The Chorus Girl

The most popular theatrical form in the golden age of English theatre was that of the musical comedy, and no musical comedy of that era (or any since) was complete without it's chorus line of famed beauties. It was the musical comedies of the Edwardian era that set the pattern of the chorus line as it is still recognised today, that of a group of beautiful young women who can not only fill out the stage but fill out the action with their singing and dancing.

The Birth of Musical Comedy

The godfather of musical company on both sides of the Atlantic was the great impressario George Edwardes. Whilst he did not invent the genre, he certainly perfected it, and it was under his influence that it acheived its final form. The popularity of Edwardes particular style of musical comedy depended largely upon a gorgeously attired line of beautiful chorus girls.

The foundations were laid with a show entitled "In Town" (by Ross, Tanner and Osmond) which opened at the Prince of Wales theatre on 15th August, 1892, later transferring to the Gaiety theatre. This is generally considered to have been the first musical comedy, but it was it's successor, "A Gaiety Girl" (by Hall, Greenbank and Jones) that defined the format for a the string of similar and highly successful shows that followed, mostly with the word 'Girl' in the title.

'A Gaiety Girl' opened at the Price of Wales theatre on 14th October 1893, later transferring to Daly's Theatre, and ran for 413 performances (placing it in the top twenty of long running shows in London up until that time). The show's opening cast starred Hayden Coffin, Louie Pounds, Decima Moore and a bevy of beautiful chorus girls appearing onstage in bathing attire and in the latest fashions.

These latter were very different from those that had been seen previously in other types of productions. Unlike the raucous and corseted girls of the burlesque chorus lines, the girls of George Edwardes chorus lines were beautiful and fashionable young ladies, graceful in movement and elegant in appearance. Dancing was a special feature of their performance, as were their costumes, designed by many of the best known London couturiers.

The Gaiety Girls

Edwardes established the Gaiety Theatre in the Strand as the spiritual home of musical comedy and his troop of 'Gaiety Girls' soon earned international reknown, the creme-de-la-creme of chorus lines, setting the pattern that all others would try to copy.

Edwardes expected his girls to be demure and well-behaved, so as not to put his theatre into disrepute. They became the physical embodiment of the Gibson Girl, a idealised vision of womanhood and femininity. Consequently, they were greatly sought after by young men of breeding who became the "stage-door johnnies" of the 1890's.

In the company of their ardent young admirers, the Gaiety Girls were seen dining at all the best restaurants, and attending all the most prestigious society soirees, living a lifestyle well beyond their own modest means. Many of them married into society, even the nobility, and quit the profession to settle down into affluent family life. Indeed, so often did this happen, that before long the Gaiety was becoming a matrimonial agency for girls with ambitions to marry into wealth and position. Even society debutantes were vying with other girls to get into his chorus line in the hope of finding a suitable match.

Eventually, losing performers at short notice became a serious problem for Edwardes. During the run of 'The Quaker Girl' alone, no less than eighteen members of the company left to get married. Consequently, he was obliged to have written into their contracts an anti-nuptial clause, forbidding them from getting married during the course of their theatrical engagements.

Types of Chorus Girls

Chorus girls, not only at the Gaiety but at all the London theatres, generally fell into one of four types, which could be broadly summarised as the born trooper (the girl who took to the stage from the sheer love of acting), the matrimonial fisherwoman (who saw the stage as route to snaring a rich husband), the runaway (the girl who ran away from home imagining she was doing something exciting and romantic) and the society girl (the girl of rich parentage who took up stage work as a lark).

The first group were the real chorus girls, the mainstay of the stage manager's hope, because whatever success his production attained was gained through the hard work of these serious young women who would accept every task cheerfully and always strive to improve. Not for them the late suppers, but work, work, work, showing their worth until the day came that they were entrusted with principal parts and their journey as an actress really began.

The second group were the 'show girls', who, despite earning no more than the former group, lived a much more extravagant lifestyle, dining at the best restaurants and attending the top social occasions. They lived for the glamour, and consequently seldom amounted to much in a histrionic sense. They were always too busy looking for 'Johnnies' and spending late nights being wined and dined to pay proper heed to their stage work. Unless they did capture a rich husband they would drift until the best they could do was to carry on a fruitless career in a cheap burlesque.

The third group by and large were hopelessly naive. Theirs was perhaps the hardest journey of all and unless they toughened up to align themselves with one of the former two groups they were unlikely to last long in the bright lights of London.

The fourth group, for the manager, were the hardest to handle. Whilst they generally would have had talent they were often petulant and unaccustomed to following orders. And, since they did not need the money, the manager had few sanctions to keep them in line. But they were the darlings of the newspapers, and might be tolerated purely because of their publicity value.

