Mary Ellis

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

Speaker 10:05

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1982, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:31

This week, our castaway is a star of musicals in the straight theatre and of opera. It's Mary Ellis.

Presenter0:39

Mary, could you endure loneliness?

Mary Ellis0:41

Yeah.

Presenter0:42

Could you look after yourself fairly well on a desert island? Are you a practical person?

Mary Ellis0:46

Oh, yes. I should love to sort of find out how to do everything. You know, if I had to find big enough leaves to cover me up.

Presenter0:53

killed something. Ever done any fishing or anything useful like that?

Mary Ellis0:58

Yes, I learned to fish for trout. There wouldn't be trout there, I'm sure, but I could fish, yes. Would you try to escape?

Mary Ellis1:05

No, not until I saw a sail on the horizon or some smoke from a smokestack.

Presenter1:11

Well, you have eight records to help you in your loneliness. Did you find it very difficult to choose that leader alone?

Mary Ellis1:17

Yes.

Mary Ellis1:21

I think the chief thing one would need is, um

Mary Ellis1:26

stimulation and

Mary Ellis1:28

Uplift, and something to carry one through, and something to put one to sleep.

Mary Ellis1:32

And wake one up.

Presenter1:34

Well, where do we start? What's the first one?

Mary Ellis1:37

I think I'd need perhaps the Mozart horn cochetta to wake me up in the morning.

Presenter1:41

Right, which one?

Mary Ellis1:42

Second one.

Presenter1:43

Mm-hmm.

Mary Ellis1:44

I think that would be the best.

Speaker 42:15

Yeah.

Speaker 42:17

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter2:46

Part of the first movement of the Mozart Second Horn Concerto, Alan Civil with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Otto Klempere.

Presenter2:55

Now you are from the United States, from New York?

Mary Ellis2:58

Yes, I was born there, but I feel much more European than American.

Presenter3:03

In fact, your father's family came originally from Alsace, is that right?

Mary Ellis3:07

Passas Lorraine and some of them in Switzerland and so that I sort of spoke French and German really almost before I spoke English.

Presenter3:15

As a child you used to visit Europe every summer.

Mary Ellis3:18

Yes. Father would have mixture of business and family to visit.

Mary Ellis3:24

And all that did one a lot of good when I was a child, to sort of get used to travelling around a bit.

Presenter3:30

Which side of the family does music come from?

Mary Ellis3:33

My mother. But father was full of Viennese waltzes and German folk songs.

Mary Ellis3:38

Mother was going to be a pianist until she married my father, and then of course she being a good Edwardian, she gave it up to bring up two daughters and take care of her husband.

Presenter3:49

So one can assume that you were put to the piano, as it were, very early?

Mary Ellis3:53

I was made conscious of hard work at the piano very early.

Mary Ellis3:59

I'd s sit and listen to my mother practice all the time. She was very, very good, but just not

Presenter3:59

And it was

Mary Ellis4:05

Good enough.

Mary Ellis4:06

So she put all her ambitions into me from an early age.

Presenter4:10

So she took you to concert.

Mary Ellis4:12

Oh yes. I was taken to things I didn't understand, could hardly bear when I was very young.

Presenter4:17

And opera?

Mary Ellis4:18

I went to her first opera when I was about twelve.

Mary Ellis4:23

It was my undoing. I had about six notes in my voice, and

Mary Ellis4:27

Went to the opera and decided I wanted to be an opera singer, and that's the way it happened.

Presenter4:30

What was the opera that inspired you? Madam Butterfly, the warpings.

Presenter4:36

So that was it. You wanted to be an opportunity to do it.

Mary Ellis4:38

That I just decided that. They had thought I was going to be a painter.

Mary Ellis4:43

And my school teacher thought I was going to be a writer.

Mary Ellis4:46

so that I was torn completely when my family said, Well, you can study for serious music.

Mary Ellis4:53

Which I proceeded to do. I had to practice the piano, and I couldn't start singing lessons till I was 15, because one's voice hasn't developed enough till then. And I had about eight.

Speaker 15:01

To then.

Mary Ellis5:03

Notes in my voice, and had a wonderful teacher who stretched it and stretched it and stretched it until it became three octaves.

