Early Life
Jessie Margaret Matthews was born in a flat behind a butcher’s shop at 94 Berwick Street, Soho, London, in relative poverty, the seventh of sixteen children (of whom eleven survived) of a fruit-and-vegetable seller. She took dancing lessons as a child in a room above the local public house at 22 Berwick Street.
She debuted on stage on 29 December 1919, aged 12, in Bluebell in Fairyland, by Seymour Hicks, music by Walter Slaughter and lyrics by Charles Taylor, at the Metropolitan Music Hall, Edgware Road, London, as a child dancer; she made her film debut in 1923 in the silent film The Beloved Vagabond.
Read more about this topic: Jessie Matthews
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 14:25.
“You have nothing more to fear. Not death nor decay. Here in this cup is my gift of life to you. I’m going to make you immortal. And I, too, shall drink and be immortal. We will not return to Egypt. Our world shall be wide, our time shall be without end. Has any man before offered a gift of eternal life to his bride?”
—Griffin Jay, and Reginald LeBorg. Yousef Bey (John Carradine)