... Allen Christie ALLEN CHRISTIE, who died in June, was one of a rare breed; like Jerry Desmonde and Chesney Allen a con summate comic's feed. His partnership with Jack Tripp, the brilliant pantomime and revue comedian, was perfection, spanning well over 30 years. A handsome debonair Australian with a fine tenor voice, Allen came to England in 1947 appearing at the Stoll Theatre in Wild Violets. ...

... Mermaid pays tribute to a great man By RON PEMBER I WROTE an article in a November edition of The Stage about the extraordinary career of Lord Bernard Miles, and in particular the important contribution he and Lady Josephine gave us with the creation of the Mermaid Theatre at Puddle Dock. A contribution, I felt, too soon forgotten. The response was remark able. Letters and calls poured in ...

... Colin Blakely COUN BLAKELY, who died aged 56 on May 7, was a late entrant to the profes sion but made an immediate impact. Within months of making his first profes sional appearance with the Ulster Group Theatre in 1958, he was at the Royal Court, where he came to notice in a series of striking small parts. In the next year, 1960, he was at the Arts in Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the ...

... Leonard Bernstein LEONARD BERNSTEIN, who only a few days previously had announced his retirement from the concert'platform, died on October 14, aged 72. He will go down in theatre history for writing the music for one of the most influential of all sxage musicals, vvesx aiae Story, as important as was Oklahoma a decade earlier. But he was also a brilliant communicator of music, not merely ...

... It is appropriate that the last review that wrote (on Tippett's new opera at Glyndebournel before he died suddenly on August 4 should be for The Stage. For it was this newspaper that Frank joined when he first came to London in the early 1950s from his native York where he was born on June 3, 1923. At that time The Stage was in Covent Garden and edited by Eric Johns and Frank's early ...

... act in hotels and nightclubs throughout the world She was one of the first lady magicians to meet the rigid qualifications for pro fessional magician membership in the famous Magic Castle of Hollywood. After early ballet training at the Royal Academy, where she passed out with honours, her professional career began as one of the Tiller girls in the fifties. She later joined various variety ...

... STANLEY GREENBERG. actor, musi cian and writer, has died at his home in Milton Keynes aged 67. He had been ill for several years with Parkinson's dis ease. Born into a family of musicians, his father Leonard Greenberg studied music under the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg at Guildford, Surrey in 1927. He followed in his father's footsteps by studying music at Oslo and later at Oxford ...

... Like America's Florenz Ziegfeld, LOUIS BENJAMIN who died on June 20, I was not only one of the most colourful characters in showbusiness but also one of the most powerful in British light entertainment. His respon sibilities included the London Palladium and The Victoria Palace as well as theatres in Manchester, Bristol, Nottingham and Liverpool. As manag ing director of the powerful Moss ...

... Believe me. walkina down the street with the actress EILEEN WAY (who died June 16), was an experience. People always did a double-take, and looked at her again. She was not a 'star' in the tabloid sense, but people never forgot her extraordinary face: the hair pulled tightly back, the huge eyes, the high cheekbones. They may have seen her years ago with Kirk Douglas in The Vikings, they may ...

... Toby Rowland TOBY ROWLAND, who died on August 9, aged 77, was indisputably one of the most popular men in British theatre, a charming American of great taste and discernment whose advice was eagerly sought by his colleagues even during a retirement that was forced upon him by ill-health. Born in Libby, Montana, after which he named the pro duction company he formed ten years ago, Toby Rowland ...

... LESTER JACKIE LESTER a favourite principal comedian with audiences in the South during the fifties and an enormously successful club/cabaret artist as far as Northern audiences were concerned during the sixties, died in Leeds General Infirmary on January 12. 1972. aged 48. With his fine-cut features Jackie's forte was female impersonation of every description, from char ladies to duchesses, ...

... EPSTEIN In loving msmory of Elspeth (Seotty) who pasted sway September llth. If 44. Never forgotten by her titter Nell and daughter Helen in Cypras. IN LOVING MEMORY OF ELTON ROBERTS who patted away. 13th September, 1964 Remembered by hia wife Noreen. daughters Roberta and Shirley, and son Mkhaef. Alwayt in our thoughts and to greatly mated. ...