Elisabeth Welch and Paul Robeson in the film Big Fella (1937). The Elisabeth Welch Collection (Courtesy of Stephen Bourne)

Singer and actress Elisabeth Welch lived for most of her long life in London. Historian Stephen Bourne, who was a friend of the star talks about her life, and the work to raise funds to conserve some of her memorabilia.

See a small display of Elisabeth Welch memorabilia at the Theatre Museum from 9th October.

See the bottom of this page for events and collections relating to Elisabeth Welch in London.

Arthur Ferrier caricature of Elisabeth Welch (1933) Courtesy of Stephen Bourne

Elisabeth

For six decades Elisabeth Welch was one of the most popular singers working in Britain and a permanent fixture on London’s West End musical stage. Elisabeth was also a trailblazer for black women in pre-Windrush Britain in the 1930s and 1940s. At that time, she was the most famous black woman in Britain and a sophisticated, stylish interpreter of popular songs. The British public were drawn to her beauty and elegance, and her soft, lovely voice. Elisabeth regarded herself as American by birth, but English in thought and interest. London was her home for seventy years.

Elisabeth Welch biography. Courtesy of Stephen Bourne.

Beginnings

Elisabeth was born in New York City in 1904 of mixed ancestry. Her father was part African American and part American Indian (of the Lenape tribe in Wilmington, Delaware). Her mother was born in Leith, Edinburgh of Scottish and Irish ancestry. Elisabeth and her family lived in a racially mixed neighbourhood. She said: 'I never had any feeling about being different from anybody else. It equipped me to be an international person all my life.'

Elisabeth started singing in the church choir at the age of eight and became known as 'the loud alto' because of her strong voice. As a choir member, Welch found herself drawn into musical theatre and in 1923 the 'loud alto' was pulled out of the choir to introduce the song 'Charleston' in the show Runnin’ Wild, thus launching the famous dance craze.

Courtesy of Stephen Bourne

Career

In 1929 Elisabeth travelled with the cast of the hit Broadway revue Blackbirds to Paris where they became a sensation at the Moulin Rouge. On her return to Paris in 1931 to launch her cabaret career, Elisabeth met the famous composer and lyricist Cole Porter who cast her in Nymph Errant, the musical extravaganza that brought her to London in 1933.

After making London her home, further career highlights of the 1930s included appearances at the London Palladium and at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (in Ivor Novello’s musical Glamorous Night), as well as many cabaret shows, including a successful run at the Café de Paris, a popular London nightspot. She broadcast from the BBC’s London studio, Broadcasting House, in her own radio series, Soft Lights and Sweet Music. In 1936 she began making television appearances when the BBC started transmitting programmes from their famous Alexandra Palace studios in north London.

Also in 1936 she co-starred with the London-based African American actor and singer Paul Robeson in the film Song of Freedom. Elisabeth’s love affair with the newspaper editor David Astor ended during the war when his formidable mother, Lady Nancy Astor, the Tory politician, expressed strong disapproval with her son’s inter-racial affair.

Elisabeth Welch in Nymph Errant. Courtesy of City of Westminster Archives.

During the war, Elisabeth stayed in London and continued her career. In addition to stage, film and radio work, she entertained the troops at Army and Royal Air Force camps all over the country.

After the war, Elisabeth reigned supreme in London’s West End in revues and musicals and in 1970 she began a long succession of one-woman shows with A Marvellous Party at the Hampstead Theatre Club. In 1985 Elisabeth won rave reviews for her performance in the revue Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood, an intimate celebration of the composer Jerome Kern, at the Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden. In 1987 a documentary film, Keeping Love Alive captured her live performance at London’s Almeida Theatre at the age of 83.

The crowning achievement of her long and illustrious career was the 1992 all-star tribute concert, A Time to Start Living: A Celebration of the Great Elisabeth Welch, a World Aids Day Gala at the Lyric Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue. This gala featured the cream of British show business. They joined the audience to give her an unprecedented (as far as anyone there could remember) five standing ovations.

Elisabeth Welch and Esther Bruce in the 1940s. The Elisabeth Welch Collection (Courtesy of Stephen Bourne)

Making dresses for Elisabeth

I first heard about Elisabeth from my mother when I was a child in the 1960s. She was singing on the radio and my mother explained that my Aunt Esther had made dresses for her. Aunt Esther, a black Londoner, born just before the First World War, worked as a seamstress for sixty years, from the age of fourteen until she retired at the age of seventy-four. In 1935 she went to work for Miss Mary Taylor in Markham Square, off King’s Road in Chelsea.

