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HETTY KING, MALE IMPERSONATOR
BY ANDREW WOOD
The music hall star Hetty King, whose real name was Winifred
Emms, was born in New Brighton on 21st April 1883. Her
father, William Emms, who used the stage name Will King,
was appearing in a show at the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool,
at the time. He had been born in Barrow-in-Furness, went on
the stage at the age of 21 and became quite successful as a
comedian and a one-man band.
Winifred herself first appeared on stage with her father at the age of 6 at
the Shoreditch Theatre, London. In time, although Will King was rarely
out of work, his daughter’s fame and popularity outshone his own.
From 1905, when she changed her act to that of a male impersonator,
Hetty toured all over the world for the first four decades of the century.
Usually she topped the bill, as a debonair “man about town”, and in
costume as a soldier or sailor in both World Wars. She amused her
audiences with such songs as “Piccadilly”, “All the Nice Girls Love a
Sailor and her greatest song, “Ship Ahoy”. This song, like other truly
great songs that have their roots in the Music Hall, (such as Harry
Lauder’s “Keep Right on to the End of the Road”, and Harry Champion’s
“I’m Henry the Eighth I Am”) lives on in the recesses of the popular
memory. If you doubt the truth of that, take this simple test; see if you
can remember the tune of any one of the three songs just mentioned
and it’s almost certain that you will be able to sing the words of the
chorus and possibly at least one verse.
The popularity of male impersonators in the English music hall is
difficult to explain. Just as there was nothing salacious about boys
playing female characters in the theatre in Shakespeare’s time, the
attraction of male impersonators for their audiences does not seem
to have been titillation. Whatever the reason, there were a number of
such performers. Hetty’s greatest rival was Vesta Tilley. Although they
were both major stars, Hetty never saw Tilley on stage until her farewell
performance, most probably because both were in constant demand
and touring virtually non-stop, and also because there would only be
one impersonator on a music hall bill.
Both Hetty and Vesta performed principally as fashionable young men,
but Hetty also included other characters like working class men. She
was a careful observer of sailors, soldiers and navvies, and portrayed
individuals rather than merely stereotypes. One of her greatest rewards,
she said, was when women would come up to her and say, “That’s just
like my son!”
Early in her career, Hetty married Earnest “Ernie” Lotinger, an
actor, comedian and scriptwriter and later a theatre proprietor. But
the marriage did not last and they divorced. Lotinger appeared on
Broadway, New York and in a number of films.
Hetty was in great demand as a performer in pantomime. Arthur
Lawrence, who was appointed as manager of the Royal Court theatre
in Liverpool in 1898, set out to put the theatre at the centre of the panto
map. The biggest music hall stars of the day would appear at the Royal
Court’s annual pantomime, helping to make it among the most famous
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shows in the country. Quoted in “The Liverpudlian” in 1938, Lawrence
said, “In 1906, in ‘Aladdin’ I had Hetty King and Happy Fanny Fields,
together with Malcolm Scott and Harry Tate – some combination! I
produced at the Court, in twenty-six years, twenty pantomimes. The
1906 panto was the biggest success. We averaged takings of just under
£2,000 a run... Our pantomimes would run elsewhere for about five
years, so Liverpool was a pantomime manufacturing centre... That
pantomime Aladdin was repeated, with almost the same cast, at the
Adelphi Theatre in London the following year”.
After the Great War, Hetty married Captain Alexander Lamond of the
York and Lancaster Regiment. By then she was an established star and
the event caused considerable interest. A local newspaper reported:
“The bride was given away by Lieutenant J W Williams... and was
accompanied, as bridesmaid, Miss Olive Emms... A guard of honour,
composed of brother officers of the bridegroom was present and as
Captain and Mrs Lamond left the church after the ceremony, and
passed between the guard of honour under the canopy of red, white
and blue ribbons they held, Verey lights were fired... Captain and Mrs
Lamond were the recipients of many handsome presents”.
Hetty’s marriage clearly did not interrupt her career on the stage. In fact,
she was performing up to a few months before she died in 1972. The
Actor Sir Ian McKellern, an enthusiast for music hall and pantomime,
was a particular fan of Hetty King. In 2007 he said of her: “There was
nothing political or threatening about Hetty King’s act... By the time I
saw her in 1957, she was so tiny and plump, smiling as she lit her pipe
from a match struck on the seat of her pants, singing “All the Nice Girls
Love a Sailor”.
A film in the collection of the British Film Institute, called “Hetty King:
Performer” is an invaluable record of her work. It includes a unique
record of a complete performance by her at the Royal Hippodrome,
Eastbourne, given in 1969, when she was eighty-seven and in the
eighty-second year of her continuous professional career. It includes
footage of Hetty playing a variety of characters: dressed as a sailor, as
a navvy, an ‘empire builder’, a ‘man about town’ and a cowboy. During
the film Hetty and her sister Olive talk about her career, her first outfit
that she had made for £5, and the success of her act. She is then shown
on stage singing a number of her most popular songs: “It’s Great to
be`in Love”, “Piccadilly” and “Bye Bye Bachelor Days”. Finally, and
inevitably, the old trouper changes her costume for that of a sailor and
sings “All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor”. She takes a bow and one of her
last performances, professional as ever, comes to an end.
The big break for another Merseyside entertainer, Frankie Vaughan,
came in 1951 when he got the opportunity to perform at the Kingston
Empire for the empresario Bernard Delfont. Frankie was an instant
succe