Everything about Gertrude Lawrence totally explained
Gertrude Lawrence (
July 4 1898 -
September 6,
1952) was an actress and musical comedy performer popular from the
1920s to the
1950s, appearing on stage in
London, on
Broadway and in several films. She is often remembered for performing the light comedies of
Noel Coward. She also sang risque songs by
Cole Porter and played characters that dealt with the controversial topics of race relations,
atheism and
psychoanalysis.
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.
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 never became a star in Hollywood. She filmed a short musical number there for the movie
Stage Door Canteen, which also featured
Al Jolson,
Peggy Lee and
Benny Goodman, although none of them appeared onscreen together. This wartime movie is essentially a filmed concert with dozens of cameos.
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. It was a box-office success in 1950 even though many critics hated the happy ending that differed greatly from the one Williams presented onstage. The film was very rarely shown on television before the advent of basic cable channels, by which time it was overshadowed by made-for-TV versions of the play that left Williams' ending intact, including one with
Katharine Hepburn as Amanda.
Lawrence was offered the role of Margo Channing in
All About Eve, which eventually went to
Bette Davis.
Lawrence's attorney had managed to book 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. 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.
Post-war concerns
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 a pioneering African-American limousine owner/driver named
Roosevelt Zanders.
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.
Unexpected death and funeral
In August 1952, two days after performing in
The King and I without faltering on the stage, 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 didn't visit her because the hospital staff expected her to recover.
Gertrude Lawrence's funeral was described by the
New York Times as follows. "Five thousand persons jammed the area of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street yesterday [Tuesday,Sept. 9] as 1,800 others filled the flower-banked auditorium of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church for the funeral of Gertrude Lawrence."
In the eulogy he delivered,
Oscar Hammerstein II quoted from an essay on death written by the poet and novelist
Rabindranath Tagore.
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.
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, the film became Andrews' last Hollywood musical.
The Paley Center for Media has
kinescopes and written research material reflecting that Gertrude Lawrence was one of the first stars of either Broadway or Hollywood to appear on the new medium of television. In 1938, Lawrence took a night off from performing
Susan and God to a packed Broadway audience so she could broadcast some scenes from this play inside a primitive TV studio. 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.
Lawrence is rarely seen in the electronic media today.
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. Immediately after the closing credits, the channel's host Bob Dorian summarized Lawrence's long career for cable viewers who might not have been familiar with her.
Lawrence's grandson is Benn Clatworthy, a jazz saxophonist who was born after Lawrence died. Born to Lawrence's daughter, Pamela (who had returned to her native England after her divorce from the New York doctor) and her second husband, Clatworthy performs often at jazz clubs in his home base of Los Angeles.
Filmography
Broadway
Further Information
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