Bessie Wentworth

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Bessie Wentworth (born Elizabeth Mary Andrews, 20 March 1873 – 6 January 1901) was an English music hall singer and comic entertainer.

She was born in Lambeth, London, where her mother ran a boarding house for theatrical performers. After leaving school, she worked as a clerk before joining Jack Sheppard's troupe in 1891.[1] She became a principal boy in pantomimes, and a singer of boy roles in operettas, before developing a solo act in music halls. Although she did not use blackface, she sang plantation songs and coon songs, dressed as a young man wearing a stereotypical costume of open-necked shirt, striped pantaloons, and a large straw hat. One of her most successful songs was "Looking for a Coon Like Me", written by George Le Brunn with lyrics by John Harrington.[2][3]

She was very successful in the 1890s, and a popular subject of photographs and postcards of her in masculine poses.[4] She was portrayed in the costume of a plantation worker in a lithograph by Toulouse-Lautrec, probably from a visit he made to London in 1896.[5] Her last appearance, at the top of the bill, was in December 1900.[1]

Known as a keen cyclist, she was planning to marry and run a public house with her husband, but died aged 27, in Lambeth, from typhoid fever.[1]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c "Potted Biographies: Bessie Wentworth". Music Hall Studies (5): Supplement. 2010.
  2. ^ Raymond Mander and Joe Mitchenson, British Music Hall: A story in pictures, Studio Vista, 1965, p.91
  3. ^ "Bessie Wentworth", Footlight Notes, 25 December 2012. Retrieved 24 September 2020
  4. ^ J. S. Bratton, "Beating the bounds: gender play and role reversal in the Edwardian music hall", in Michael R. Booth, Joel H. Kaplan (eds.), The Edwardian Theatre: Essays on Performance and the Stage, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp.90-91
  5. ^ Herbert D. Schimmel, "Bessie Wentworth Singing 'Little Alabama Coon'": a lithograph by Toulouse-Lautrec", in Print Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 3, September 1990, pp. 286-291


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