An Interview With Lily Elsie, London's Most Celebrated Beauty of the Edwardian Times

I know it was just a month ago that I first posted about Lily Elsie, but I find her so beautiful that I had to do another post so soon!


Lily Elsie (LE): They called me Little Elsie.

Spencer Edwards (SE): It may be supposed, then, that you commenced your professional career when quite a child?

LE: That was so. I sang ballads. Some friends were flattering enough to call me the infant Patti.

SE: And you took to the stage, I suppose, as the duck takes to water?

LE: Well, I played in the pantomime Red Riding Hood [at the Queen's Theatre, Manchester, Christmas 1896] when I was only eleven years of age, and, subsequently, I went to the [music] halls. My first regular engagement for theatrical work was a tour of M'Kenna's Firtation [a farce by E. Selden, first produced at the Opera House, Coventry, 1 August 1892].

SE: A natural sequence, I see. First the flirtation, then regular 'engagements,' and now the honeymoon - A Chinese Honeymoon.

LE: You may put it that way if you like (laughing sweetly).

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Lily Elsie with her toy terrier dog.
LE: There, mamma, that's what I should like to do when I'm a woman!' Of course, there was an indignant chorus of the 'hush' sort, and the wonder was that I was not led out and taken home in disgrace. - (Lily proclaiming to her Mama that she wants to be an actress at the age of 8)

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These are just snippets from an interview with Lily Elsie. (Credits and links to follow)

Credits: G. Spencer Edwards, The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, London, Saturday, 28 May 1904. { Full Interview }