Джесси Мэттьюс: Англиялық актриса, әнші және биші (1907-1981)

English actress (1907–1981)

Jessie Margaret Matthews (11 March 1907 – 19 August 1981) was an English actress, dancer and singer of the 1920s and 1930s, whose career continued into the post war period. After a string of hit stage musicals and films in the mid 1930s, such as Evergreen, Matthews developed a following in the USA, where she was dubbed "The Dancing Divinity". Her British studio was reluctant to let go of its biggest name, however, which resulted in offers for her to work in Hollywood being repeatedly rejected. After the decline of her film career, Matthews achieved a comeback in her native Britain when she took over the role of Mary Dale in the popular BBC Radio serial The Dales (previously known as Mrs Dale's Diary).

Jessie Margaret Matthews was born on 11 March 1907 to Jane Matthews (née Townshend) in a flat above a butcher's shop at 94 Berwick Street, Soho, London, in relative poverty, the seventh of sixteen children (of whom eleven survived). Jessie's father, George Ernest Matthews, was a fruit and vegetable seller. Shortly after her birth, the family moved around the corner to 5 Livonia Street. Aged five, the family again moved, this time to 11 Carlos Street, Camden Town, where she attended St Matthew's School. In 1915, Matthews and her family returned to live in Soho, at 9 William and Mary Yard, a flat above stables, which was at the top of Great Windmill Street; the buildings were later demolished. She then attended Pulteney Street London County Council School for Girls. She first went on stage on 29 December 1919, aged 12, in Bluebell in Fairyland, by Seymour Hicks, with music by Walter Slaughter and lyrics by Charles Taylor, at The Metropolitan Music Hall, Edgware Road, London, as a child dancer. She made her cinema debut in 1923 in the silent film The Beloved Vagabond. She went with the show to New York, where she was also understudy to the star, Gertrude Lawrence. The show moved to Toronto, and when Lawrence fell ill, Matthews took over the role, and received glowing reviews.

Matthews first achieved star status in The Charlot Show of 1926, a show which saw her dance in ballet with Anton Dolin, and in musical comedy with Henry Lytton Junior. Matthews and Lytton married the same year, but they were divorced after only a few years. During this period, she was given a £25,000 contract with Cochran, equivalent to over £1m in 2022. She made her debut as a leading lady on Broadway in The Charlot Show of 1927, a production coupled with Earl Carroll's Vanities. was the most expensive musical ever mounted on a British stage. The show saw Matthews introduce another Rodgers and Hart standard, "Dancing on the Ceiling".

Matthews' first major film role was in the musical Out of the Blue (1931), but it was a commercial failure. However, the following year, she starred in There Goes the Bride, directed by Albert de Courville, which was a success. This was followed by The Man from Toronto, released the same year, and another film for de Courville, The Midshipmaid. This was followed by First a Girl (1935), in which she appears as a cross dresser, and then It's Love Again (1936), where she had an American co star, Robert Young. Exhibitors voted her the sixth biggest star in the country that year. Matthews then began to appear in films directed by husband: Gangway (1937), Head over Heels (1937) and Sailing Along (1938). Following the end of Hale's contract with Gaumont British, she starred in her last film for the studio, Climbing High (1938) directed by Carol Reed. In 1938, she was the fourth biggest British star at the box office. Matthews and Hale returned to the stage in 1939 in their own musical production, I Can Take It, which had a successful provincial tour. It was due to open at the London Coliseum on 12 September, but the outbreak of the war on 3 September meant the show was cancelled. She directed and featured in the short film, Victory Wedding (1944), starring John Mills and Dulcie Gray. During the war, she entertained troops in Continental Europe as a member of ENSA. She appeared in variety tours, and returned to musical theatre in Maid to Measure, which began touring in 1947 before coming to the Cambridge Theatre in London's West End. However, it closed after only four and a half weeks. Matthews began to venture into straight theatre, and appeared in a two week run of Terence Rattigan's Playbill at the King's Theatre in Hammersmith in 1949. This was a double bill in which she took parts in Harlequinade and The Browning Version. Matthews then starred in the revue Sauce Tartare at the Cambridge Theatre, which ran for several months and would prove to be her last West End role until 1966. In 1950, she undertook a tour of Britain playing Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion. Matthews returned to live in the UK in 1960.

Matthews was awarded an OBE in 1970. Her final appearance in a stage musical was playing Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby in The Water Babies (1973), an adaptation of the Charles Kingsley children's novel The Water Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby. The same year, she returned to the theatre in Lady Windermere's Fan. individual when her love letters to Hale were used as evidence in the case of his divorce from his wife, actress/singer Evelyn 'Boo' Laye. Hale and Matthews were married on 24 January 1931 at Hampstead Register Office, and they lived in The Old House, a farmhouse in Hampton, Middlesex. During the filming of Evergreen, she suffered the first of her nervous breakdowns. With Hale she had one adopted daughter, Catherine Hale Monro, who married Count Donald Grixoni on 15 November 1958; they eventually divorced, but she remained known as Catherine, Countess Grixoni. Matthews latterly lived in Hatch End, north west London. She died of cancer, aged 74, on 19 August 1981.

A posthumous documentary on Matthews, Catch A Fallen Star, part of the BBC's 40 Minutes strand, was broadcast in 1987. A memorial plaque above the venue for her childhood dance classes, 22 Berwick Street, Soho, was unveiled on 3 May 1995 by Andrew Lloyd Webber and stage actress Ruthie Henshall.

Matthews' 12 starring films from There Goes the Bride to Sailing Along have been released on DVD in the UK by Network. The same films, except for Waltzes from Vienna and Evergreen, have also been released on DVD in the US by VCI Entertainment In France, Waltzes from Vienna has been released on DVD under its local title, Le Chant du Danube by Universal, who paired it with another Hitchcock directed film, Downhill (1927). Climbing High has also been released on French DVD by Elephant Films, as La Grande escalade. Three of the four remaining films Matthews made after the end of her leading lady period (Forever and a Day, Tom Thumb and The Hound of the Baskervilles) have been released on DVD in various countries.