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Creator
Lillie, Beatrice, 1894-1989
Call number
JPB 15-67
Physical description
2 linear feet (10 boxes)
Language
English; English, French, German, Italian, Latin.
Preferred Citation
Beatrice Lillie Collection of Scores, JPB 15-67. Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Repository
Music Division
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.

Beatrice Lillie was a comedienne, actress, singer, and author with a 50-year career performing in revues, plays, films, on radio and television and on recordings. Her collection of scores includes published sheet music and songbooks from the 1910s through the 1950s.

Biographical/historical information

Beatrice Lillie, comedienne, actress, singer, and author was born May 29, 1894 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She left school for the stage at age fifteen to tour Canada in The Lillie Trio with her mother Lucie and sister Muriel.

After coming to London in 1914, Lillie joined Andre Charlot's Revue, in which she later made her Broadway debut in 1924. With a career spanning more than fifty years, she performed in revues, plays, films, on radio and television and enjoyed a successful recording career. Lillie frequently performed both in London and the United States, earning her fame as "The Toast of Two Continents."

In 1920, Lillie married Sir Robert Peel, gaining the title Lady Peel. The couple had one son, Robert Peel Jr., in 1921. Lillie was widowed in 1934 and lost her son to the war in 1942.

Lillie traveled to the Middle East, Africa, France and Germany to perform for the troops during WWII, an effort for which she received a decoration from General Charles de Gaulle. She developed close friendships with other famous figures, including Noel Coward, Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw, and Charlie Chaplin. During the war Beatrice Lillie met John Philip Huck who would become her manager and life-long companion.

Ms. Lillie starred in shows by Noel Coward, George Bernard Shaw, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz, and Cole Porter. Lillie became best known for starring in This Year Of Grace (1928), written for her by Noel Coward, and received equal recognition for her version of Coward's song, "Mad Dogs and Englishmen". Other notable Broadway performances include The Seven Lively Arts (1947), Inside USA (1948), Ziegfeld Follies 1957, and High Spirits (1964). She toured the world with her one-woman show An Evening With Beatrice Lillie (1952-1956), winning a Tony Award in 1953. She also made a handful of films that met with varying degrees of success, beginning with an early silent film Exit Smiling (1926), and ending with her role as Mrs. Meers in Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). She published her autobiography, Every Other Inch A Lady, in 1973.

Lillie retired to England to recover from a stroke in 1977. She died January 20, 1989 at her home, Henley-on-Thames, England at the age of 94.

Scope and arrangement

The Beatrice Lillie Scores consist of published sheet music and songbooks from the 1910s through the 1950s. The bulk of the sheet music is popular song for voice and piano, or sometimes voice and guitar or ukulele. There are a few popular songs with orchestral parts. The collection also contains a few opera and operetta arias, cantatas, and art songs. The songbooks are mostly collections of popular song, with a few art song cycles.

Arrangement

The collection is divided into two series. Series I contains sheet music, including popular songs, opera and operetta arias, and art songs. Series II contains popular song sheet music with orchestral parts, and songbook collections of popular songs, folk songs, and some classical music scores. Series I consists of published popular song sheet music folios, as well as a few opera and operetta arias, choral pieces, and art songs. Most of the sheet music was available for public sale, some are artist copies. Most have piano (and sometimes guitar or ukulele) accompaniments in staves or tablature; a few are printed lead sheets with chord names, or manuscripts. Series II consists of published popular song sheet music with orchestral parts, songbook collections of popular and folk songs, a few cantata vocal-piano scores, and some art song cycles. It also contains programs from an NBC radio show and a box of oversized songbooks.

Using the collection

Location

Music Division
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-7498
Third Floor