Gertrude Lawrence
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Gertrude Lawrence
Born	Gertrude Alexandria Dagmar Lawrence-Klasen July 4, 1898(1898-07-04) London, England
Died	6 September 1952 (aged 54) New York City, New York, United States
Spouse(s)	Francis Gordon-Howley (1924-1927) Richard Aldrich (1940-1952)
Awards won Tony Awards Best Leading Actress in a Musical 1952 The King and I

Gertrude Lawrence (July 4, 1898 - September 6, 1952) was an English actress and musical comedy performer whose work spanned from the 1920s to the 1950s. She appeared on stage in London, on Broadway and in several films. She often performed in the light comedies of Noel Coward, of whom she had been a childhood friend.

Biography

Early life

She was born Gertrude Alexandria Dagmar Lawrence-Klasen, of English and Danish extraction, in London, England, and was a professional performer by the age of ten. She had one Jewish grandparent.^[1] She was sent to Catholic convent schools and attended the Italia Conti Academy. She understudied Beatrice Lillie in the Andre Charlot London revues in the 1920s. Along with Jack Buchanan, she introduced Furber and Braham's song "Limehouse Blues" in the 1921 revue A to Z. She achieved stardom when the revues were brought to Broadway in 1924 and 1926. In 1923, She starred in Noël Coward's first musical revue, André Charlot's London Calling!.

Career

Lawrence was one of the foremost comediennes of her day, uniquely capable of playing both slapstick clowns and elegant ladies. She could express glamour in the highest degree, without being classically beautiful or even pretty. And she had the most alluring voice, while often incapable of singing in tune.

She crossed over briefly into films, primarily in her native England.

Stage work

Lawrence's onstage persona inspired composers and writers. George and Ira Gershwin wrote the musical Oh, Kay! for her, which included her solo number "Someone to Watch Over Me." Cole Porter wrote Nymph Errant for her to star in, which opened in London in 1933. Noel Coward wrote Private Lives and Tonight at 8:30 (a cycle of nine one-act musicals and plays) for her. She starred as Liza Elliot in Moss Hart, Kurt Weill, and Ira Gershwin's psychoanalytical musical Lady in the Dark (played in the film version by Ginger Rogers).

In 1946, Lawrence saw the film version of the book Anna and the King of Siam, which she decided would make a perfect musical. She persuaded the American team of Rodgers and Hammerstein to write it for her. The result was The King and I, which introduced such songs as: "Hello Young Lovers", "Getting to Know You" and "Shall We Dance."

The King and I opened on Broadway in 1951 with Lawrence in the role of Anna Leonowens. That same year she received the "Woman of the Year" award from Harvard University's troupe, the Hasty Pudding Theatricals. In 1952, she won the Tony Award for Best Actress for her role as Anna. From the fall of 1950 to the spring of 1952 she was a professor of theater at Columbia University. Lawrence died a year-and-a-half after The King and I opened on Broadway. Her understudy, Constance Carpenter, succeeded her. While Lawrence was hospitalized at the end of her life, she requested that Yul Brynner, who played the king and had been an unknown until the show opened, have his name displayed on the marquee of the St. James Theatre, which showed only Lawrence's name at that time.^[1]

Film work

Lawrence made several films in the early sound era of British films. She appeared opposite Laurence Olivier in No Funny Business in 1933 and opposite Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in 1935's Mimi, a non-musical version of La Boheme. She appeared in Rembrandt, opposite Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester.

Lawrence filmed a short musical number for the movie Stage Door Canteen, which also featured Peggy Lee and Benny Goodman. This wartime movie is essentially a filmed concert with dozens of cameos by stars entertaining Allied soldiers on leave.

Lawrence's only other work in Hollywood was playing Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie. This first screen treatment of a Tennessee Williams play co-starred Kirk Douglas as the Gentleman Caller and Jane Wyman as Laura Wingfield. Lawrence was offered the role of Margo Channing in All About Eve, which eventually went to Bette Davis.^[2]

Personal life

Lawrence married Francis Gordon-Howley, a director in London's West End theater district, during World War I. Before their divorce in 1928, the couple had a daughter, Pamela. Pamela Gordon-Howley moved to the United States during World War II and married a doctor who practiced on New York's Upper East Side. Their marriage ended in divorce, and the doctor did not see his mother-in-law (Lawrence) again until the day she died in a hospital across the street from his office.

In 1928, Gertrude Lawrence announced her engagement to Bertrand L. Taylor Jr., a New York stockbroker, but the marriage was eventually called off. Lawrence then married Richard Aldrich, an American theater owner and producer from a blueblood family in Massachusetts, on July 4, 1940. They remained married until her death. A Harvard graduate, Aldrich owned several legitimate theaters, including the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts.

