Mr. Sonnie Hale died in hospital yesterday. He was 57.
Sonnie Hale was born in London on May 1, 1902, his full name being John Robert Hale-Munro, and educated at Beaumont College, Old Windsor. In deciding to go on the stage he was only following a family tradition, since his father, Robert Hale, was a star of pantomime and comedy, while his sister Binnie Hale made her first stage appearance five years before him and had already established herself as a notable comedienne and revue star. He, therefore, had to face comparison with hs father and sister, and for some time he tended to be overshadowed a little by them, but soon his individual comic style won him an independent reputation.
His first job on the stage was in the chorus of the revue Fun of the Fayre, at the London Pavilion in 1921, but he rapidly worked his way up to the position of a featured player in musical comedy and revue, his talents encompassing quite happily singing, dancing, clowning and playing a straight romantic lead (though never too seriously). His most memorable performances were in the spectacular London pavilion shows of the late 1930s [sic], among them One Dam Thing After Another, This Year of Grace, and Wake Up and Dream, and in the musical Evergreen with Jessie Matthews, to whom he was married at the time. Like many stage actors he was drawn into films with the introduction of the talking film in the early 1930s, and after making his film début in Tell Me Tonight (1932) one of his first important appearances on the screen was in the filmed version of Evergreen. He rapidly became even more popular in the new medium than on the stage, which he virtually deserted during the next decade, acting in numerous films, among them several Anglo-German co-productions with the UFA company, like Happy Ever After, in which he fought Jack Hulbert for Lillian Harvey's hand while Cecily Courtneidge simmered in the background -- directing Head Over Heels, Gangway and Sailing Along, which he also wrote.
At the beginning of the war he returned to the stage, but found some difficulty in re-establishing himself. In 1940 he appeared in his own comedy Come Out and Play, two years later he played Tonio in a revival of The Maid of the Mountains, and in 1944 he played in his first pantomime as Widow Twanky. He proved to play pantomime dames to the manner born, and was in later years seen as dame at the Palladium in The Babes in the Wood (1950) and Dick Whittington (1952). He also appeared in a number of his own plays, among them Pardon My Claws at the Q Theatre, The French Mistress at Wimbledon and Windsor, and Nest of Robins at Canterbury. A very happy teaming with his sister resulted in a revue, One, Two, Three (1947) and several series of the two-person radio show, which they also wrote, All Hale. At the time of his death he was about to return to the West End stage in his play, The French Mistress.
Sonnie Hale was an excellent light comedian in his early days, combining flawless timing and the sort of crystal-clear musical comedy diction which seems today a lost art with an unusually engaging personality: though his roles sometimes allowed him to behave a little caddishly, one always knew that under it all he would not hurt a fly. In later years he turned to the older comedy technique of the pantomime dame with equal success, playing pantomime dames with that air of decayed gentility, that feeling that if they are not quite ladies, it is only by a very narrow margin and some unkind quirk of fate, which is essential to a proper pointing of the joke. His tour in 1956-57 in a revival of Gershwin's Lady be Good left many theatregoers with a wholly delightful last glimpse of an almost forgotten comic attack coming from a simpler, but on this showing, far from negligible tradition.
(Evening Standard 9/6/59)
Sonnie Hale -- musical comedy star, actor, and playwright -- died in St. George's Hospital, London, at 3.30 this morning. He was 57.
He fell ill last week. Specialists called to his Battersea home found he was suffering from a 'serious and unusual' virus infection of the throat.
He went into hospital on Thursday -- the day his comedy, The French Mistress, in which he was to play the lead, was due to open at the Adelphi.
The opening was postponed until tomorrow.
But today came news that tonight's public dress rehearsal and tomorrow night's opening of the comedy -- Sonnie wrote it under his real name of Robert Munro -- is off.
Mr. Jack Hylton said that although Sonnie Hale had requested that if anything happened to him the play should go on, he felt he could not carry out this wish and the opening would be postponed.
Only yesterday, Mr. Hylton announced that Richard Bird would take his part.
It was to have been Sonnie Hale's first appearance in the West End for 10 years. The Queen and Princess Margaret saw the pre-London production of the comedy at Windsor.
He told friends the West End production meant everything to him.
