Connie Ediss

Connie Ediss (born Ada Harriet Whitley; 11 August 1870 – 18 April 1934) Gänzl, Kurt
"The real Connie Ediss, or 'She was a Milliner's Daughter'"
Kurt of Gerolstein, 6 November 2020 was an English actress and singer best known as a buxom, good-humoured comedian in many of the popular Edwardian musical comedies around the turn of the 20th century.

After beginning her career in provincial theatres in Britain in music hall and pantomime in the 1880s, Ediss was engaged to play in a series of extraordinarily successful musical comedies at the Gaiety Theatre, London, beginning in 1896, and also played in several musicals on Broadway. During World War I, she began a long tour in Australia, returning to London in 1919 to play in farces and comedies. She made a few films in the 1930s.

Early life and career

Born in Brighton in 1870 as Ada Harriet Whitley, Ediss was the youngest of four daughters of milliner Jane Whitley ''née'' McClean (born 1844) and John Whitley (1837–1909), a Brighton tailor. Shortly after Ediss's birth Jane Whitley left her husband to live with Charles Coates (1850–1910), a house painter, and took her youngest daughter with her. Ediss then assumed the name Ada Harriet Coates; her parents never divorced, and so her mother never married Coates. It is possible that Charles Coates was her biological father; in the 1881 Census she is listed as the daughter of Coates, but in that for 1891 she is shown as his stepdaughter. She was later to claim that her mother and her aunt had both been members of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company,"A Talented Actress"
''The Advertiser'', Adelaide, Australia, 20 April 1918, accessed 29 May 2012 but as Richard D'Oyly Carte did not produce opera until well after Ediss and her sisters were born, that claim is doubtful. She began her career in provincial theatres at the age of 12,"Connie Ediss Dead"
''The Courier-Mail'', Brisbane, Queensland, 20 April 1934, p. 17 originally using the stage name "Connie Coutts".Parker, p. 289 She made her first appearance on a London stage in 1893 singing and dancing in variety shows at Albert Chevalier's Trocadero music hall.''Weekly Dispatch'', London, 20 January 1907, p. 6f She also played in pantomime as a principal boy.

In 1895 she married Asher Marks (1867–1936). She received a lucky break in 1895 when she was asked to fill in for an ailing Nellie Farren at the Gaiety Theatre, London. George Edwardes signed Ediss to a three-year contract. ''The Times'' later commented, "Edwardes had an uncanny flair for personalities, and in his new recruit he found a personality indeed, an actress with a 'Gaiety sense', a comedian of a rare type, and a wholesome 'comfortable-looking' – his own words – foil to the orchidaceous showgirls of the Gaiety.""Miss Connie Ediss", ''The Times'', 20 April 1934, p. 9 Edwardes sent her to New York, where she appeared in the Broadway production of ''The Shop Girl'' as Ada Smith.Green
p. 378
/ref> The next year, she returned to England to appear in Edwardian musical comedies at the Gaiety Theatre, beginning with ''My Girl'' and ''The Circus Girl

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