Beatrice Lillie

She made her West End debut in 1914 and soon gained notice in revues and light comedies, becoming known for her parodies of old-fashioned, flowery performing styles and absurd songs and sketches.

She was associated with revues staged by André Charlot and works of Noël Coward and Cole Porter, and frequently was paired with Gertrude Lawrence, Bert Lahr and Jack Haley.

[1][2] She had an elder sister, Muriel (1893–1973), at one time an aspiring concert pianist who later played the piano at silent movie houses, married firstly to the Egyptologist, stage designer and writer Arthur Weigall, and secondly to Sir Brian Dean Paul, 6th Baronet of Rodborough.

These won her lavish praise from The New York Times after her 1924 Broadway début in André Charlot's Revue of 1924, starring Gertrude Lawrence.

[7] In some of her best known bits, she solemnly parodied the flowery performing style of earlier decades, mining such songs as "There Are Fairies at the Bottom of Our Garden" and "Mother Told Me So" for every double entendre.

[9] After a 1927 tour on the Orpheum Circuit, Lillie returned to Broadway in Vaudeville at the Palace Theatre in 1928 and performed there frequently after that.

[9] From the late 1920s until the approach of World War II, Lillie repeatedly crossed the Atlantic to perform on both continents.

[9] After seeing An Evening with Beatrice Lillie, critic Ronald Barker wrote "Other generations may have their Mistinguett and their Marie Lloyd.

"[citation needed] Sheridan Morley noted in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography that "Lillie's great talents were the arched eyebrow, the curled lip, the fluttering eyelid, the tilted chin, the ability to suggest, even in apparently innocent material, the possible double entendre".

Their only child, Sir Robert Peel, 6th Baronet (1920–1942),[14] was killed in action aboard HMS Tenedos in Colombo Harbour, Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka), in 1942.

As Lillie's mental abilities declined at the end of her career, she relied more and more on Huck, whose intentions and loyalty to her were viewed with suspicion by her friends.

Huck died of a heart attack the next day, and the two were buried in the churchyard of St Margaret's in Harpsden, Oxfordshire, near Henley-on-Thames.

A scene from Oh Boy! , showing Tom Powers (as George Budd) with Lillie (as Jackie Sampson), London, 1919
Lillie in "She's My Baby", 1927
Signed drawings of Lillie by Manuel Rosenberg , 1925