page_title: Dorothy Ward
section_title: Peak years
hierarchical_section_title: Dorothy Ward / Peak years
caption_attribution_description: English: Description: Postcard depicting actress Dorothy Ward (1890-1987) Date: circa 1913 Publisher: Rotary Photographic Co. (floruit 1899-1910s) [1] Source: http://cgi.ebay.nl/Miss-DOROTHY-WARD-Edwardian-Actress-Photo-Postcard_W0QQitemZ190269532314 (Accessed 9 December 2008)
context_page_description: Dorothy Ward was an English actress who specialised in pantomimes, playing the principal boy roles, while her husband Shaun Glenville would play the dame roles. She had a successful 52 year career and played in over 40 pantomimes between 1905 and 1957.
context_section_description: Ward became noted as one of the leading principal boys, while Glenville as "a pantomime Dame without equal". Thus, for 50 years they often played mother and son. They appeared in pantomimes together until 1914 when Ward was cast as Louise opposite Fay Compton and Cicely Courtneidge in The Cinema Star, which toured the provinces before opening at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London. In 1916 she was in We’re All In It at the London Hippodrome, touring throughout 1917 before being reunited with Glenville in Happy Go Lucky (1918). For much of 1921 she was with her husband in New York where she was Phoebe Throssel in Quality Street at the Shubert Theatre and Cora Angélique in The Whirl of New York at the Winter Garden Theatre. Ward's performance in Quality Street gained harsh reviews from some critics, with Dorothy Parker commenting; 'They have brought over from England a lady named Dorothy Ward to play the title role of Phoebe in Quality Street and, considering what a first-class passage costs these days, it seems really staggering to think of the money that could have been saved by the simple means of letting her stay happily at home... she has been billed by a hysterical press agent, as "England's greatest comédienne". I don't pretend to be right up to the minute with what is going on upon the British stage, but I can say with perfect safety that if she is England's greatest comédienne, then I'm Mrs. Fiske'. Another critic wrote that Ward's was the season's 'most astonishing piece of casting' and that she approached her role in the 'dainty' operetta 'in the frenzied manner usually reserved for the mad scenes in Italian opera'. Her husband fared little better.
  Ward and Glenville had been cast in Mother Goose at the Alhambra Theatre in Glasgow for the Christmas pantomime in 1921. At the last minute, however, Ward was called to replace Clarice Mayne in Jack and the Beanstalk at the London Hippodrome opposite George Robey. In 1926 the couple were in The Apache at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle before taking it on tour and then opening at the London Palladium in 1927. Next they were next on tour in The Blue Train. She was Cora Angélique in a revival of The Belle of New York at Daly's Theatre in London (1931), and followed this as Lady Holyrood in a revival of Florodora. Next she was Nan in A Country Girl, followed by The Duchess of Dantzic. With Glenville she ended the 1932 season in La poupée.
  At the outbreak of World War II Ward was among the first entertainers to join ENSA, for whom she toured France entertaining the troops. By now the couple were quite wealthy and included a Rolls Royce car among their possessions. The actor Roy Hudd wrote of Ward's appearance as Colin the Miller's Son in a pantomime of Puss in Boots in 1941:
  At the dress rehearsal she made her first entrance in her "poor boy" costume but wearing a positive fistful of diamond rings. She was very proud of how well she'd done, and wanted everyone else to know it too. At the end of the run-through, Emile Littler said, "Dorothy, darling, you’re supposed to be the poor miller’s son. I think we should dispense with the diamond rings".
  Dorothy said nothing, but on the opening night she came on with her hands behind her back and said, "Here I am, Colin the poor miller’s son". She then waved her bejewelled hands at the audience and added, "and look what the Good Fairy keeps giving me!"
  From October 1944 to January 1945 Ward played Loretta Zelma in Meet Me Victoria at the Victoria Palace Theatre opposite Lupino Lane. By the 1950s Ward was beginning to wonder if she could still carry off the principal boy roles. In an interview in 1954 while appearing as Dick Whittington at the Kingston Empire she was reluctant to discuss her date of birth, saying, "I want audiences to enjoy the pantomime – not to wonder if I’ve got my own teeth!" In 1957 she made her last appearance as principal boy at the age of 66 playing the lead in Dick Whittington at the Pavilion Theatre in Liverpool, bringing to an end a career in which she had played principal boy almost continuously since 1905.
caption: Dorothy Ward as Cora Angélique in  The Whirl of New York (1921)
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