Nellie Wallace (18 March 1870 – 24 November 1948) was a British music hall star, actress, comedienne, dancer and songwriter who became one of the most famous and best loved music hall performers. She became known as "The Essence of Eccentricity". She dressed in ultra-tight skirts — so tight in fact, that she would lie down on the stage and shuffle back and forth on her back to pick up whatever she had contrived to drop. Her hat sported a lone daisy, feather, or fish bone, and once even a lit candle — supposedly, so she could see where she was going and where she had been.

Biography

Wallace was born in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

in 1870 as Eleanor Jane Wallis Tayler. Her father, Francis George Tayler, was a vocalist and musician and her mother a retired actress who became a teacher and governess. Her first solo performance on the stage was as a

clog dancer Clogging is a type of folk dance practiced in the United States, in which the dancer's footwear is used percussively by striking the heel, the toe, or both against a floor or each other to create audible rhythms, usually to the downbeat with the ...

at the age of 12 in Birmingham. Prior to this, she had performed with her sisters Emma and Fanny, also singers and dancers. She had a rapid rise to fame and became much loved by her audiences. Not a naturally pretty woman, a reviewer noted her 'grotesque get-up', which started the audience laughing the moment she appeared on stage; her cleverness, vivacity and facial expressions were second to none. Wallace's London debut came in 1903, and by 1910 she was given billing at the

London Palladium The London Palladium () is a Grade II* West End theatre located on Argyll Street, London, in the famous area of Soho. The theatre holds 2,286 seats. Of the roster of stars who have played there, many have televised performances. Between 1955 a ...

. In 1930 she played the part of

Widow Twankey Widow Twankey (originally Twankay, sometimes Twanky) is a female character in the pantomime '' Aladdin''. She is a pantomime dame, played by an older man. History The story of Aladdin is drawn from the '' Arabian Nights'', a collection of Midd ...

at the

Dominion Theatre The Dominion Theatre is a West End theatre and former cinema on Tottenham Court Road, close to St Giles Circus and Centre Point, in the London Borough of Camden. Planned as primarily a musical theatre, it opened in 1929, but the following year ...

a rare exception to a comic role normally played by men. Her career lasted until her death in 1948; she appeared in the

Royal Command Performance A Royal Command Performance is any performance by actors or musicians that occurs at the direction or request of a reigning monarch of the United Kingdom. Although English monarchs have long sponsored their own theatrical companies and commis ...

of that year. Her main character was a frustrated

spinster ''Spinster'' is a term referring to an unmarried woman who is older than what is perceived as the prime age range during which women usually marry. It can also indicate that a woman is considered unlikely to ever marry. The term originally den ...

, singing ribald songs such as "Under the Bed," "Let's Have a Tiddley at the Milk Bar" and "Mother's Pie Crust." Other well-known songs in her repertoire included: "Meet Me," "The Sniff Song," "Three Cheers for the Red White & Blue," "Half Past Nine," "Geranium," "Tally Ho!," "The Blasted Oak," "Three Times a Day" and "Bang! Bang! Bang!" Her appearance made her unusually successful as a

pantomime dame A pantomime dame is a traditional role in British pantomime. It is part of the theatrical tradition of '' travesti'' portrayal of female characters by male actors in drag. Dame characters are often played either in an extremely camp style, or els ...

— a role usually performed by men. She usually wore a fur stole, which she described as her "little bit of vermin". Wallace appeared in a "short", filmed in 1902, entitled: ''A Lady's First lesson On A Bicycle''. She later moved into bigger budget productions and appeared in ''The Golden Pippin Girl'' (1920); ''The Wishbone'' (1933); ''Radio Parade of 1935'' (1934), alongside fellow music hall performer

Lily Morris Lily Morris (born Lilles Mary Crosby; 30 September 1882 – 3 October 1952)Richard Anthony Baker, ''British Music Hall: an illustrated history'', Pen & Sword, 2014, , pp.252-253 was an English music hall performer, who specialised in singing comed ...

and established actor

Will Hay William Thomson Hay (6 December 1888 – 18 April 1949) was an English comedian who wrote and acted in a schoolmaster sketch that later transferred to the screen, where he also played other authority figures with comic failings. His film ''Oh ...

; ''Variety'' (1935) and ''Boys Will Be Girls'' (1936). Nellie Wallace died in a London nursing home on 24 November 1948, aged 78, after a serious bout of bronchitis. The

Wallis WA-116 Agile The Wallis WA-116 Agile is a British autogyro developed in the early 1960s by former Royal Air Force Wing Commander Ken Wallis. The aircraft was produced in a number of variants, one of which, nicknamed ''Little Nellie'', was flown in the 1967 Ja ...

autogyro An autogyro (from Greek and , "self-turning"), also known as a ''gyroplane'', is a type of rotorcraft that uses an unpowered rotor in free autorotation to develop lift. Forward thrust is provided independently, by an engine-driven propeller. Whi ...

featured in the James Bond film ''You Only Live Twice'' " Little Nellie" was named after her,, and "

Wet Nellie Wet Nellie is a custom-built submarine, created for the 1977 ''James Bond'' film '' The Spy Who Loved Me'' in the shape of a Lotus Esprit S1 sports car. The Esprit was chosen to give James Bond a glamorous car to drive. "Wet Nellie" is named in ...

", the submarine

Lotus Esprit The Lotus Esprit is a British sports car that was built by Lotus Cars at their Hethel factory in England between 1976 and 2004. It was among the first of designer Giorgetto Giugiaro's polygonal "folded paper" designs. Background In 1970 Tony ...

from the James Bond film ''The Spy Who Loved Me'' was in turn named after the autogyro.The Telegraph (London)
"Inside James Bond's Lotus supersub"
Leo Wilkinson, 12 August 2013 (accessed 2013-11-13)

Biography

References

Further reading