Sonnie was married three times. His first marriage, to Evelyn Laye, was dissolved in 1931. His second to Jessie Matthews was dissolved in 1944.
In 1944 he married Mary Kelsey, who was granted a decree of judicial separation from him in February, 1957.
Evelyn Laye, speaking on the telephone from Newcastle-on-Tyne, where she is in a show, said: "Only a few days ago I sent him a silly postcard wishing him luck with the new show."
Gerard Garrett writes:
Sonnie Hale belonged to the enchanted age of the British theatre.
His fame -- and that of his sister Binnie Hale -- came between the two world wars when light-hearted fun was the method most successfully applied by the top stars.
He appeared with all the brightest actresses of the period -- and married two of them.
(Daily Telegraph 10/6/59)
The death of Sonnie Hale, at the age of 57, reduces yet further the dwindling band of entertainers who delighted theatre audiences in the 20's.
An enumeration of the shows in which he starred recalls the heyday of revue and musical comedy in the West End: "Mercenary Mary", "One Dam Thing After Another", "This Year of Grace", "Wake Up and Dream" and "Evergreen".
The late Sir Charles Cochran presented several of these successes; in some of them he appeared with his second wife, Jessie Matthews. In all of them Hale was accepted as an outstanding light comedian and, later, character comedian.
His real name was John Robert Hale-Monro. He was born in London of theatrical stock, the son of Robert Hale, also a famous revue comedian, and Belle Reynolds, an actress. His sister, Binnie Hale, became equally famous in the theatre.
He made his London debut in the chorus of "Fun of the Fayre" at the London Pavilion in 1911[sic], and appeared in "Little Nellie Kelly" at the New Oxford two years later. Then came the string of successes which established him as a popular West End favourite.
He left the stage in 1932 to concentrate on film work. Five [sic] years later he returned to the theatre, but never again achieved the dazzling status he enjoyed in the twenties.
In 1940 he and Jessie Matthews were warmly welcomed when they appeared together at the (appropriately enough) Phœnix Theatre in "Come Out to Play". In 1957, although they had been divorced for 13 years, she joined him in a provincial tour of his own play "A Nest of Robins", but this was not a success.
Sonnie Hale's first wife was Miss Evelyn Laye: they were divorced in 1930. He married Miss Mary Kelsey as his third wife. She sued for a judicial separation in 1957.
(Manchester Guardian 10/6/59)
Sonnie Hale, the actor, died yesterday in hospital in London. He was 57. He was admitted to hospital suffering from a virus infection of the throat last Thursday -- the day on which "The French Mistress", in which he had a leading part, should have opened at the Adelphi Theatre.
Sonnie Hale was one of the leading light revue comedians of the twenties. Three of the principal shows in which he appeared at the height of his success, "One Damn Thing After Another", "This Year of Grace", and "Wake Up and Dream", all Cochran productions, all at the Pavilion, and all with his wife, Jessie Matthews, evoke memories of an entire period. To this period he helped to contribute a large part of the wit, sentiment and gaiety which ran alongside wildness and stupidity.
His father, Robert Hale, was also a famous comedian, and Sonnie Hale took to the stage with perfect ease, like his sister Binnie. He could sing, dance, act, and write, and was an accomplished technician. But audiences loved him best for his light-hearted and extremely clever characterisations of ingenuous young men, more often than not in love. His partnership with Jessie Matthews will remain among the most notable in the theatre. Their singing of "A Room with a View", in "This Year of Grace", was in itself a highlight of the twenties.
John Robert Hale-Munro was born in London on May 1, 1902, and educated at Beaumont College, Old Windsor. In 1921 he made his first appearance on the stage in the chorus of "Fun of the Fayre" at the Pavilion, and in 1924 had his first personal success in "The Punch Bowl" at the Duke of York's, when he sang "Chili-bom-bom". He next appeared as Jerry Warner in "Mercenary Mary" at the Hippodrome. Then came the Cochran shows, the last outstanding one being "Evergreen" at the Adelphi in 1930.
After that, although he was seen in many stage productions and films, his hold on the public weakened. He was forced to witness younger artists, with fresh ideas and new styles, taking over the realm of revue in which he had given so much pleasure. He was married three times -- to Evelyn Laye, to Jessie Matthews, and to Mary Kelsey.