Presenter5:11

Great.

Presenter5:12

What's your second record?

Mary Ellis5:15

My second record, I think, will have to be Ariadne of Naxos Zebenetazaria, sung by Rita Streich, and I think it's one of the most wonderful exhibitions of vocal technique that I've ever heard. Besides that, I think it would wake up all the birds on the island.

Speaker 46:08

Eilse, und zeitchritt, mach de witchtung, Christir mirdangen, vorifond gif, oti fen.

Presenter6:31

Reiter Streich as Zerbinette in Richard Strauss's Adriadne auf Naxos.

Presenter6:37

Now you were studying singing. It was thought a good idea that you went to Italy to continue your studies.

Mary Ellis6:44

Well, it was an idea, but

Mary Ellis6:46

When I was eighteen.

Mary Ellis6:49

I studied with a famous Italian coach who coached me in about eight operas, in any part I could sing in them. For instance, if if it was Faust, I would have to learn Marguerite and Siebel, you see. We just lived and sang opera, and he took me along to the Metropolitan.

Mary Ellis7:09

To sing for the manager there.

Mary Ellis7:11

to get some advice uh as to whether I should go to Germany or Italy in some little opera house to sort of sing my wild oats.

Presenter7:20

What did you choose as your audition piece?

Mary Ellis7:23

Oh, an alias from the second act of Manon by Martignet.

Presenter7:26

Goodbye our little table.

Mary Ellis7:28

Yes, that's right.

Presenter7:30

What was the result of that audition?

Mary Ellis7:32

A great shock.

Mary Ellis7:34

Because I was terrified and very nervous, of course.

Mary Ellis7:37

and sat waiting for the verdict and

Mary Ellis7:40

I was told that I had a contract with the Metropolitan Opera House for three years.

Presenter7:45

You were only a nineteen. Yes.

Presenter7:47

Those were great days at the Met. There were some very big stars.

Mary Ellis7:51

Yes, it was very glamorous and wonderful. The the Charliapin and Carrusso and Farrar and Jeritza, Scotti, or well, I mean, just the whole list of them.

Presenter8:01

What a cask

Presenter8:03

In which rail did you make your debut?

Mary Ellis8:05

In the Puccine Triptych, you know, the three one-act operas, Tabaro, Swangelica and Janiskiki.

Presenter8:09

This is

Mary Ellis8:14

I made my debut as for Gianno Viefa, Little Nun, the second one, and before the season ended I sang in Giannischiki Loretta, that lovely part, because Florence Easton fell ill

Mary Ellis8:27

So I had that big chance the first year.

Presenter8:29

What other parts?

Mary Ellis8:31

Well, I learned Siebel one afternoon going over on the train to Philadelphia, where the opera was playing singing that night.

Mary Ellis8:39

And nobody else ever sang it after that.

Presenter8:42

I believe you had to cope with some rather weighty marguerites who were inclined to faint all over you.

Mary Ellis8:47

Yes, that that was rather funny because Marguerite was sung every two weeks by somebody else and I was crashed to the floor one time with a lady Marguerite.

Speaker 48:56

Yeah.

Mary Ellis8:58

falling into my arms, and had to be lifted up by the the soldiers and brushed off.

Presenter9:05

And did you sing with Charlie Appin?

Mary Ellis9:07

I sang Zarevich and Boris.

Mary Ellis9:10

And that was a wonderful experience, I must say.

Presenter9:14

And with Carrozo?

Mary Ellis9:16

Caruso?

Mary Ellis9:17

I sang his last performance with him, uh incidentally, in Elisida Mori, his last performance in New York.

Presenter9:23

He was a sick man by then.

Mary Ellis9:24

Very ill. He only sang one performance more in Brooklyn and then died.

Presenter9:29

Record number three.

Mary Ellis9:31

Record number three is just a very comforting, lovely record which I love very much, and that's the Brahms First Symphony.

Presenter10:39

part of the last movement of the Brahms First Symphony.

Presenter10:43

Herbert von Garian conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Presenter10:48

Now you were doing very well as a young singer at the Metropolitan Opera House. Why did you leave opera quite suddenly?

