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Gertrude
Lawrence (1898-1952) was born Gertrud Alexandra Dagmar
Lawrence-Klasen, and began her career as a child in the British musical
halls. Agnes De Mille once said of
her, "She couldn't sing-- but who cares?", while
Laurence Olivier was quoted as saying "She was a blazing, great
star, and we shall never see another like her." Lawrence
made her New York debut in Charlot's Revue (1924), with
Beatrice Lillie, but it was in George & Ira Gershwin's Oh, Kay! (1926)
that she introduced the world to "Someone to Watch Over Me."
In London, she appeared opposite Noël Coward in his now classic comedy Private
Lives (1930), and transferred with the show to New York in
1931 (Noël Coward: "She would simply take my breath away").
She then appeared in a little-known Cole Porter gem, Nymph Errant
(1932), singing a funny number called "The Physician."
She teamed again with Coward in the revue Tonight at 8.30
(1936), thus indelibly linking "Noël and Gertie" in the
public mind. Lawrence found her most challenging and complex role
to date as Liza Elliot in Kurt Weill's Lady in the Dark (1941). (Weill:
"She had the greatest range between C and C-sharp.") Ira
Gershwin came out of retirement (after the death of his brother, George)
to write the lyrics (legend has it that Lawrence convinced him to change
some of his wording in "My Ship"), and Moss Hart's libretto
was his ode to Sigmund Freud. On opening night, Danny Kaye stopped
the show with the tongue-twisting "Tchaikovsky," but Gertie
managed to steal it back again, belting out "The Saga of
Jenny" with several unrehearsed bumps-and-grinds. After
publishing her memoirs, A Star Danced (1945), she played Eliza
Doolittle in a revival of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion
and then Amanda in the film version of Tennessee Williams' The Glass
Menagerie (1950). The last role of her career proved as
equally complex and multi-faceted as Liza Elliot had been ten years
earlier: she was now Anna Leonowens in Rodgers & Hammerstein's The
King & I (1951), alongside bare-chested Yul Brynner.
This was possibly her greatest triumph, but unfortunately also her last,
as she died suddenly on July 6th, 1952. Her husband, R. S.
Aldrich, wrote her biography (1955), and she inspired the bio-pic Star!
(1968), an Oscar nominee that boasted Julie
Andrews as Gertie. "I'm not what you'd call wonderfully
talented, but I am light on my feet and I do make the best of
things." -- Gertrude Lawrence |
