Winnie Melville

Winifred Camilla Oldham, Challis, professionally known as Winnie Melville (1895 – 19 September 1937) was an English actress and singer. After an early career as a concert singer she moved into musical comedy, revue and operetta, with a brief spell in Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. She married the tenor Derek Oldham with whom she performed frequently between 1922 and 1932, but their marriage ended in separation in 1933. Among the musicals and operettas in which she starred were Whirled into Happiness, The Student Prince (1926), Princess Charming (1926) and The Vagabond King (1927).

After the break with Oldham, Melville's career halted, and she died in reduced circumstances in 1937 at the age of 42.

Life and career

Early years Winifred Camilla Challis She made her theatrical début in the show in December 1916 – under the stage name Winnie Melville – at the Comedy Theatre, London, in a cast headed by Jack Hulbert and Ruby Miller, with Phyllis Monkman.

Charlot re-engaged her for his next show, Bubbles, the following year. She then appeared in Paris in Albert de Courville's revue Zig-Zag at the . Still with de Courville, she appeared in his 1920 show Jig-Saw, with the Dolly Sisters and Laddie Cliff, winning praise for her dancing.

After touring in Sybil, a musical comedy by Harry Graham and Victor Jacobi, she returned to London, appearing at His Majesty's in Cairo by Oscar Asche and Percy Fletcher, and in August 1922 at the Lyric she took over the lead of Whirled into Happiness, a "musical farce" by Graham, Robert Stolz and Robert Bodanzky. The male lead was played by Derek Oldham, who had joined the production after three years as the principal tenor of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. Melville and Oldham were married at St Margaret's, Westminster on 9 August 1923, after which she retired from the stage for three years.

Return to the stage Melville returned to the stage in 1926 as Kathie in the operetta The Student Prince at His Majesty's. The Manchester Evening News called her:

But the producers decided after three months that Evelyn Laye would be a greater draw to the theatregoing public. It was put about – falsely, according to Melville – that she was going on holiday with Oldham as his engagement in Rose-Marie had just finished. The producers were contractually obliged to keep paying her salary for the duration of the run, but she found the professional slight hurtful.

In April 1927 Melville starred as Katherine de Vaucelles in another operetta, The Vagabond King, opposite Oldham in the role of François Villon at the Winter Garden Theatre. The Era said of their performances, "Mr Derek Oldham gave an engaging performance as François Villon .... Miss Winnie Melville was delightful, vocally and in character, as Katherine. The singing of these two, solo and duo, was greatly enjoyed". The production ran in the West End for 480 performances. In 1928 the couple appeared in music hall in songs and duets at the London Coliseum. Their last musical comedy together was Winona (1929), which had what was intended to be a pre-London tour but did not make it into the West End. The show, produced by Russell Janney, was called The White Eagle on Broadway, but the composer, Rudolf Friml, was so taken with Melville's performance in the initial auditions that he wrote a new song, "Winona", for her and the show was retitled.

When the D'Oyly Carte company played a 22-week London season at the Savoy Theatre from October 1929 to March 1930 Oldham rejoined for the season. Melville joined him, playing six of the principal soprano roles. Her notices were excellent: The Times said of her in The Mikado, "Miss Winnie Melville has the very part for her arch graces in Yum-Yum and sings "The Sun and I" with dainty charm", and The Daily Telegraph said that as Elsie in The Yeomen of the Guard she "looked extremely pretty ... her voice has so much of freshness and charm". Nonetheless, a historian of the D'Oyly Carte Company suggests that Gilbert and Sullivan was not her ideal milieu and she felt somewhat out of her element. Oldham rejoined the company in 1935–1937, but Melville never returned.

Last years Melville and Oldham toured in a short operetta, For Ever After, as part of a music hall programme, and sang together in other music hall programmes and in ad hoc concerts. They were still performing together in early 1932, but in that year the couple split up. A counter-suit by Melville went unheard because, against legal advice, she absented herself before the trial to take up an offer from Janney to star in New York.

After four years with little work Melville was bankrupt and dependent on aid from the Actors' Benevolent Fund. She made two attempted come-backs in Worthing, and was planning further attempts until the day of her death. In mid-1937 she had a fall in Ramsgate and had to be taken to hospital. She returned to her London home in Paddington where she remained unwell. She died in the nearby St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, on 19 September 1937 aged 42. An inquest found that she died from a sub-dural haemorrhage caused by a fall, exacerbated by cirrhosis of the liver due to alcoholism.

Notes, references and sources