Mr. Jack Hylton announced yesterday that to-night's opening of "The French Mistress" at the Adelphi had been cancelled. On Monday he had stated that Richard Bird would replace Sonnie Hale in the comedy, which was seen in April at the Theatre Royal, Windsor, by the Queen and Princess Margaret. It would have been Sonnie Hale's first London appearance since he had played Dame to Norman Wisdom's Aladdin at the Palladium pantomime three years ago.
(Daily Express 10/6/59)
Sonnie Hale, horn-rimmed, rapid-fire star of so many between-the-wars Cochran and Coward revues, died yesterday in London, aged 57.
He appeared both on stage and screen with many of the brightest actresses of the 1920's and 30's -- and married two of them, Evelyn Laye and Jessie Matthews.
He became ill with a virus infection of the throat just before he was due to make his West End comeback as the head master in his own play "The French Mistress." From his sickbed he insisted that the show must go on, with or without him in the cast.
The public dress rehearsal scheduled for last night and the first night tonight have now been postponed. Jack Hylton, who is presenting the show, says the play will now go on the night after Sonnie Hale's funeral.
A spokesman for Mr. Hylton said that Sonnie (real name John Robert Hale Munro) had pleaded from his hospital bed that, whatever happened to him, the first night should go on as planned.
The Queen and Princess Margaret saw Sonnie Hale acting in "The French Mistress" earlier this year at the Theatre Royal, Windsor. Jack Buchanan, another theatre idol of the pre-war period, took the play on tour just before he died.
Sonnie Hale's true fame belongs to the racy world of the revue sketch.
With other artists of the far-away enchanted 'twenties, like his second wife Jessie Matthews and his sister Binnie, the epoch of the cloche hat and the short skirt that Sandy Wilson evoked in "The Boy Friend", Sonnie Hale's great talent was his ability to put a number over.
He introduced numbers like "My Lucky Star" and "Let's Do It, Let's Fall In Love."
He was known, too, as an impersonator -- with Sir Thomas Beecham as one of his favourite targets. And he could put over a wicked number like "I'm a Night Club Queen" or burlesque like Noel Coward's "Legend of the Lily of the Valley" or make a long comic speech taking the mickey out of a fashionable success of the day like the Russian Ballet.
His third marriage was to Mary Kelsey of Ramsgate -- and was only made public 18 months after it had taken place.
Sonnie Hale's part in "The French Mistress", his last billing on a theatre programme, will now[?] be played by Richard Bird, the actor-director.
(Daily Mail 10/6/59)
SONNIE HALE, the comedian remembered for his pre-war musical triumphs with Jessie Matthews, died yesterday just as life was promising to begin again for him at 57. Five nights before his death in St. George's Hospital, London, from an obscure blood complaint complicated by a throat virus, he should have opened at the Adelphi Theatre in his own play, The French Mistress.
It would have been his first West End appearance since he played Dame in the Palladium pantomime three Christmas seasons ago; his first play to reach the West End in all his 38 years on the stage.
As he lay in hospital, too ill to speak, and kept alive by blood transfusions, Jack Hylton, who bought his comedy after its success at the Theatre Royal, Windsor, planned to open it tonight with Richard Bird in the Hale role.
Yesterday, however, he cancelled not only last night's preview of the play but tonight's premiere.
"Sonnie sent me a message insisting that the show went on whatever happened to him," he said. "But I feel I cannot open it just yet -- certainly not before his funeral."
Another stroke of luck that came just too late for the star of many ill-fortunes was that yesterday, before learning of his death his manager, Eric Glass, received a contract for another Sonnie Hale play, The Kensington Squares.
For months Sonnie Hale had fought a secret struggle against bad health. He was ill all through his week's pre-London run of The French Mistress at Southsea, but too game a trouper to miss a performance.
One of the few who shared his secret was Miss Felicity Bennett, the 29-year-old actress who called him "Pop" and had been his close friend since he parted from his third wife, the former Miss Mary Kelsey.
Since his removal to hospital last Thursday from his home at Battersea she had been the only visitor allowed to see him.
