Fields, Gracie (1898–1979)

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Fields, Gracie (1898–1979)

English singer, comedian, impersonator, and actress who rose from poverty in Lancashire to become one of the best beloved performers in the world. Born Grace Stansfield on January 9, 1898, in the town of Rochdale, Lancashire, England; died on the Italian island of Capri on September 27, 1979; daughter of Fred Stansfield (an engineer) and Sarah Jane (Jenny) Bamford Stansfield (a housewife and laundress); attended Rochdale public schools until age 13; married comedian Archie Pitt (Archibald Selinger), on April 21, 1923 (divorced 1940); married Monty Banks (Mario Bianchi), in March 1940 (died 1950); married Boris Alperovici, on February 18, 1952; no children.

Made professional debut (1910); began touring with Archie Pitt (1916); first performance in London's West End (1924); made first command performance, recorded first record, took on first dramatic role, and began friendship with John Flanagan (1928); made first tour of U.S. (1930); took first trip to Capri, made first movie, Sally in Our Alley (1931); was informally separated from Pitt (1932); met Monty Banks (1935); made first film in Hollywood (1937); named Commander of the British Empire (1938); was operated on for cancer (1939); made wartime voyage with Monty Banks to the U.S. (1940); entertained Allied troops (1939–45); returned to England for BBC tour (1947); gave last public performance (1978); named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (1979).

Films:

Sally in Our Alley (1931); Sing As We Go (1934); Queen of Hearts (1936); We're Going To Be Rich (1937); Holy Matrimony (1943); Paris Under-ground (1945). Stage: S.O.S (1928). Television: "The Old Lady Shows Her Medals" (1956).

Gracie Fields, known to her millions of fans as "the Lancashire Lass" or, simply "our Gracie," was one of the most renowned stage-and-screen performers of the 20th century. Beginning in English music halls in their last years of prosperity around World War I, she moved on to the legitimate stage, radio, films, and eventually television. Fields made fifteen films during her career, including four in the United States, and more than 500 records. By the 1930s, she was the most highly paid entertainer in the world. Eventually, she would be asked to give ten Royal Command Performances.

The future star was born Grace Stansfield to a working-class family in northern England on January 9, 1898. Only a few steps removed from poverty, the Stansfields lived above a fish-and-chip shop, and, throughout her childhood, Gracie shared a bed with her two sisters. Fields never lost the speaking accent of Lancashire, where her birthplace, the mill town of Rochdale, was located. Her father Fred was an engineer who had begun working on cargo ships and was now employed in Rochdale's textile mills, but her mother Jenny Stansfield was a devoted amateur singer who encouraged Grace, as well as her other children, to take up a career on the stage.

Gracie's untrained but powerful voice made an early impression on both the family's neighbors and her teachers at school. Jenny, who did laundry for theater companies that played at the Hippodrome, one of Rochdale's three theaters, timed the delivery of the finished wash so that she and Gracie could watch the shows. Jenny's enthusiasm for the stage led her to invite touring actresses to the family home, where young Grace was encouraged to sing for them. The child soon found herself participating in singing contests, winning a first prize when she was only seven. She also obtained unpaid roles in the performances of visiting theatrical troupes.

In 1908, when she was only ten, Gracie left home to join a troupe of juvenile performers, Clara Coverdale 's Boys and Girls. She lasted just a week, returning home with her body bruised and swollen from her first efforts to learn acrobatic dancing. A second try at joining a traveling group of young players, Haley's Garden of Girls, lasted for several months. Unfortunately, it led to an ugly encounter in which Gracie, still only ten but with the appearance of a mature teenager, barely escaped a sexual assault. She returned home emotionally distraught.

The talented youngster, like most of her classmates in the grim mill town, began work in a textile factory at the age of 12. But she soon started to make her escape. In August 1910, Gracie filled in at the Rochdale Hippodrome for a performer who had been taken ill. Success brought a two-week engagement, marking the start of her full-time stage career. Encouraged by the theater manager to find a short, memorable stage name, Gracie consulted with her mother. First, they changed "Stansfield" to "Fields." Then, after rejecting "Stana Fields" and "Anna Fields," they made the slightly formal "Grace" into "Gracie." It was destined to become one of the most widely known names in the world of British entertainment.

Jenny Stansfield continued to play a large role in Gracie's career, advising her on what bookings to accept. Roles came along often enough to provide money for her family, badly needed when her father was ill, and to keep Gracie from having to return to the hated job at the mill. During the grim wartime years, she sang for soldiers and Belgian refugees. In 1915, encouraged by her mother, Fields signed a long-term contract with a Manchester theatrical agent who had recognized her overflowing talent as a singer and impersonator. He also took advantage of the family's financial need to put a tight hold on half her future earnings.