Mary Ellis10:55

Oh, because it'll take me years to

Mary Ellis10:58

be the kind of singer I wanted to be. I was very young, my voice wasn't developed at all, and I just saw years ahead, and I was much too ambitious for that. And David Bulasko, who was a great manager, producer in New York at that time, thought he could make a very good actress of me, so he lured me away.

Presenter11:14

into the street theatre.

Mary Ellis11:16

Into Shakespeare of all things, Nerissa was my first part on the straight stage.

Presenter11:21

Belasco was rather an eccentric man, wasn't he? And the conditions in his company were almost monastic.

Mary Ellis11:27

Yes, but it wasn't so much eccentricity. It was absolutely um

Mary Ellis11:31

A tycoon in the theatre, and everything had to be exactly as he wished it.

Mary Ellis11:37

And it was wonderful training there.

Mary Ellis11:40

Even the stage hands in his productions had to wear white gloves when they handled the scenery, and pimsoles when they walked behind the carpeted back stage.

Mary Ellis11:49

And we weren't allowed out of the theatre while we were rehearsing. He had lunch for us, sometimes supper for us, and sent us home in a car, straight home.

Presenter11:58

What part did you play for him after an Arissa?

Mary Ellis12:01

Nothing.

Presenter12:02

Nothing.

Mary Ellis12:02

No. I went with another manager, Henry Miller, who was one of the big managers in sort of an awful little Irish play.

Mary Ellis12:12

And uh then I went into an awful play called Casanova.

Presenter12:18

Yeah, that's

Mary Ellis12:20

But the famous actress Catherine Cornell made her first star role in that.

Mary Ellis12:24

And while I was in the Irish play, Arthur Hammerstein came to see it, and I was called to his office.

Presenter12:30

Uh

Mary Ellis12:32

where Rosemarie was in the making, so I was tempted to sing again.

Presenter12:36

And you indeed played Rosemarie. In fact, you created.

Mary Ellis12:40

Yes, we sort of all in a funny way we sort of all wrote it together, because I was at the office every day, and that was Oscar Hammerstein the Second's first attempt at lyrics and story.

Speaker 112:50

Install.

Mary Ellis12:52

Rudolph Frimont wrote the music.

Mary Ellis12:54

And it all was sort of done that way. And Dennis King, who was then playing Shakespeare, came to do.

Presenter12:54

And

Mary Ellis13:00

Jim, so it was all very

Mary Ellis13:03

We treated it like a mixture of sardou and puccini mixed.

Presenter13:07

Well, it was a smash hit in New York.

Mary Ellis13:09

Yes, we didn't know it, though. I mean, we didn't know it in that two weeks' tryout.

Mary Ellis13:14

And the management all seemed very down. It was the greatest surprise.

Presenter13:18

You were invited to play the part in London at at Drodelane, but you refused.

Mary Ellis13:22

I don't know why.

Mary Ellis13:24

I think because I was already very tired of doing a musical play.

Speaker 413:29

Mm-hmm.

Mary Ellis13:29

Your voice has to be in perfect order. You know, it isn't as though you were doing a musical comedy because

Speaker 413:35

Yeah

Presenter13:35

Uh

Mary Ellis13:36

The music plays I've done have r needed real singing and I've had to behave as though I was an opera singing when I really wasn't.

Presenter13:42

What did you do instead of coming to London?

Mary Ellis13:44

I left Rosemarie.

Mary Ellis13:46

I think it was more psychological illness than real tiredness of voice. I just couldn't bear it anymore. I'd played it for over a year.

Mary Ellis13:55

And I longed for the Rio Theatre.

Mary Ellis13:58

Sir Arthur Tammerstein

Speaker 413:58

So I

Speaker 113:58

Uh

Mary Ellis14:00

said, All right, you go, but there's going to be an injunction against you, and you won't be allowed to sing again in New York unless you sing for me, so I never sang in New York again.

Presenter14:09

Oh no.

Mary Ellis14:10

I went down to the ghetto and played the most beautiful play, I think the thing I'm almost proudest of ever doing, a thing called the Dybboch.

Presenter14:19

Oh yes.

Mary Ellis14:20

And they got the Habima director over. It was absolutely exquisite, it was wonderful.

