'Monsewer' Eddie Gray

Edward Earl Gray (10 June 1898 – 15 September 1969), who performed as Monsewer' Eddie Gray, was an English stage comedian. He appeared in music halls as a solo act and also as a member of the Crazy Gang.

Gray was apprenticed to a juggler at the age of nine and became a technically proficient straight juggler. He gradually introduced a wry humour into his act, and was invited to appear with the comic double act Nervo and Knox in 1919. The three performers formed the original basis of the group of seven comedians who became famous under the collective name the Crazy Gang in the 1930s.

When the Crazy Gang re-formed after the Second World War, Gray did not rejoin them. He pursued a solo career until 1956 when he once more became a regular member of the group for their last three shows, ending in 1962. After the disbanding of the Crazy Gang, Gray continued to work. Among his later appearances was that in the London production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in 1962.

Life and career

Juggler Gray was born in Pimlico, London, one of nine children of Edward Earl Gray, a shopkeeper, and his wife, Rebecca, née Daniels. Gray and his brother Danny were apprenticed to a juggling troupe when Gray was nine years old. His son, yet another Edward, was for many years the manager of the Coburg Hotel in Bayswater. As a juggler he toured Europe, the US, and Asia. At first he performed as a straight, and highly skilled, juggler, but he gradually introduced into his act the deadpan humour for which he became known. In 1931 he married Marie Cecilia Loftus (d. 1994), a variety performer known professionally as Patti Loftus, one of the "Loftus Sisters". The show was a success, and further Crazy Weeks and Crazy Months followed. Flanagan and Allen joined the team in 1932, and the following year all seven members of the group appeared in the Royal Variety Performance in a bill that included Burns and Allen, Wilson, Keppel and Betty, Evelyn Laye and Billy Bennett.

From 1937 the company was billed as the Crazy Gang. Their Palladium shows in the 1930s were All Alight at Oxford Circus (1936), O-Kay for Sound (1936), London Rhapsody (1937), These Foolish Things (1938), and The Little Dog Laughed (1939). His stage costume included a pair of metal-rimmed glasses and a looped moustache below a large nose that grew increasingly red over the years.

All the acts in the Crazy Gang maintained their separate careers between their joint shows at the Palladium. and in pantomime with such stars as Florrie Forde. Of his performance in Puss in Boots in 1936, The Manchester Guardian said, "Monsewer Eddie Gray, quite arbitrary and quite irresistible ... The Monsewer's nose blazes more than ever, and his linguistic virtuosity now includes two words of German."

During the Second World War the Crazy Gang went their separate ways. They re-formed in 1947, but without Chesney Allen, who had retired from regular performing because of poor health, and without Gray, who continued his solo career. Arthur Askey, and Jimmy Edwards. He briefly rejoined the Crazy Gang for the 1948 Royal Variety Performance in which they co-starred with Gracie Fields and Laurel and Hardy.

Gray returned to the Crazy Gang as a regular member in 1956. He was in the group's last three shows, These Foolish Kings (1956), Clown Jewels (1959) and Young in Heart, which, in Goldie's words, "ran for 826 twice-nightly performances from December 1960 until an emotional farewell on 19 May 1962".

Gray never retired. He made his last stage appearance in September 1969, in an impromptu guest appearance in Elsie and Doris Waters' show at the Royal Hippodrome Theatre. He died three days later, on 15 September 1969, at Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex, at the age of 71.

Partial filmography First a Girl (1935) - Goose Trainer Skylarks (1936) - Monsewer Eddie Gray Keep Smiling (1938) - Silvo Don Chicago (1945) - Police Constable Gray Life Is a Circus (1960) - Eddie The Fast Lady (1962) - 2nd Golfer