Queenie Williams (November 17, 1896 – June 9, 1962), also billed as Little Queenie Williams and later as Ina Williams, was an Australian child actress, singer, comedian, and dancer.
Queenie Williams | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Queenie Williams, from a 1910s publicity photograph | |
| Born | Alfreda Ina Williams November 17, 1896 Footscray, Victoria, Australia |
| Died | June 9, 1962 (aged 65) Los Angeles, California, US |
| Occupation(s) | Actress, singer, dancer |
Early life edit
Alfreda Ina Williams was born in Footscray, near Melbourne, in 1896, the daughter of Frank Williams and Annie Armstrong Williams.[1][2] She trained as a dancer with Mrs. William Green and Florrie Green in Melbourne.[3]
Career edit
Williams appeared in The Fatal Wedding (1906), touring Australia and New Zealand with the Meynell & Gunn show. She also performed in Meynell & Gunn's The Rake's Wife (1906–1907), The Grey Kimona (1907), The Little Breadwinner (1908), and The Old Folks at Home (1909), as well as revivals of The Fatal Wedding.[1][4]
Beginning in 1912,[5] she toured with Pollard's Juvenile Opera Company[6][7] in the United States and Canada in the years before and during World War I.[8][9][10] She also became a solo act with a short musical comedy sketch called "Married via Wireless".[11][12] She was noted for her slight stature and skills as a dancer;[13] her singing voice was "of ample range, adequate volume and quality that is tenderly sympathetic."[14] In 1914 she joined other actresses "who have agreed never to wear a bird's body or wing on their hats or to wear animal skins as furs."[15]
After the war, as a young woman, she used the name "Ina Williams" on the vaudeville stage in the North America.[16] Some of her other partners in vaudeville acts were Hal Skelly,[17] Teddy MacNamara (in "The Guide of Monte Carlo"),[18][19] Dick Keene,[20] Johnny Dooley, and Jere Delaney. She retired from the stage in 1932.[1]
Personal life edit
Queenie Williams married theatrical manager Ernest Chester in 1914. They were separated by the end of 1919. She married again in 1923, to engineer Charles Stecher. They had a daughter and lived in New Jersey.[17] Ina "Queenie" Williams died in 1962, in Los Angeles, aged 65 years.[1]
References edit
- ^ a b c d Pursuit, Heathcote (8 April 2020). "Queenie Williams (1896-1962) & the last Pollard's tour of America". Forgotten Australian Actors. Retrieved 12 March 2022.
- ^ Bush-Bailey, Gilli; Flaherty, Kate (30 December 2021). Touring Performance and Global Exchange 1850-1960: Making Tracks. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-50936-6.
- ^ "Little Miss Queenie Williams". Punch. 26 April 1906. p. 22. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Trove.
- ^ "The Little Cherubim: Queenie Williams as She Is". Evening Telegraph. 29 May 1908. p. 4. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Trove.
- ^ "Stage Screen: Queenie Williams, from Tin Can Band to £100 a Week". Herald. 26 August 1922. p. 15. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Trove.
- ^ "Pollards Score in 'Mikado'". Honolulu Star-Bulletin. 6 August 1912. p. 5. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Pollards Again Tonight". The Chico Enterprise. 24 January 1916. p. 6. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Two Favorites Revisit Pantages This Monday". Calgary Herald. 5 September 1914. p. 7. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Queenie Williams Who Comes with Pollard co. to the Empress". The Sacramento Star. 2 October 1915. p. 2. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Pollard Comedy Company at Gardella Theater Tonight". Oroville Daily Register. 25 January 1916. p. 6. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Rapid-Fire Vaudeville on Orpheum Stage". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 4 February 1919. p. 4. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Queenie Williams". Variety. 51: 8. 7 June 1918 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ "Vaudeville at Colonial". The Akron Beacon Journal. 7 May 1919. p. 11. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Mite of Femininity to Make Debut Here". The Pittsburgh Press. 2 December 1917. p. 56. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Queenie Williams Has Ideas of Her Own". Calgary Herald. 10 September 1914. p. 12. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Sterling Show at Orpheum". The Vancouver Sun. 21 February 1922. p. 14. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b "Ina Williams, Vaudevil Star, Cast as Avon Housewife--She Loves It". Asbury Park Press. 24 January 1943. p. 3. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Next Week at Pantages Theatre". Calgary Herald. 4 September 1914. p. 13. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Queenie Williams at the Opera House Saturday and Sunday". Bakersfield Morning Echo. 20 April 1916. p. 3. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "The Call Boy's Chat". The Philadelphia Inquirer. 4 September 1932. p. 52. Retrieved 13 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.