Since her parents were divorced when Gertie was very small, she was brought up by her mother. At ten she made her stage debut in London in a Christmas pantomime of "Babes in the Wood." In another children's play she met a lisping small boy named Noel Coward. In his autobiography, "Present Indicative," he has written: "She...gave me an orange and told me a few mildly dirty stories, and I loved her from then onwards."
There is nothing so grim and grimy as the British provincial theatre, and Gertrude Lawtence had nearly eight years of it, in her teens, before she had a London engagement. When she gotacall from the London revue producer, Andre Charlot, Gertie sneaked her clothes from the theatre where she was playing, borrowed the fare to London, and landed a three-year contract with Charlot starting at $16 a week. Shortly afterwards she married a showman named Francis Xavier Gordon Bowley who, as the justice remarked at the divorce proceedings several years later, seemed to have intended to spend the rest of his life living on her income.
In 1935 the luxurious House of Lawrence, assailed by two creditor laundry establishments, was forced into bankruptcy. In the London Bankruptcy Court Gertie cheerfully admitted "living beyond my means" and also mentioned illnesses, British and U. S. income taxes, gifts, publicity entertainment. She let it be known that she had earned £18.000 since early in 1932; that during one period she had got five times as much from admirers (£6,- 000) as she had earned (£1,300); that she had lost $75,000 worth of jewellery to the pawnshops; that her assets were about £1,900 and her liabilities £24,000. She was discharged with a judgment against her of £3,000, payable in weekly instalments. Her attorney declared that she had only her earning power left. She has never lost it since, and her current take of $4,000-$5,000 weekly from "Lady in the Dark" is one of the biggest on theatrical record.
As a prime mover in the American Theatre Wing of the British War Relief Society she has sewed clothing, organized parties and workshops, made speeches, helped move 54 children to the U. S. from the British Actors' orphanage. been mistress of ceremonies on recordings made by Broadway stars for the British forces. She is now raising funds for entertainment units to perform for the troops, and arranging for the nationwide sale of Lawrence-approved fashions, the proceeds to go to Britain. She has a contract option for a three-month vacation this summer, expects to spend it playing in thea-trials for English soldiers. The life she leads may well explain why she can eat anything she likes without losing her figure.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.