Ellen Pollock

Ellen Pollock0:00

This download is the only extract the B B C has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley. M may I tell you what actually made me go on the stage? Or rather think about wanting to go on the stage.

Ellen Pollock0:14

When I was five years old

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I was taken to the Coliseum, which was then a theatre of varieties. We were taken particularly to see the Sea Lions, and a glorious double act, I think it was called Beatty and Babs.

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In the second half

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There was a very serious interlude, and then Sarah Bernhardt was going to do a scene from Leslan.

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Now.

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I'm five years old.

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She's about eighty.

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She has a wooden leg,

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And she's speaking in French.

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But at the end of that performance.

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I turned to my mother and said

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I want to go on the stage.

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And my mother said,'What do you mean? I said,'I want to be Sarah Bernhardt's daughter.

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My mother said, Well,

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You can't be her daughter. Your name is Ellen. Her daughter might indeed be called Sarah Bernhardt, and quick as a flash I answered, Well, then I'll be her niece.

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Now this is the most vivid impression of the whole of my childhood.

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And I never for one moment

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wanted to do anything else but act from that moment.

Presenter1:35

How did you set about it? Did you go to a drama school?

Ellen Pollock1:38

A rather bad one. I persuaded my

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Mother to send me there instead of to a finishing school in Switzerland, I thought was the worst of two evils. It was useless, this rather silly little school I went to.

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because it was so ungifted that I was given the two leading parts in my first term, and so I was allowed to leave after that first term. What was your first engagement?

Presenter1:58

Yeah.

Ellen Pollock2:04

I played The Prince's Attendant in Romeo and Juliet at the Everyman Theatre at Hampstead. It's now cinemas, you know.

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And I'm afraid I didn't get that because of any histrionic ability, but because my legs were straight.

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Blue tights and a spear.

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Yeah.

Presenter2:24

And I believe while still in your teens at that theatre you appeared with Ellen Terry.

Ellen Pollock2:29

Yes, she was nearly blind and she stumbled over her lines, but i it was still magical to

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you know, young actress like myself to see.

Presenter2:40

When did you make your first West End appearance?

Ellen Pollock2:44

Uh well, shortly after that, just as a maid.

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In The Way of an Eagle

Ellen Pollock2:51

Hi, Ethel Dell. Ethel M. Dell. Ethel M. Dell. Oh, definitely.

Presenter2:53

This way

Ellen Pollock2:56

Ethel M. Dell, with Varlet Vanbrugh, one of the great actresses of her time, playing the lead. She was very sweet to me.

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Um but then

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Um, I went on tour for about six years before I ever put a toe in the West End again. I'm glad, you know, because I think it did

Presenter3:11

And this

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prepare me for a lot of a variety of parts which I wouldn't have been able to tackle so early if I'd had too early a chance.

Presenter3:21

You had a long run in a musical when you did get back to the West End.

Ellen Pollock3:24

Yes, uh hit the deck at the hippodrome.

Presenter3:28

And you were in the production of The Lady of the Camellias, in which Tillula Bankhead starred. That must have been a rewarding engagement.

Presenter3:36

I don't know what you mean by rewarding. It must have been an exciting one.

Ellen Pollock3:37

Yeah.

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Does not have

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Definitely a lot happened, both on and off stage. My little boy had just been born.

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my large son now, and um Tallulah took to him very much. He was about three months old when I got that engagement. I used to bring him

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to the Gaddick Theatre in a basket.

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I think I was still feeding him.

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I'm not allowed to say that.

Presenter4:05

Uh

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Tallulah used to be fascinated by this little boy. She used to have him in her dressing room while she was stripping. I think he was certainly the youngest person to see us.

Presenter4:16

It's a clip.

Presenter4:18

Ellen, which was the first Shaw role you played?

Ellen Pollock4:22

Well, uh when I was eighteen I was on tour with the Magdona Players, which was the Bernard Shaw Repertory Company, and I played three or four small parts in that. But my first part in the West End

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That was

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Sweetie in Too True to Be Good, which was the plum of the autumn season.

Presenter4:47

Lashaw, of course, had taken an active part in the production. Now some authors are the worst possible directors of their own plays.

Presenter4:55

With Shaw it was different.

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Oh

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He was absolutely superb.

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He used to come round at the end of scenes and give us all notes.

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discuss it with H. K. Ayliff, who was the director at the time.

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And

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Somehow he had a way of explaining something to you that made his way the the only possible one.

Presenter5:22

He liked to act out the parts himself.

Ellen Pollock5:24

Yes, he he used to give you notes first as to what he thought was the choir, or tell you how the rhythm had gone quite awry, or emphasising a certain word made for clarity. And then if you didn't get it from the note, he'd act it for you. So you would often pretend not to get it from the note because one longed to see him act it was so wondrously good. And he played

Presenter5:42

Say

Presenter5:47

So one

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Old men and women, young men and girls, anything.

Presenter5:55

L?

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All parts. Beautiful.

Presenter5:58

It's been said that you've acted more sure heroines than any other actress.

Presenter6:02

Is that fair comment?

Ellen Pollock6:04

Yes, I believe it is. That's not only in the West End, you know, it's it's counting

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all the parts I've played, and um I don't know whether you know, but every year we go to Shaw's Corner on the Saturday and Sunday nearest to his birthday.

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And we do a scene from one of his plays there. So if you can count playing

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A part in just one act playing in them. I would certainly think that this is.

Presenter6:29

Play.

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Absolutely so, yes.

Presenter6:34

You've been President of the Shaw Society for a number of years now.

Ellen Pollock6:37

Yes, yes, ever since Esme Percy died.

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Uh I I'm very proud and privileged.

Presenter6:44

And you paint, too?

Ellen Pollock6:46

I used to paint. I don't I don't paint any more, really.

Presenter6:49

Oh really?

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No

Presenter6:51

Now, as as the wife of a painter, James Prantwood, did he allow you to use his studio, or did you have little

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To studio view.

Presenter6:56

Doroth

Ellen Pollock6:56

Oh, no, no, no. I painted in his studio, or else we'd go out painting together, and I'd paint a landscape, and he'd stand behind, painting me, painting the landscape.

Presenter7:08

The landscape

Ellen Pollock7:10

But, um oh, I I did have, you know, one or two little modest paintings in exhibitions, but I don't think it's my real forte. Why did you give it up? Well, I really didn't have time because I took up something else. I went into the antique business. So I got a stall at the Chelsea Antique Market, and it's most

Presenter7:28

Top

Ellen Pollock7:33

Wonderfully interesting, but it's really full time, you know, apart from the theatre, which is my first love.