Sybil Grey

Grey was born in London’s Conduit Street West, the second daughter of Henry Taylor, a linen draper, and his Exeter-born wife Susannah.

After Patience moved to the new Savoy Theatre in November 1881, Grey also played the non-singing role of Jane in the curtain raiser Mock Turtles by Frank Desprez and Eaton Faning.

[2] Grey created the role of Peep-Bo, one of the three Little Maids, in the original production of The Mikado, with Jessie Bond (Pitti-Sing) and Leonora Braham (Yum-Yum), for the show's entire run from 1885 to 1887.

[2] In an 1885 interview with the New York Daily Tribune, author W. S. Gilbert stated that the short stature of Braham, Bond and Grey "suggested the advisability of grouping them as three Japanese school-girls" referred to in the opera as the 'three little maids'".

After a short tour with May Holt's company,[1] from December 1887, Grey had roles in two musical burlesques by composer Meyer Lutz at the Gaiety Theatre in London, then managed by George Edwardes.

The first was Lady Amanthis in Broken Hearts at a charity matinée at the Savoy, in a cast that included Julia Neilson, Richard Temple and Lewis Waller.

[2] She began with Drury Lane pantomimes, including playing one of the Merry Men in Babes in the Wood in 1888 with Harry Payne, Dan Leno as the Dame, and Harriet Vernon as Robin Hood.

[1] The following year, she starred as Sally in Crazed and appeared in Faithful James (by B. C. Stephenson), with Ellaline Terriss and Brandon Thomas, both at the Court Theatre.

[1] In 1898, she appeared as the scheming servant-girl Durnford in The Dove-Cot (an adaptation of Jalouse) at the Duke of York's Theatre, together with Leonora Braham and starring Seymour Hicks.