In between her marriages, Lawrence allegedly had an affair with film star Douglas Fairbanks Jr. with whom she worked. She allegedly had lesbian affairs, including possible ones with the British novelist Dame Daphne du Maurier, and with Beatrice Lillie. Du Maurier's passionate letters about Lawrence were published in a 1993 biography of the novelist.

World War II

Richard Aldrich became a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy during World War II, during which time his wife became one of the more active entertainers at the New York club portrayed in the Hollywood film Stage Door Canteen. In the spring of 1944, Lawrence, at home in Dennis, Massachusetts near the Cape Playhouse owned by Aldrich, had a standing invitation from the head of her native Britain's Entertainments National Service Association to perform for British troops. Her obstacle was getting to England. As Lawrence wrote in her 1945 memoir, "After weeks of more or less patient waiting, repeated timid, pleading, urgent, and finally importunate requests to the authorities who rule such matters in Washington and London, and a rapid-fire barrage of telegrams, cables, and telephone calls, it had happened. At last I had permission to do what I had been wanting desperately to do for four years — go to England and do my bit on a tour for E.N.S.A."^[3]

Lawrence's attorney booked the actress on a British Airways flight from Washington, DC to London that lasted 36 hours, including two refueling stops. When Lawrence boarded the plane she discovered that she and Ernest Hemingway were two of the few passengers without diplomatic passports. (Another was Beatrice Lillie).^[4] Hours after landing near London, she performed with E.N.S.A. for British and American troops who, it turned out, had been deployed for the imminent D-Day invasion at Normandy. Lawrence's husband Richard Aldrich was among them. As Allied forces scored more victories in the South Pacific later that year, Lawrence endured long plane rides and dangerous conditions to perform for troops there.^[2]

Post-war

After World War II ended, Lawrence and Aldrich returned to their homes in Dennis, Massachusetts and New York. Lawrence became the first notable client of pioneering African-American limousine owner/driver Roosevelt Zanders.^[5]

In early 1946, Lawrence toured with Pygmalion (play), playing in Washington, DC. Bringing her African-American personal assistant with her, Lawrence argued with the managers of several DC hotels who refused to let the two women check in.^[2]

Death and funeral

In August 1952, two days after performing in The King and I, Lawrence was admitted to New York Hospital, today known as Weill Medical Center, with a diagnosis of liver cancer. Her former son-in-law was a physician with an office across the street from the hospital. Having lost contact with her years earlier, he did not visit her because the hospital staff expected her to recover.^[1] After three weeks in a private room, however, Lawrence unexpectedly slipped into a coma before she could be transferred to intensive care. Her former son-in-law and other doctors and nurses "managed to get [Lawrence] out of shock,"^[1] as he recalled many years later. She opened her eyes, seemed puzzled by her former son-in-law's presence and then she died. The medical staff was surprised when they conducted an autopsy and discovered that Lawrence's cancer had spread far beyond the liver.^[1] She had been able to dance around her hospital room one week earlier until her husband had lifted her up and returned her to bed.^[2]

Gertrude Lawrence's funeral was described by the New York Times: "Five thousand persons jammed the area of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street yesterday [Tuesday, September 9] as 1,800 others filled the flower-banked auditorium of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church for the funeral of Gertrude Lawrence."^[6]

In the eulogy he delivered, Oscar Hammerstein II quoted from an essay on death written by the poet and novelist Rabindranath Tagore.^[6] The 1,800 mourners inside the church included Yul Brynner, her co-star in The King And I, many child actors who played the Siamese king's children, John Davis Lodge, governor of Connecticut, Marlene Dietrich, Tom Ewell, Phil Silvers, Luise Rainer, Moss Hart and his wife Kitty Carlisle.^[6] Lawrence was buried in the champagne-colored gown worn during the "Shall We Dance?" number from the second act of The King and I, in the Aldrich family plot in Lakeview Cemetery in Upton, Massachusetts.

Legacy

In early 1953, Lawrence's name was on a list of Columbia University professors who had died the previous year and were honored with a memorial service and flags on the campus lowered to half-staff. Another professor on the list was John Dewey, the philosopher and educational reformer.^[7]

In the musical biopic 1968 film, Star!, loosely based on her life, Lawrence was portrayed by Julie Andrews. Richard Crenna played the part of Richard Aldrich, who worked as a consultant on the movie. A failure at the box office and with critics.

In 1938, Lawrence took a night off from performing Susan and God to a packed Broadway audience to perform scenes for the emerging television audience. When TV broadcasting resumed after World War II and spread with the networks, Lawrence made some live appearances in 1950 and 1951, including an The Ed Sullivan Show segment in which she and Rodgers and Hammerstein performed selections from The King and I. Turner Classic Movies and other basic cable channels have revived her British-made film Rembrandt. In 1992, American Movie Classics revived The Glass Menagerie, the only Hollywood film in which she starred.

Work

Filmography

References

External links

• Gertrude Lawrence at the Internet Broadway Database
• Gertrude Lawrence at the Internet Movie Database