John Robert Hale Monro, to gave him his real name, grew up naturally in a world of grease-paint as the son of Robert Hale, the revue comedian, and brother of Binnie.
Like all the best musical stars he began in the chorus. The show was The Fun of the Fayre, the year 1921, and the theatre the London Pavilion, where he was later to join Jessie Matthews in those radiant Cochran revues.
In the gay jazzy days of short skirts, the Charleston, and Coward's latest hit song, the pair sang and danced into each other's hearts.
They met in This Year of Grace, while Sonnie was married to Evelyn Laye, and they wed in 1931 soon after the marriage was dissolved. Together they flourished through 13 years of fame, sealed by a series of Jessie Matthews's musical films directed by her husband, until they, too parted in the divorce court.
Reflecting on the failure of his third marriage -- this time to a non-actress -- the star who found harmony in the home so fickle, said: "I suppose the trouble with me is that I'm really wedded to the theatre."
He died as deeply in love with it as ever.
(Star 9/6/59)
By Don Cameron
On the eve of an opening night which he felt would carry him again to the heights, Sonnie Hale has died.
Sonnie, the beloved little man in the owl-like spectacles, Sonnie, the darling of the musical-comedy 30's, Sonnie, who with his wife Jessie Matthews, set the world singing A Room With A View, Over My Shoulder Goes One Care, a dozen other songs.
Four years ago he wrote a comedy called The French Mistress. It was to restore to him the glamour of those Cochran nights.
Last week it came to the West End. Its opening at the Adelphi, postponed by Sonnie's illness, has now been put off again.
He was a brave man. He tried to keep that illness as secret as he possibly could while he made his fight back to the West End after an absence of three years.
Nothing mattered except this return to the bright lights. Several months ago he began having blood transfusions, but a story was put out that he was suffering from a "septic throat".
His friends did not want this courageous little man to have to read his own obituary.
Mr. Jack Hylton had no idea that Sonnie was so ill when he agreed to stage him in the leading role of the headmaster in The French Mistress. Though they had been friends for years, Hale was too enthusiastic to say anything.
The play went on tour to Southsea. There, Sonnie wrenched a leg muscle while carrying a heavy suit case.
Doctors were called in. They spotted the real trouble -- a hopeless blood wasting disease.
With his leg bandaged, Sonnie insisted on going on stage throughout the week.
But with all that he had fought for so close at hand, he finally collapsed. His courage could drive him no further.
He was taken to his Battersea Park home and finally rushed to St George's Hospital, Balham. To the very last he was convinced that he would return to his great come-back role within a matter of days...
Me Hale, real name John Robert Hale Monro, was born 57 years ago. He was the son of comedian Robert Hale and brother of musical comedy star Binnie Hale.
Destined for Oxford, he rebelled at the last moment and went into revue as a chorus boy. The revue was one of C.B.Cochran's -- and within six years, Sonnie was a star.
What's more, he married the leading lady, Evelyn Laye. That was in 1926.
In 1929, divorce came, and he married in 1931 Jessie Matthews, the start of a relationship which led the couple to the very top.
They appeared in films, sometimes together, sometimes apart. A reviewer said of It's Love Again in 1936: "One of the best British musicals I have ever seen."
In 1937 they were invited to go to Hollywood together on a £50,000 a year basis. They turned down the offer, saying that it would throw too big a spanner into the domestic works.
In 1939 they returned to the stage in I Can Take It. In 1940, Sonnie was called up -- and the good days were nearly over.
Jessie and he were divorced in 1944 and a year later [sic] he married Mary Kelsey. This partnership ended with a judicial separation in 1957.
After the war Sonnie tried farming 100 acres in Cornwall [!?] but the stage, the old way of life, called him back.
He toured with ex-wife Jessie in a play called Nest of Robins. It was moderately successful, but a clash of temperaments made the show an unhappy one. Last November Catherine, the daughter he and Jessie had adopted after their only child died, married Italian Count Donald Grixoni in London.
Jessie was in Australia, running a drama school. Sonnie was in London -- but he didn't go to the wedding.
"I love Cathie," he said. "But I don't get on with the rest of my family. They don't agree with my mode of life."
It was a mode of life which drove him towards the West End. In his last 10 years he got there only once -- in a pantomime three years ago.
