Queenie Williams
Queenie Williams | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Queenie Williams, from a 1910s publicity photograph | |
| Born | Alfreda Ina Williams November 17, 1896 Footscray, Victoria, Australia |
| Died | June 9, 1962 (aged 65) Los Angeles, California, US |
| Occupation(s) | Actress, singer, dancer |
Queenie Williams (November 17, 1896 – June 9, 1962), also billed as Little Queenie Williams and later as Ina Williams, was an Australian child actress, singer, comedian, and dancer.
Early life[edit]
Alfreda Ina Williams was born in Footscray, near Melbourne, in 1896, the daughter of Frank Williams and Annie Armstrong Williams.[1][2] She trained as a dancer with Mrs. William Green and Florrie Green in Melbourne.[3]
Career[edit]
Williams appeared in The Fatal Wedding (1906), touring Australia and New Zealand with the Meynell & Gunn show. She also performed in Meynell & Gunn's The Rake's Wife (1906–1907), The Grey Kimona (1907), The Little Breadwinner (1908), and The Old Folks at Home (1909), as well as revivals of The Fatal Wedding.[1][4]
Beginning in 1912,[5] she toured with Pollard's Juvenile Opera Company[6][7] in the United States and Canada in the years before and during World War I.[8][9][10] She also became a solo act with a short musical comedy sketch called "Married via Wireless".[11][12] She was noted for her slight stature and skills as a dancer;[13] her singing voice was "of ample range, adequate volume and quality that is tenderly sympathetic."[14] In 1914 she joined other actresses "who have agreed never to wear a bird's body or wing on their hats or to wear animal skins as furs."[15]
After the war, as a young woman, she used the name "Ina Williams" on the vaudeville stage in the North America.[16] Some of her other partners in vaudeville acts were Hal Skelly,[17] Teddy MacNamara (in "The Guide of Monte Carlo"),[18][19] Dick Keene,[20] Johnny Dooley, and Jere Delaney. She retired from the stage in 1932.[1]
Personal life[edit]
Queenie Williams married theatrical manager Ernest Chester in 1914. They were separated by the end of 1919. She married again in 1923, to engineer Charles Stecher. They had a daughter and lived in New Jersey.[17] Ina "Queenie" Williams died in 1962, in Los Angeles, aged 65 years.[1]
References[edit]
- ^ a b c d Pursuit, Heathcote (8 April 2020). "Queenie Williams (1896-1962) & the last Pollard's tour of America". Forgotten Australian Actors. Retrieved 12 March 2022.
- ^ Bush-Bailey, Gilli; Flaherty, Kate (30 December 2021). Touring Performance and Global Exchange 1850-1960: Making Tracks. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-50936-6.
- ^ "Little Miss Queenie Williams". Punch. 26 April 1906. p. 22. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Trove.
- ^ "The Little Cherubim: Queenie Williams as She Is". Evening Telegraph. 29 May 1908. p. 4. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Trove.
- ^ "Stage Screen: Queenie Williams, from Tin Can Band to £100 a Week". Herald. 26 August 1922. p. 15. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Trove.
- ^ "Pollards Score in 'Mikado'". Honolulu Star-Bulletin. 6 August 1912. p. 5. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Pollards Again Tonight". The Chico Enterprise. 24 January 1916. p. 6. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Two Favorites Revisit Pantages This Monday". Calgary Herald. 5 September 1914. p. 7. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Queenie Williams Who Comes with Pollard co. to the Empress". The Sacramento Star. 2 October 1915. p. 2. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Pollard Comedy Company at Gardella Theater Tonight". Oroville Daily Register. 25 January 1916. p. 6. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Rapid-Fire Vaudeville on Orpheum Stage". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 4 February 1919. p. 4. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Queenie Williams". Variety. 51: 8. 7 June 1918 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ "Vaudeville at Colonial". The Akron Beacon Journal. 7 May 1919. p. 11. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Mite of Femininity to Make Debut Here". The Pittsburgh Press. 2 December 1917. p. 56. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Queenie Williams Has Ideas of Her Own". Calgary Herald. 10 September 1914. p. 12. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Sterling Show at Orpheum". The Vancouver Sun. 21 February 1922. p. 14. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b "Ina Williams, Vaudevil Star, Cast as Avon Housewife--She Loves It". Asbury Park Press. 24 January 1943. p. 3. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Next Week at Pantages Theatre". Calgary Herald. 4 September 1914. p. 13. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Queenie Williams at the Opera House Saturday and Sunday". Bakersfield Morning Echo. 20 April 1916. p. 3. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "The Call Boy's Chat". The Philadelphia Inquirer. 4 September 1932. p. 52. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.