1 Eleanor Jane Wallis Tayler – better known as Nellie Wallace – was one of the foremost and funniest entertainers of her era.
The few video clips that still exist of her are hilarious, and would give many current-day comedians a run for their money. She was an actor, comedian, dancer and songwriter, who got her first solo performing break as a clog dancer at the age of 12.
2 Born in Glasgow in 1870, the daughter of a musician and a retired actress who became a governess, Nellie became one of British music hall’s biggest stars. Her facial expressions and witty delivery earned her the nickname ‘the essence of eccentricity’. She also appeared on film occasionally, including The Golden Pippin Girl in 1920, The Wishbone in 1933, Radio Parade Of 1935 in 1934, Variety in 1935 and Boys Will Be Girls in 1936.
3 The Glasgow Times archives captured Nellie on camera in 1924, when she appeared in her home town with Stanley Lupino in a production of Aladdin at the Theatre Royal. The pair posed on a stage prop motorbike for our photographers. In 1930 she played the part of Widow Twankey at the Dominion Theatre - a rare exception to a role normally played by men.
4 T S Eliot, in his Selected Essays of 1917 - 1932, said Nellie was expert at dealing with hecklers, a hazard of music hall days. “Among living music hall artists none can better control an audience than Nellie Wallace,” he wrote. “I have seen Nellie Wallace interrupted by jeering or hostile comment from a boxful of Eastenders; I have seen her, hardly pausing in her act, make some quick retort that silenced her tormentors for the rest of the evening.”
READ MORE: Tales of the Glasgow trams - warts and all
5 Nellie was married to William Henry Liddy. She died from bronchitis, aged 78, in London in November, 1948.
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