Patricia Kirkwood (24 February 1921 – 25 December 2007) was a British stage actress, singer and dancer who appeared in numerous performances of dramas, cabaret, revues, music hall, variety and pantomimes.
[4] At the age of 14, she entered a talent contest at Ramsey, Isle of Man and was asked to sing on the BBC's Children's Hour.
[4] Throughout 1936, Kirkwood appeared in local variety shows including the pantomime, Jack and the Beanstalk, in which she played Princess Dorothy.
During 1938–39, Kirkwood appeared in two films, Save a Little Sunshine and Me and My Pal along with the Scottish comedian Dave Willis where she sang 2 musical numbers.
Just as the war started, Kirkwood, aged 18, played in Black Velvet at the London Hippodrome where she became famous for her rendition of Cole Porter's song "My Heart Belongs to Daddy".
Towards the end of the war in 1944, Kirkwood received competing 7-year contract offers from both Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and 20th Century Fox, allegedly for £250,000.
[2] She accepted the MGM contract but had to wait till the war was over to travel to America to start work on a feature film.
[4] She had some recording success with "Make Mine Allegro"[3] during this period and continued to act in West End theatres in pantomimes and venues such as Little Miss Muffet (1949)[2] and Austin Melford's Roundabout (1949).
It was Noël Coward's casting of her as Pinkie Leroy in Ace of Clubs (Cambridge Theatre, 1950), written specifically for her, that put her back in the spotlight.
[7] In 1954, Kirkwood travelled back to the US for a three-month tour in Las Vegas performing cabaret at the Desert Inn.
[4][2] After Robin Hood, Pat Kirkwood retired temporarily with her third husband, Hubert Gregg, and moved to Portugal.
[4] During a performance at the Hippodrome, London in 1948, after her return to Britain, the Duke of Edinburgh was introduced to Kirkwood in her dressing room.
[1] Peter Knight, later married to Kirkwood, recalled in a private memoir: "At the amazing spectacle of the royal consort escorting the leading musical star of the epoch, and in the palpable hush that had descended upon the restaurant, the rumour mills began to grind".
[8] Rumour had it that there was an invitation to go to the 'Sweethearts' and Wives' Ball' with the Prince at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, as well as talk of her receiving a Rolls-Royce.
In 1994, she and Knight met Prince Philip's aide, Brian McGrath, and asked to send a message to the Queen that she was upset about the continuing rumours, and stating that they were untrue.
I would have had a happier and easier life if Prince Philip, instead of coming uninvited to my dressing room, had gone home to his pregnant wife on the night in question.
"[10] From 1970 to 1973, Kirkwood came out of her declared retirement to Portugal to perform again in a number of venues and tours including taking the part of Judith Bliss in Noël Coward's Hay Fever (1970), Lady Frederick (1971), Babes in the Woods (1971 - pantomime), A Chorus Murder (1972), Move Over Mrs. Markham (in the title role, 1973).
During this time she separated from Gregg in 1979 and remarried in 1981 to retired lawyer Peter Knight, her last husband, who was president of the Bradford & Bingley building society.