But there was The French Mistress. That was going to do the trick...
(E[vening] News 9/6/59)
SONNIE HALE, the star who enchanted London in the 'twenties and 'thirties in such shows as Cochran's "This Year of Grace" and "Evergreen", died in London today.
So ended the 57-year-old trouper's fight to make his West End comeback after an absence of three years.
He was taken to St. George's Hospital, Tooting, suffering from a virus infection of the throat last Thursday -- the day on which his own play "The French Mistress", of which he was one of the stars, should have opened at the Adelphi Theatre.
It was stated at the hospital to-day that his condition deteriorated rapidly during the night.
Jack Hylton, who is presenting the play, said to-day that tonight's public dress rehearsal of "The French Mistress" and tomorrow night's opening have been postponed.
Two days ago Sonnie asked that, if anything happened to him, the play should go on. But a statement from Mr. Hylton's office said he felt that, in respect to a great artist, he could not honour Sonnie's wish.
Richard Bird has taken over his part in the play and an announcement about the opening date will be made in a day or two.
Sonnie Hale's name will be always linked in public memory with the twenties, the Charleston age, and the sweet melting musicals of the time.
He was still irresistable as "Widow Twankey" in a pantomime in 1956.
Born in the purple of the theatre, John Robert Hale-Monro was from the day of his birth in 1902 destined for the stage on which he earned quick fame under the name of Sonnie Hale.
His father was Bobbie Hale, one of the great musical comedy comedians and his sister Binnie also became a star in her own right as soon as she left school.
Sonnie, after leaving Beaumont College, got a job as a chorus boy, but it was not long before his name was in lights.
His first big success was in "The Punch Bowl," one of the most memorable of all intimate revues. He was only 22, and looked much younger, with a cheeky, chubby charm, when he captivated the Town as he sang "Chili-Bom-Bom" with Hermione Baddeley.
But it was in the glamorous Cochran shows, "This Year of Grace", "Wake Up and Dream" and "Evergreen" that he really established himself. It was in these shows, too, that his romance with Jessie Matthews blossomed.
They were the twin stars of "This Year of Grace" and it was soon evident that their partnership was to be extended offstage.
Sonnie was married at the time to Evelyn Laye, while Jessie was the wife of Henry Lytton Junior, the son of Sir Henry Lytton, the great Savoyard. Both marriage were dissolved and Jessie became Mrs. Sonnie in 1931. Their marriage was dissolved in 1944 and both married again.
Sonnie's last marriage, to Mary Kelsey, of Ramsgate, was only made public 18 months after it had taken place. A son and a daughter were born. In January, 1957, Mrs. Hale-Monro sued for a judicial separation.
After Sonnie and Jessie had parted there were no hard feelings and when they appeared together for the first time in 13 years at a charity performance two years ago [sic], they sang their most famous duet "A Room With a View" and stopped the show just as they had done when they first sang it at the London Pavilion in the 1920s.
They were the most famous man-and-wife team of the 1930s, both on stage and films.
Much of their success was possibly due to the fact that their sentimental fans thought of them as the perfect lovers off-stage, too. But there was more than that to it.
For one thing Sonnie was the perfect stage technician, a fine producer, a good straight actor, a nimble dancer and an engaging clown. His personality was the ideal foil to Jessie's goo-goo eyes and high-kicking elegance.
But they belonged to their generation, the pre-war generation. When they tried to renew their stage partnership in Sonnie's play "Nest of Robins" two years ago, the experiment was not a happy one.
The boy-and-girl lovers had grown up... the old magic had vanished.
Tributes to Sonnie Hale were made today by theatre personalities.
Mr. W.Macqueen-Pope, the theatre historian and author, said: "Death has taken from the theatre someone who can ill be spared."
Mr. Tom Arnold, the theatrical manager: "He was in a number of my pantomimes and in my view was one of the great dames of the century."
