Remembering heart-throbs of stage and screen

By Nicola Benge

Remembering the film stars

Photo from WRVS Heritage Plus archive

Participants of the WRVS Crawley music hall reminiscence activities remember their dream partners:

Ivy: George Raft or Charles Bigfork. He was a rough diamond. I liked the rough diamonds, rough and ready, not with their hair slicked back.

Rosina: James Stewart. He was very handsome when young. Very quiet, placid, gentle, a nice man.

Margaret: James Mason, he was very smooth. Only like Frank Sinatra when he was young. James Mason was very sophisticated. [But he played the villains?!]. I liked the villains!

Les: Margaret Lockwood.  She used to act with James Mason. She was in the 'Wicked Lady' and the 'Lady in Black'. She had black hair, longish hair. She wasn't very tall. English.

Joyce: When I had my group on the 1960s, in Manchester, I liked Maurice Chevalier. I met him. I did a show with 200 people, a policeman's ball. He was doing an act, in his red cape. He said "come here luvvie'. I was doing doing Doris Day and Shirley Bassey, I carried on when all the lights went out and they were doing music chairs (the policemen). I carried on singing through the blackout. Afterwards, Maurice Chevalier gave me a big kiss!

George: Jeanette McDonald. She was the background to romance with me. Me and my girlfriend, we used to go out into the woods and think we were those people (film stars).  She was with Nelson Eddy and I was with Jeanette Macdonald and we used to sing to each other: "Sweetheart, sweetheart..." We fancied ourselves!

Rosaina: We used to listen to the radio, Variety bandbox, Ted and Barbara Andrews... I always remember when they introduced their daughter Julie and then her career took off. They were a singing duet.