She soon met the man who was to become her first husband. Archie Pitt, a modestly talented comedian from London with ambitions of becoming a producer, helped her to rehearse, informed her she would one day be a great star, and, despite his reputation as a ladies' man, made no sexual advances. Pitt also managed to break her disadvantageous contract with the Manchester theatrical agent.

Starting in 1916, Fields toured in Archie Pitt's shows. At Jenny's request, she found a place in the company for both her younger sisters and, eventually, her younger brother. By this stage in her career, she was a comedian, singer, and impersonator. She began to receive offers to appear in London, at five to ten times her current salary, but she remained loyal to Pitt and her touring companions. Appearing in Pitt's Mr. Tower of London, which began touring in 1918, Fields made herself famous throughout Great Britain. The show ran for more than nine years. Note her biographers Burgess and Keen, "It was the revue that gave Gracie Fields to the British Nation."

She was, quite simply, the greatest female artiste we have ever produced.… She was, before the word had even been invented, a superstar.
—Roy Hudd

Meanwhile, in 1923, her longstanding working relationship with Archie Pitt led to their marriage. Fields had by now turned into a confident performer with a striking singing voice. On stage, she presented herself as loud and boisterous, but in real life she remained personally shy. Unlike her younger sisters, she was not beautiful, and the knowledge of this further under-mined her confidence. Pitt's proposal came in harsh form. He reminded her of her age, "nearly twenty-five," adding that "you need a husband." Her newly married sister Betty urged her to accept. According to Betty, Fields needed someone to take care of her, destined as she was for stardom. Gracie's marriage was never a happy one. She later described Archie's motives in marrying her as financial: "I was just starting to make money and Archie wanted to consolidate his principal asset."

Her career blossomed. She was able to finance her parents' move from Rochdale to London, and, starting in February 1924, she starred in Mr. Tower of London at the Alhambra Theater in Leicester Square, the center of London's stage district. Her performance dominated the critics' rave reviews.

In 1928, she gave her first Royal Command Performance, and the established stars of the London stage took time to observe this rising new star. A new opportunity soon appeared when the noted impresario Sir Gerald du Maurier offered her a part in an upcoming play. The music-hall performer transformed herself into a skilled actress under du Maurier's tutelage. Her first phonograph records began to appear, and she also played in nightclubs. But her many obligations drained her energy, and she had no occasion to enjoy the huge sums of money she was now making. When Archie took over her earnings, she found herself the reluctant owner of a mansion in the fashionable Hampstead suburb in north London. Adding to her discomfort was the fact that Archie invited Annie Lipman to live with them as his supposed secretary. It soon became clear to Gracie that Annie was Archie's lover.

Now a top ranking star, the young woman from Rochdale continued to feel she was an outsider in London's fashionable world. "School had been something to be sandwiched between helping Jenny do the actors' washing … or working in the mills," wrote Fields, "and I'd left at twelve anyway." She remained ill-at-ease even with her fellow stars: "I hadn't the faintest idea of how to behave or look like Gertrude Lawrence … or any of the other great names, and their sophisticated lives terrified me."

Fields found herself attracted to an Irish artist named John Flanagan whom she had met at one of her cabaret performances in 1928. When Flanagan convinced Fields to let him paint her portrait, she was soon confiding in him, detailing her unhappy marriage with Pitt. In time, their friendship developed into a romantic tie that lasted throughout the 1930s. Meanwhile in 1929, her unhappiness with Pitt's bullying and insensitive treatment pushed her to an almost unthinkable act: she walked off The Show's the Thing while in rehearsal in order to join Flanagan in southern France. In the end, her sense of obligation to her fellow performers overcame her personal feelings; she interrupted her trip in Paris and returned. The revue was a spectacular success, running in London for more than a year.

The year 1931 saw the young star's life turn in a number of new directions. She took a trip to Italy with Flanagan and another friend. Carrying

an expired passport, she made it across the border into Italy by charming the customs officer with a rendition of "Santa Lucia," one of the few tunes she could sing in Italian. On this trip, she made her first visit to the island of Capri, immediately fell in love with the place, and soon bought a house there. Back in London, she moved into her own lodgings; while she intended to keep her professional tie to Archie Pitt, she no longer wanted an intimate relationship with him. Finally, she began her extensive film career with a part in Sally in Our Alley. The film's most important song, "Sally," went on to become a national hit. Audiences begged her to sing it for the remainder of her career.

Throughout the 1930s Fields' film career boomed, and she became one of the industry's most famous and important stars. The medium gave her a chance to use her talents as a singer and comedian in front of a larger audience than ever. The films themselves rarely pleased the critics, but enthusiastic British audiences made them immensely successful financially. Her personality was so powerful that her screen roles did little beyond requiring her to be herself. Most of her characters were named "Grace" or "Gracie."

