburg, St. Petersburg, Paris, New York, and other l cities. - ; When she died in Santa Barbara she was nearly penniless. Through unwise investments in mining shares sho had , lost the comfortable fortune which she had amassed, and towards the end, she has been earning her living as a rug weaver. Miss Belfort’s style was perhaps more of tho piquant French ciinnteuso than the ordinary scrio-comi? of .the halls. While sho was acting in South Africa after the end of tho South Africancan War she becamo engaged fo a highly-placed officer of tho Boer, forces.