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​More About Maisie


We are getting more stories about Maisie and questions sent in by readers.

Maisie has largely fallen out of the public eye although many of her contemporaries are still famous.

Probably her type of humour is too music hall (reminiscent of the silent movie era) for modern taste but she was famously popular in her time.


We also have some anecdotes to report. Although these are hearsay, mostly unwritten and difficult to substantiate, we should be delighted to have them confirmed, amended or rejected if anyone knows better.

Don't let Maisie's memory fall out of sight altogether.

Maisie was born in London in 1883 and died there in 1945. She first became famous as an actress and comedienne appearing in the London stage show The Whirligig (1919), which ran for 441 performances at the Palace Theatre and in Charlot’s Review (1925), Nowadays she is mostly remembered for appearing in Noël Coward’s show London Calling! in 1923 along with Gertrude Lawrence, Coward himself, Jessie Matthews and with choreographic assistance by Fred Astaire.

London Calling!
was Coward's first hit, famous for opening with a 3-D stereoscopic shadowgraph, which required the audience to wear special colour-tinted glasses. The show was a satirical revue of the pretensions of upper class London society in the 1920s with 25 sketches, skits, songs and dance routines. It was hugely popular running for 367 performances.

Maisie sang four songs including There’s Life In The Old Girl Yet, which became her signature tune. She also went to Hollywood and she appeared in a number of films, a silent movie The Siren’s Song (1915) and small parts in The Shaming of the True (1930), To Oblige a Lady (1931), and The Old Man (1931). She retired from stage and screen in 1934 and moved to the Northey Arms.
More Maisie Gay
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