"The Music Review", 1959
THE DEATH OF SONNIE HALE (John Robert Hale-Monro) on 9th June at the age of 57 has removed, amongst other things, a musician from the contemporary scene whose art I would gladly exchange for that of most of our "serious" performers. I use the word "contemporary" ideally rather than literally, for in Hale's heyday I was a small child, nowhere near England. And of late, as W. MacQueen-Pope wrote in The Daily Telegraph, "the West End ignored him, methods and tastes had changed". To me, however, the change of methods and tastes is of little interest, except where a bad method changes into a good one. Nor do I regard the merely fashionable as contemporary; the term should apply to all real art of our age--the one age for whose history mere chronology is of no significance whatever.
I heard and saw Sonnie Hale in a single production to which, however, I repeatedly returned. It was at the Golders Green Hippodrome a few years back. The show was George Gershwin's Lady be Good, a work of genius which at the moment is likewise ignored by the West End because "methods and tastes have changed". It will return, but Hale unfortunately won't. Outstanding as was the light-comedy aspect of his performance, what was really unique was his musical interpretation, his rich yet absolutely relevant imagination, his sense of rhythm, of phrasing and motivic characterization, of re-creative variation. Together with Donald Mitchell, I tried at the time to get this production into one of our major European Festivals. For a while matters seemed hopeful, but in the end we failed. The pang we may now feel at this failure ought to remind us that there are other great performances which one ought to make more generally accessible before it is too late: Julius Patzak's interpretation of the title role in Hans Pfitzner's Palestrina, for instance, or his overwhelming performance in Franz Schmidt's oratorio Das Buch mit dem sieben Siegeln. If any reader wonders why I throw Gershwin, Pfitzner and Schmidt, Sonnie Hale and Patzak under one hat, that is his--a snob's-- funeral. For myself, I can think of no better epitaph for Sonnie Hale than, mutatis mutrandis, Schönberg's for Gershwin.
"An artist is to me like an apple tree. When the time comes, whether it wants to or not, it bursts into bloom and starts to produce apples. And as an apple tree neither knows nor asks about the value experts of the market will attribute to its product, so a real composer does not ask whether his products will please the experts of serious arts. He only feels he has to say something and says it."[1]
[1] Merle Armitage, George Gershwin, New York, 1938
(record card, BFI)
| HALE, Sonnie | ||
| BORN:- May 1st 1902 | PLACE:- LONDON | |
| HAIR:- Dark | EYES:- Blue | HEIGHT:- 5ft 8 ins |
| REAL NAME:- | John Robert Hale-Monro | |
| MARRIED TO:- | Evelyn Laye, Div. Jan 1931 | |
| Jessie Matthews, Div. July 3rd 1944 | ||
| Mary Kelsey, March, 1945 | ||
| CHILDREN:- | 1 son, born December 20th 1934, died few hours after birth. | |
| Adopted baby girl in 1935 and named her Catherine. | ||
| 1 son, born 1946. |
Son of stage star Robert Hale and Belle Reynolds. Educated Beaumont College. Appeared in number of Cochran revues. Began screen career 1932. On London stage since 1921. Has produced and directed films.
-----------------
P.S. Mar 17/34 (Int)
Died in St George's Hospital June 6th, 1959
(Variety, Wednesday June 10, 1959)
OBITUARIES
Sonnie Hale, 57, British legit and film actor, author and director, died June 9 in London.
Details in the Legitimate section.
Charles Vidor, 56, a top Hollywood director, died June 4 in Vienna, just 100 miles from his birthplace of Budapest....[snip]
LEGITIMATE
London, June 9
With the death early today (Tues) of Sonnie Hale, the premiere of his new play, "The French Mistress," is tentatively set for later this week at the Adelphi Theatre.
Richard Bard [sic] will take over the male lead in the Jack Hulton [sic] production, in which Hale was to have costarred with Marje-Claire [sic] Verlene and Hugh Wakefield.
The comedy was previously slated to open last Thursday (4), but the preem was postponed when Hale was hospitalized wth a throat infection. Hylton acquired the show after its original tryout last April at Windsor, where Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret were enthusiastic members of the audience.
Hale, whose real name was John Robert Hale-Monro, wrote "Mistress" under the nom de plume of Robert Monro. He had also authored other legit scripts and collaborated on film scenarios. Born in 1902, the actor appeared in many plays and films, and also directed a number of pictures. He was successively married to Evelyn Laye, Jessie Matthews and Mary Kelsey.