In 1935, her family introduced her to Monty Banks. An Italian, born Mario Bianchi, who had immigrated to the United States to become a leading film comedian, Banks became the director of her next film, Queen of Hearts. He also accompanied her to Hollywood when she was offered a lavish contract at Twentieth Century-Fox. In the course of her career, she made four films for the American studio.

By the time she was in her early 40s, Gracie Fields found herself an honored national figure. Debates in Parliament ended early so that the members could reach their radios to hear her sing. Her charitable activities, along with her work as an entertainer, led King George VI to name her a Commander of the British Empire in 1938. Meanwhile, her hometown of Rochdale formally honored her as its most distinguished citizen. The following year, she was stricken by cancer of the cervix and nearly died. The public was told only that she was seriously ill. All levels of British society showered her with tributes: a message from the queen, hundreds of thousands of letters delivered to her hospital, and an affectionate cartoon in one of London's largest newspapers. Her illness brought her closer than ever to Banks, who was her stalwart support throughout her ordeal. In place of hospital food, he brought her broth he had prepared, using prime beef from the kitchen of the elegant Dorchester Hotel.

In the aftermath of her hospital stay, Fields and Banks retired to Capri. The outbreak of World War II caught them there, and from her villa on the island they watched the lights in the harbor at Naples extinguished in Italy's first wartime blackout. They rushed back to Britain. Shortly after her arrival and despite her lingering weakness, she was on the radio singing songs taunting Hitler. Soon she was touring France to entertain the troops.

Fields began divorce proceedings against Archie Pitt in mid-1939, and the marriage ended in early 1940. That March, she wed Banks in California, after which the couple returned to Britain. But the war was taking a dramatic turn. Adolf Hitler's attack on Western Europe in May and June drove the British army out of France, and only the rescue operation at Dunkirk saved Britain's forces. As Hitler moved to finish off the French, fascist Italy prepared to enter the war. Monty, who was still an Italian citizen, received word from British government officials to leave the country before being interned as an enemy alien.

Fields and her husband sailed together for New York in circumstances that aroused public outrage back in Britain. She had seemingly deserted her country in its time of need and had taken a substantial sum of money along with her. Banks worsened the situation when he told newspaper reporters in New York, "I'm no Briton," and defended their right to pack their assets while fleeing a war zone. Fields went on to a previously scheduled concert tour in Canada to raise money for wartime charities, but her devotion to her husband made a poor impression on both sides of the Atlantic. Her tour in both Canada and the United States lasted until the fall of 1941 and raised more than a million dollars for charity. The singer's wartime image improved as a result of her tireless efforts. But the bitterness Britons felt toward her in 1940 lingered in some minds even though Prime Minister Winston Churchill came to her defense publicly.

During the war years, Fields continued to make movie and radio appearances in the United States. But she entertained troops throughout the war, spending the last months of the fighting singing for Allied forces in the Pacific. Even the news of the Japanese surrender, which she heard just before a concert for Australian forces on the island of Bougainville, did not put a halt to her efforts. She went on to entertain Allied military men and women and liberated prisoners of war for months thereafter. She and Monty then headed for their villa on Capri. Banks was soon urging her to transform their home into a tourist center complete with hotel and restaurant.

Fields and Banks returned to postwar London in 1947. The BBC planned a series of radio concerts with her in a starring role. The concerts were held in various locations starting in her home town of Rochdale and ending in East London. By the last one, she was wildly popular. As Burgess and Keen put it, "She'd given her heart to the English and in return they had laid their hearts at her feet."

Monty never lived to see the success of his plans for the villa. He died en route to Capri in January 1950, after a New Year's celebration in Paris. After a period of shock and loneliness, in 1952 Fields married for the third time. Her new husband was Boris Alperovici, a longtime resident of Capri. Although the British newspapers labeled him "a humble electrician" with a radio shop, he was in fact an inventor and, unlike his new wife, an accepted member of aristocratic Capri society.

Fields' career went on. She returned to England to perform in grand theaters like the Coliseum. In time, she went on to appear on television and made record albums almost to the year of her death. She returned to Rochdale in 1978 to open a theater named after her. That same year, she gave her tenth Royal Command performance, 50 years after her first one, and she made her last appearance before a London audience. In 1979, she received a final honor from her country as she was awarded the title of Dame Commander of the British Empire. To many observers, the award seemed long overdue. The delay may have come from some lingering clouds over her reputation in official circles from her trip to the United States in 1940. On September 27, 1979, having been hospitalized due to bronchitis, Gracie Fields died in Capri. Some sources indicate that the cause of death was pneumonia; others mention a heart attack.

A remarkably versatile performer, Gracie Fields could charm an audience with a ballad or a comic tune. She was the only music hall star of the 1920s to make a successful transition to the new media of radio and film. Her comic roles in the British films of the Depression era provided a rare opportunity for her beleaguered and impoverished compatriots to put aside their troubles for a brief moment.