Mary Ellis14:27

And that played for

Mary Ellis14:29

Oh, for eight or nine months down there.

Speaker 414:31

Mm-hmm.

Mary Ellis14:32

After the debuk, up till nineteen thirty two, I remained in

Mary Ellis14:38

in New York entirely doing straight plays. I met Basil Sidney and we um

Presenter14:40

I've met

Mary Ellis14:42

decided to play together, former company, which we did.

Presenter14:44

Yeah.

Presenter14:45

And you married Basil Sidney, who, of course, was an Englishman, and he brought you to London.

Mary Ellis14:50

Well, he didn't bring me to London, no.

Mary Ellis14:53

Theater girl sent us to London in an an O'Neill play, Strange Interlude. Excuse it.

Speaker 114:58

I think it's

Mary Ellis14:59

sort of historical event for London because they had hadn't had I think they'd had a one-act play by O'Neill.

Mary Ellis15:06

before that, but they hadn't had a a play that started at five in the afternoon, broke at eight, and people came back at eight thirty and stayed till eleven.

Presenter15:14

And it was rather difficult play in our thoughts. People spoke their thoughts.

Mary Ellis15:17

He bespoke.

Mary Ellis15:19

Yes, but why stop at your thought behind your speech? It was the thought behind the thought behind the thought.

Presenter15:25

I see.

Mary Ellis15:26

But still, it was an amazing production, very interesting.

Mary Ellis15:30

London was rather overwhelmed by it.

Presenter15:34

Record number four.

Mary Ellis15:36

Something that makes me quiet and happy and even under the greatest stress, and that is a song by Trubert.

Mary Ellis15:43

Sung by Fischer Discard Du Bisti Roux.

Speaker 415:56

Hons Alloy.

Speaker 415:59

Ah

Speaker 416:08

For who scans

Speaker 416:15

Whole food spots, and the family.

Speaker 416:36

Comes our Lord and

Presenter16:49

Schubert's song Dubis Derux, sung by Dietrich Fischer Diska with Gerald Moore at the piano.

Presenter16:56

Now you were in London. CB Cochrane invited you to star in a new musical. He of course was the great musical.

Presenter17:03

Director Musical Producer in this country.

Mary Ellis17:06

Yes, he tempted me back, but I made him promise that he wouldn't say ahead of time that I was singing at all in the play that he was going to put on, which was called Music in the Air. He just said I was appearing in a play that had some music in it, because London didn't know me as a singer at all.

Mary Ellis17:25

I'd only played straight plays.

Presenter17:27

Well, in fact, it was Jerome Kern's music, and you did sing it, and you made an enormous success.

Mary Ellis17:33

It was a lovely play. It was absolutely charming. I loved it.

Presenter17:37

And you made your first film here.

Mary Ellis17:39

Oh yes, dreadful film called Belladomo.

Mary Ellis17:43

It had Conrad White, who I admired very much in it, and also

Presenter17:45

Yeah.

Mary Ellis17:47

Cedric Harbic before he was knighted.

Presenter17:50

Mm-hmm.

Mary Ellis17:51

And uh it was a most terrible script.

Presenter17:54

But it did lead to a Hollywood contract.

Mary Ellis17:56

But the war

Presenter17:56

Well, there was to be a Hollywood contract, except that Ivanovello had other plans for you. Yeah.

Mary Ellis18:01

Well, he tried to um stop me from going.

Mary Ellis18:04

he arranged with Hollywood that they'd let me come back.

Mary Ellis18:09

to do the thing at Drury Lane which she was supposed to write and

Mary Ellis18:13

Bring

Mary Ellis18:14

Druidine back to its glories that it had lost for a bit.

Mary Ellis18:18

And somehow he arranged it, and I just went out and did two films and came back.

Presenter18:23

What were they like? With a good ones?

Mary Ellis18:25

One was very good, yes. Um one was directed by Lewis Milstone, who did All Quiet on the Western Front.

Presenter18:30

Yes, indeed.

Mary Ellis18:31

And uh that was very charming. And that ran in London at the same time that Glamorous Night was on at Drury Lane, so I felt very peculiar walking and seeing great signboards of me in two

Mary Ellis18:46

All over the place.

Presenter18:46

On both sides of the road, as it were.