The Life of a Chorus Girl

The boom in musical comedy beginning in the early 1890's led to a great increase in demand for pretty girls to fill up the chorus lines. For a time, the demand was so much greater than the supply that almost any girl with an attractive figure could find profitable work whenever she wanted it. If she had a pretty face as well she might command a place in the front row. She must be able to dance, and to sing well was an advantage but not essential - managers were often willing to engage a young girl for her beauty alone, and hope that the audience in looking at her would overlook that she could not sing. If too many were of the same disposition, the manager might simply hire a group of choristers to provide the vocals from behind the stage.

The shortage of supply of suitable applicants did not last long however. Stories circulated in the press of a glamourous lifestyle and of favourable marriages to members of the aristocracy, brought hopeful young aspirants flocking to London from all over the country. They came with a few clothes, a few shillings, and a pretty figure or voice, and trusted to finding a place among the hundreds of young women employed each season in the chorus of an operetta, ballet or musical comedy. But if they came expecting a life of ease of indolence, for the vast majority of them at least, a rude awakening would be swiftly in store.

The pay being offered for chorus girls fell as the competition for places increased, since managers could then pick and choose and could get all the girls they needed at the meagrest of wages. Soon, only the prettiest and most talented could find regular work at all, and then it was a life of hard work and plenty of it. For most of those who persevered it would be not so much a life as an existence, a daily hand-to-mouth struggle to get by. Besides the necesseties of food and lodging, they had the additional burden of maintaining a wardrobe, since they must dress well in order to find work. And though their pay was little enough to get by on when they were in work, still they must put enough by to live on between engagements.

Even when they had secured an engagement, their pay would not begin until the show opened to the public, and there may be as many as six or more weeks of rehearsals before then. Between engagements, some might be lucky enough to earn a few extra shillings posing for photographic portraits to help them get by. For others it was no uncommon thing to pawn their few possessions, everything except their clothes, in order to pay for food and lodging.

And the work itself was nothing less than an unceasing round of hard labour. In the early days, a chorus girl might have had little more to do than wear a pair of tights, make the occasional grand gesture, and march around the stage, often miming to the voices of a hidden choir. But within a short period of time it all became very different. In any given production it would be the chorus girl who did three-quarters of all the labor, whilst the named actors and actresses garnered nine tenths of all the money.

Besides being pretty, the chorus girl had to be able to dance, sing, and act, as well as having unlimited energy. One girl might commonly make five or six changes of costume in an evening, and figure in ten or a dozen numbers in which she did more work than the man or woman who had the song, and all the time she must look happy. And when it came to costumes, she had to provide all her own tights and dancing shoes out of her own slender stipend - unlike the high-priced principals, whose costumes were furnished to the last detail by the management.

Their greatest enemy was aging. It was a young woman's profession and as they grew older, if they did not marry advantageously or make the grade as a fully fledged actress, work would become increasingly more difficult to come by as younger girls came along to replace them. Then they must look to some other means of earning a crust. Even then, some could not tear themselves away from the stage completely, becoming dressers to the stars or seamstresses in the costume department. Either way, it was an end to their dreams of fame and an easy life.

Despite these hardships, the fascination of stage life, and the difficulty of obtaining and settling down into a regular situation after appearing before the footlights, were, perhaps, two of the main reasons why the girl who had once been in the chorus was reluctant to try any other occupation. And there were instances where chorus girls did indeed become famous, either because they succeeded in their dream of becoming a brilliant access (like Gertie Millar) or because they snared a rich and influential husband (like Rosie Boote who became the Marchioness of Headfort).

Reproduced below is an account from a contemporary periodical of the life of a chorus girl.

The Washington Post, 5th July, 1914.
Chorus Girl's Rosy Revels a Fiction Masking Hard Work and Real Merit
Popular Fancy Paints Her Idling in a World of Wine and Diamonds.
Cold Reality Often Is That She Dines at Home on Tripe and Has to Skimp Mightily on $10 a Week.

London, July 4 - She is not as bad as she is painted — badly painted, too, at times. It is considered smart to hurl abuse and contumely at captivating chorus girls and all their works; but, in many cases, the mudslingers and abuse distributers who busy themselves over this charitable work would be all the better for a little whitewash, personally applied.

Targets for Censure

Though most chorus girls are daughters of country clergymen, solicitors no longer to be found on the rolls, and impecunious peers, they are considered a fit target for indiscriminate condemnation. Although their fascinating features adorn the high art pages of illustrated weeklies, and they infuse fresh life into the peerage whenever a titled gentleman escorts them to the nearest registrar's, they are censured ruthlessly. The chorus girl is a bundle of vanity, vapidity, and viciousness, according to the energetic marksmen who aim at her — and miss more often than they hit.