While Cole Porter and Ivor Novello wrote songs for Elisabeth, Aunt Esther made her dresses and delivered them, in person, to her home, a flat in Cottage Walk, off Sloane Street. Though both of them were Londoners, the worlds the two women inhabited couldn’t have been further apart. Unlike many of her black contemporaries, including my aunt, Elisabeth was largely protected from racism in the world of musical theatre.

Aunt Esther lived in a tight-knit, working-class community in Fulham, sharing a room with my great grandmother in cramped conditions in a house without electricity, and a lavatory in the back yard. Elisabeth’s mews flat in an exclusive part of London included art deco furniture, a baby grand piano that held a delightful ‘Abdullah’ doll, given to her by Gertrude Lawrence when they opened together in Nymph Errant, and a bust of Elisabeth’s friend Noel Coward by the artist and stage designer Gladys Calthrop.

Aunt Esther adored her: 'She was elegant and a very classy lady. She was a lovely person and always treated me with kindness.'

During the Second World War, Aunt Esther had to leave Miss Taylor and undertake war work. Though she never saw Elisabeth again, Aunt Esther was proud of her association with the famous singer, and followed her career with interest.

Elisabeth Welch in 1979, singing Stormy Weather at the end of Derek Jarman's The Tempest. Courtesy of the British Film Institute.

Befriending Elisabeth

I met Elisabeth for the first time in May 1982. The occasion was the closing night of her triumphant series of one-woman shows at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith. After the concert I visited her crowded dressing-room and introduced myself. When she took my hand, she exclaimed, 'Cold hand, warm heart - I bet you’re a Scorpio!' She was right. Some months later she invited me to her home and we became firm friends.

We spent about an hour chatting about her career and some of the famous people she had encountered. Elisabeth was full of joy and happiness and possessed a loud, impressive laugh. When I told her that we had a family connection, Elisabeth looked puzzled, but I explained that it was through my Aunt Esther, who had made dresses for her before the war. To help jog her memory, I showed her a photograph of my aunt, taken during the war, and Elisabeth exclaimed, 'Yes, I remember her, the friendly coloured lady with the cockney accent!'

Renaissance

In the mid-1980s a renaissance in Elisabeth’s long career was well under way. Though we kept in touch by phone and letters, Elisabeth’s full diary sometimes prevented her from meeting up. However, in December 1994, I presented a retrospective of her film and television career at the National Film Theatre and Elisabeth happily agreed to participate by taking to the stage for an interview with her friend David Robinson. It was one of her last public appearances. Elisabeth passed away on July 15, 2003 at Denville Hall, Northwood, aged 99.

The Elisabeth Welch Collection

For many years I have been collecting memorabilia relating to the career of the Elisabeth Welch. Her executor ensured I was given her scrapbooks, diaries, passports, private papers and about 300 letters. A real treasure trove!

Adding these items to my own collection I wrote a biography, Elisabeth Welch: Soft Lights and Sweet Music. Regrettably, when the collection came into my possession, the scrapbooks were in a very poor condition. Unable to raise funds from the Heritage Lottery Fund to pay for conversation work, I tried other sources without success. Finally, in an effort to save them, I donated the scrapbooks to the Theatre Museum. We are hoping to raise funds to pay towards the cost of the conservation work.

Editor's Note: As of late September 2006, it seems very likely that the Theatre Museum will close in January 2007. If this happens, their holdings will continue to be preserved by the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Find out more about Elisabeth Welch in London

Items from the Elisabeth Welch Collection will be displayed at the Theatre Museum from mid-October to the end of December. Admission Free. For further information contact 020 7943 4700 or email tmenquiries@vam.ac.uk

On Sunday October 22 2006, Elisabeth Welch will be featured in Stephen Bourne’s talk We Also Served – Black Women in Wartime Britain 1939-45 at the Imperial War Museum Admission free. For further information contact 020 7416 5446 or email lr-edu@iwm.org.uk

Further memorabilia relating to Elisabeth Welch’s performances in London can be found at the City of Westminster Archives and has been catalogued in their manual “Sources for Black and Asian History”.

Elisabeth Welch: Soft Lights and Sweet Music by Stephen Bourne (Scarecrow Press, £15.99)