Date of Birth : Jan 9th 1898
English/Italian singer and comedienne widely hailed as one of the greatest stars of both cinema and music hall. Fields came to major public notice when Mr Tower of London came to the West End. Her career rapidly accelerated from this point with straight dramatic performances and the beginning of a recording career.
One of her most successful productions was at the Alhambra Theatre in 1925. The show, booked by Sir Oswald Stoll, was a major success and toured for ten years. She made the first of ten appearances in Royal Variety Performances in 1928, gaining a devoted following with a mixture of self-deprecating jokes, comic songs and monologues, as well as cheerful “depression-era” songs all presented in a “no-airs-and-graces” northern, working class style. Fields had a great rapport with her audience, which helped her become one of Britain’s highest paid performers, playing to sold out theatres across the country.
Her most famous song, which became her theme, “Sally,” was worked into the title of her first film, Sally in Our Alley (1931), which was a major box office hit. She went on to make several films initially in Britain and later in the United States (for which she was paid a record fee of US$200,000 for four films). Regardless, she never enjoyed the process of performing without a live audience.
Ironically, the final few lines of the song “Sally” were written by her husband’s mistress, and Fields sang this song at nearly every performance she made from 1931 onwards.
CAREER
Sing As We Go ( 1934 )
