Decline and Death
Dillon began drinking heavily and abusing Marie and she began drinking as her own escape. In 1920 they separated. From then on, Marie Lloyd went downhill and although she still worked, it became more and more difficult to get her on to the stage in time. Her voice became weaker and her act shorter. On 4 October 1922 she was appearing at the Empire Music Hall in Edmonton. During the last song in her act "I'm One of the Ruins That Cromwell Knocked About a Bit", she staggered about on the stage. The audience laughed delightedly when she fell, thinking it was all part of the act. However, she was desperately ill, and died at home in Golders Green three days later on 7 October and was buried in Hampstead Cemetery and now rests with her parents and her daughter.
More than 100,000 people attended Marie's funeral at Hampstead on 12 October 1922. In the funeral procession there were twelve cars full of flowers, and on top of the hearse was the long ebony cane with the sparkling top hat that she had used in her act. The theatrical newspaper, The Era dubbed the cortege a "Royal Progress".
Her daughter by Courtenay, Marie (1888–1967) took the stage name Marie Lloyd Jr., appeared in a short musical film in the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process made in 1926, and performed in music hall for many years. She died in 1967 and was buried with her mother.
Read more about this topic: Marie Lloyd
Famous quotes containing the words decline and, decline and/or death:
“Or else I thought her supernatural;
As though a sterner eye looked through her eye
On this foul world in its decline and fall,
On gangling stocks grown great, great stocks run dry,
Ancestral pearls all pitched into a sty,
Heroic reverie mocked by clown and knave....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The decline of a culture
Mourned by scholars who dream of the ghosts of Greek boys.”
—Stephen Spender (1909–1995)
“‘Tis no great valor to perish sword in hand, and bravado on lip; cased all in panoply complete. For even the alligator dies in his mail, and the swordfish never surrenders. To expire, mild-eyed, in one’s bed, transcends the death of Epaminondas.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)