Yvonne Arnaud - Life and Career

Life and Career

Arnaud was the daughter of Charles Leon Arnaud and his wife Antoinette (née Montegut). She was raised in Paris and entered the Paris Conservatoire at age 9, studying piano under Alphonse Duvernoy and other teachers. In 1905, she won the conservatory's Premier Prix for piano. Beginning that year, at age 12, until 1911, she performed with leading orchestras throughout Europe and USA, under conductors such as Édouard Colonne, Arthur Nikisch, Willem Mengelberg, Vasily Safonov, Gustav Mahler and Alexander Siloti.

In 1911 she decided to try the stage instead of the concert hall and obtained an engagement at London's Adelphi Theatre as understudy to Elsie Spain in the role of Princess Mathilde in The Quaker Girl, first going on stage in that role on 7 August 1911. She next played the leading role of Suzanne in the musical The Girl in the Taxi (1912), earning popularity with her vivacity and charming French accent. One reviewer wrote: "Arnaud is as clever as her ways are charming, and her voice is beautiful". This was followed by roles in more musical comedies, farces and operettas, including as Noisette in Mam'selle Tralala in 1914 (revived the following year as Oh! Be Careful), two revivals of "The Girl in the Taxi" (in 1913 and 1915), and Phrynette in L'Enfent Prodigue, in which she also played the piano. She also had a lead in Kissing Time (1919). However, an operation damaged her vocal cords, and so she switched from musicals to plays, beginning with the role of Louise Allington in the farce Tons of Money, which ran for nearly two years at the Shaftesbury Theatre from 1922.

Her success in this play led to her appearance in some of the Aldwych farces by Ben Travers in the 1920s and 30s, including Marguerite in A Cuckoo in the Nest (1925), as well as in other comic roles, such as Mrs. Pepys in J.B. Fagan's And So to Bed (1926) and the title Role in Fagan's The Improper Duchess (1931). In 1927 she travelled to New York where she repeated the Mrs. Pepys on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre. She also appeared in British films, beginning with the role of Pauline in Desire, in 1920, opposite Dennis Neilson-Terry. In 1929–30, she played the role of Elma Melton in the stage version (both London and New York) and then the film version of Canaries Sometimes Sing. She also appeared in some dramatic roles in the 1930s, including some Shakespearean roles. Arnaud made more films during the 1930s and 40s, including film versions of some of the successful plays in which she had starred. Arnaud's likeness was drawn in caricature by Alex Gard for Sardi's, the New York City theater district restaurant. The picture is now part of the collection of the New York Public Library. She continued to act on stage well into the 1950s.

She still occasionally performed as a pianist later in her career, for example, with the Hallé Orchestra under Sir John Barbirolli in Manchester in 1948. She was also the soloist at the premiere of Franz Reizenstein's pastiche Concerto Popolare at the 1956 Hoffnung Festival (having been chosen after Eileen Joyce declined).

In 1920, Arnaud married the actor Hugh McLellan, son of C. M. S. McLellan. She was a president of the League Against Cruel Sports from 1948 to 1951. She was also godmother to the writer Oriel Malet, and was the subject of Malet's book Marraine: a portrait of my godmother (1961).

For many years she lived in Guildford, England, where she died. Her ashes were scattered in St. Martha's churchyard on St. Martha's Hill just south-east of Guildford, and there is a memorial to her on the church grounds. In 1965 the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre was opened in the town.