Nellie Wallace

Nellie Wallace (18 March 1870 - 24 November 1948) was a British music hall star. She was born in Glasgow in 1870 as Eleanor Jane Wallace^[1] and first performed on the stage as a clog dancer at the age of 12.^[2] Her career lasted until her death in 1948, as she appeared in the Royal Command Performance of that year.^[2]

Her main character was as a frustrated spinster, singing ribald songs such as Under the Bed and Let's Have a Tiddley at the Milk Bar.^[2] Her grotesque appearance made her unusually successful as a pantomime dame — a role usually performed by men.^[3] She usually wore a fur stole which she described as her "little bit of vermin".^[2]

She had married actor William Henry Liddy in 1895. Wallace died in a London nursing home on 24 November 1948 aged 78 just after her only daughter who had died in March 1948.

References

1. ^ Adrian Room (2010), Dictionary of Pseudonyms, p. 500 
2. ^ ^{a b c d} "Wallace, Nellie [Eleanor]", The Cambridge Guide to Theatre, Cambridge University Press, 2000 
3. ^ Laurence Senelick, "Dames in Pantoland", The changing room: sex, drag and theatre, p. 242