Beryl Ingham
Beryl Ingham (1901 – 24 December 1960) was the wife and manager of singer/actor George Formby, as well as being a variety performer and champion clogdancer.
She was born in Haslingden, Lancashire, the youngest daughter of John James Ingham and his wife Elizabeth Ann née Jackson. At the age of 11 she won the All England Step Dancing Title. Later she formed a dancing act with her sister May, they called themselves The Two Violets.[1]
It was in 1923 while they were appearing in music hall in Yorkshire that she met George Formby: They married in George's home town of Wigan, Lancashire the following year.[2] They worked together as a variety act until 1932 when she became his full-time manager and mentor.
In 1934, film producer John E. Blakeley who had admired their double act engaged them for a low-budget comic movie Boots! Boots!, where Beryl’s domineering manner on the set was noticed for the first time, especially by the teenage Betty Driver, with whom she feuded.[3] In later films, producer Basil Dean avoided visiting the studio during filming,[4][5] and director Monty Banks tried to get her banned from the set.[6][7] She made only two minor appearances in the Formby films.
Beryl was an exceptionally shrewd businesswoman, under whose management George became the UK's highest paid entertainer, at up to £35,000 per performance. (At the time of highest taxation, he was paying 97.5% of his additional earnings to tax.)[citation needed]
In 1946 the Formbys were on a tour of South Africa; despite threats from the National Party leader Daniel François Malan, George played to black audiences, and Beryl embraced a three-year-old black girl who had presented her with a box of chocolates. Malan had them thrown out of the country, and was reported to have told them "Never come back here again". Beryl replied "Why don't you piss off, you horrible little man?"[8] She continued to manage George's career until she contracted leukemia, and died on Christmas Eve 1960 in Blackpool. After her death, Formby publicly confessed that "My life with Beryl was hell".[9] He died three months after his wife.
Selected filmography
- Boots! Boots! (1934)
Notes
- ↑ Beryl Formby
- ↑ Lancashire BMD
- ↑ http://www.georgeformby.co.uk/news/betty_driver/bd.html
- ↑ Bret 1999, p. 49.
- ↑ Smart & Bothway Howard 2011, p. 108.
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