Violet Loraine


Violet Loraine was an English musical theatre actress and singer.

Early life

She was born Violet Mary Tipton in Kentish Town, London, in 1886 and went on the stage as a chorus girl at the age of sixteen.

Musical revue

Her rise to fame came in April 1916 at the Alhambra Theatre in the musical/revue The Bing Boys Are Here. She was given the leading female part, Emma, opposite George Robey playing Lucius Bing. It became one of the most popular musicals of the World War I era.

Recording and film

Her duet with Robey "If You Were the Only Girl " became a "signature song" of the era and endured as a pop standard.
She retired from the stage on her marriage on 22 September 1921 to Edward Raylton Joicey MC and they had two sons, John and Richard. She returned to acting for the screen, appearing in Britannia of Billingsgate, a musical based on the play of the same name by Christine Jope-Slade and Sewell Stokes, followed by Road House in 1934.

Personal life

Violet Mary Joicey died in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1956. Her brother was Ernest Sefton, also an actor.

Legacy

Research by the Kipling Society suggests that she was the thinly disguised music-hall singer upon whom Kipling modelled his character of "Vidal Benzaguen" in the humorous story "The Village That Voted The Earth Was Flat".

Selected filmography