Champagne for Breakfast

She is a brainless Jezebel, in Parisian garments; a siren, ready to lure the innocent male to destruction. She lives on diamonds and sable furs, so rumor insists. Champagne is her only drink, for breakfast and onwards. Cigarettes she consumes by the hundred; her language rivals that of a full-fledged Billingsgate porter, and she is never seen without silk stockings, even in a Turkish bath.

Boors of Idleness She spends her days lolling on a vieux-rose sofa, surrounded by masses of stephanotis, orchids, and carnations. Having thus idled the day away — varied by a swift dash round Bond street and Piccadilly in a luxurious limousine — she drifts to the theater. There she paints, or repaints, ber face, arms, neck, and finger tips, changes her own silk stockings for a pair provided by the management, and saunters down to the footlights, wearing a terribly smart gown, which is just visible from the third row of the stalls. with the help of a telescope.

With Algy to Supper

As she appears Algy or Dicky sits up hurriedly in his stall; battles with his eyeglass; murmurs "Dear little Flossie looks topping tonight, eh, what?" and life, for him, ceases to be a beastly blank! When she has reappeared, slightly bored, in half a dozen dresses, and the heroine has told the hero she always loved him, and permitted him to kiss her back hair, supper looms large on the horizon. Algy — it is generally Algy — honors the stage door with his presence, and the doorkeeper with half a crown. At last "she" descends, wearing a fresh set of rouge, powder, and aigrets, and off they go!

Relatives Look Askance

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the generally accepted idea of a chorus girl. Few of us are sufficiently fortunate to include a real live chorus girl among our household possessions, worse luck. It is always some other chap who is able, quite carelessly, to mention "my sister Dolly at the Farcity — In the chorus, don't you, know!" If, by some unexpected stroke of luck, a remote cousin is discovered in Chorusland, it is thought unwise to ask her to luncheon or tea — she might not wear the same colored hair as that which decorated her head during Aunt Matilda's last visit; and, besides, she might not exactly hit it off with Uncle James. Frankly, she is at her best when seen, like the promised land In the Bible, from afar.

As They Really Are

But Chorusland, between ourselves, is rather different from the vieux-rose-caviare-champagne and diamond-filled country of our imagination. Chorus girls are not always made-up. Sometimes they look remarkably like one's own sisters — surprising isn't it? Occasionally they are really clever, ambitious girls, without money or influence; drawn inexplicably, by the glare of the footlights, and striving to fight their way up the ladder by the quickest, easiest method. They do not always sup at the Savoy, or buy their clothes in Bond street. They cannot afford silk stockings in private life. In fact, for most of them; existence is rather a struggle on £2 a week. Managers have a charming habit of expecting their chorus girls to look smart; and is not too easy to look smart on the remnants of £2 weekly, after board, lodgings, and fares have been paid.

Eat tripe at Home

Many chorus girls live at home in Brixton or Balham, and are quite content to trot back and join ma or pa over, a dish of tripe and onions, though last night they were eating oysters in London's smartest restaurant, with a youthful lordling as their vis-a-vis. Their life is a series of sharp contrasts. From squalid homes — or lodgings — they go to the glare of the theater, the dazzling luxury of vast hotels — and back to the squalor without a single qualm.

Ambitious to Rise

Sometimes these golden-haired sirens of Chorusland are genuinely keen to succeed in their chosen profession. Coming to the theater early or staying late, they practice assiduously, battling with silly songs and delirious dances while the rest of their world takes a rest. Their inspiration is the hope that one day Miss Pearl Venus, leading lady in their particular show, may be seriously indisposed, and a chance arrive in consequence. Chances are few and far between in Chorusland. Gifts from a brighter sphere, they are sent to be seized with no uncertain grasp. For their flight is meteorlike and in the limelight competition is terrible in its ruthless intensity, especially among chorus girls.

Crude, but Kind

And her morals are not always above reproach; but they must live — and life is hard on £2 a week in Theaterland. Their language is crude, but their hearts are kind, and to companions in distress they are the truest friends in the world. Strong, healthy, hopeful, they race up and down many flights of stone stairs, singing, night after night. To them life is for the moment only, and the glare of the limelight is terribly fierce. It sears their souls, sometimes; but they smile, till they drop. Old age is their bitterest enemy; drawing closer every day, inevitably, inexorably. But the dwellers in Chorusland fight it gamely, with laughter on their carmined lips, and terror hidden in their sparkling eyes. Such is the captivating, much-condemned chorus girl — behind her mask!

MARGARET CHUTE.