Bea(trice) Lillie
(1894 - 1989)
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actress, singer
- born Constance Sylvia Munston, May 29, 1894, in Toronto, Ontario
- died January 1989
- popular comedienne of British and American revues and light plays
- daughter of a Canadian government official
- left school at age15 to go on stage, forming a singing trio with her mother and sister
- made her London debut in a 1914 revue
- Broadway debut in the hit Charlot's Revue of 1924
- soon became the "toast of two continents"
- intimate friend of such personalities as Noel Coward, Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw, and Charlie Chaplin
- married (and became the widow of) Britain's Lord Peel
- despite her great popularity on stage and on radio, she made only a handful of film appearances, mainly in vehicles that failed to capitalize on her talent
- autobiography: Every Other Inch a Lady (1972)
- biography: Beatrice Lillie : the funniest woman in the world (1990) by Bruce Laffey
- filmography
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