Mary Ellis18:48

Yes, there's one. I never can connect up with that.

Presenter18:51

Our Glamorous Night was the first of the big novella musicals, wasn't it?

Mary Ellis18:55

Yes, and I think it was the first of um

Mary Ellis18:59

Well, I don't know what it was. It it's near opera. His stuff was all near opera.

Speaker 419:04

Mm-hmm.

Mary Ellis19:05

And took all your three octaves of singing and all your stamina.

Mary Ellis19:11

Much more than you needed for opera, because at opera you only sang about twice a week, and this sometimes you sang twice a day.

Presenter19:17

Yes.

Mary Ellis19:18

But it was really a marvellous adventure, and he was wonderful to work with.

Presenter19:22

And very spectacular. It packed Drury Lane. But it didn't have a a very long run.

Mary Ellis19:28

It should have had about a three-year run, but before it came on, the Drury Lane management.

Mary Ellis19:36

had been so used to one failure after another that they had signed up.

Mary Ellis19:42

A pantomime for the Christmas season.

Presenter19:43

Oh dear.

Mary Ellis19:45

and could not get out of it. They did everything they could to get out of it, but they couldn't. So Glamorous Night had to stop in when it was absolutely plain to packed houses. It was one of the tragedies for Novello that ever happened.

Speaker 119:56

Yeah.

Mary Ellis19:58

But then afterwards it went on tour with a different cast and and ran for years anyway, but it was a shame about that.

Mary Ellis20:05

Let's have another record. We've got

Presenter20:06

Pot number five.

Mary Ellis20:08

I think part of the Bruch Walen concerto.

Presenter21:12

An excerpt from the first Concerto for Violin and Orchestra by Max Brook.

Presenter21:17

Igor Oustrak, a soloist with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by David Oustrak.

Presenter21:24

Right, there was that unfortunate finish to the run of Damorous Night, but it wasn't long before you were back in the dancing years

Mary Ellis21:31

So I had to go right back to Hollywood to do a third picture.

Presenter21:34

Ah, to finish your contract.

Mary Ellis21:34

To finish your contract. Yes. And that was called Fatal Lady, that picture. But had Walter Pidgin as the leading man. I think it was the first picture he did.

Presenter21:43

Is

Mary Ellis21:44

Anyway, I came back then to do a play by John Baldiston.

Mary Ellis21:48

A translation from the Hungarian, I think, which is always very dangerous.

Mary Ellis21:54

It was called Farewell Performance.

Mary Ellis21:57

And they thought it was my farewell performance. And it certainly was the farewell performance because it ran very short time. It was a good play, but it was it was a terrible title to have for a play.

Presenter22:02

Yeah.

Presenter22:04

It was a good play, but

Presenter22:09

Anyway, the next big event, surely, was the Dancing Years.

Mary Ellis22:12

Yes. I think I was in Edinburgh. I had got married in the meantime, and was up in Edinburgh with my Scottish husband.

Mary Ellis22:21

And Ivo was playing in Edinburgh on tour, and he suddenly called me to him.

Mary Ellis22:28

He always rented a house in Edinburgh for the whole company.

Mary Ellis22:31

And he just said, I've got an idea that's the way he always was and told me the story, and I thought it was a very good story.

Presenter22:38

It was a topical story, wasn't it?

Mary Ellis22:40

Yes, he dared to bring the Nazis on.

Mary Ellis22:43

in a prologue and an epilogue. He always w sort of saw things way ahead. In Glamorous Night he saw television.

Mary Ellis22:50

It was about television and this Englishman who went over to try to sell it.

Mary Ellis22:56

And he foresaw the whole Nazi business, and it was the story of an an Austrian.

Mary Ellis23:01

Composer. Jewish composer, huh?

Mary Ellis23:05

had this fling with a lady who finally married a Nazi who got him out of the concentration camp finally. I think it was a marvellous, marvellous play. It was lovely. It ran for years, of course, long after we finished it.

Speaker 123:11

Etc.

Presenter23:18

Yes, it ran through a great part of the war, but Yuard decided to go and work in hospitals.

Mary Ellis23:23

Yes, I don't know what possessed me. All the theatre people were sort of sticking to their theatre and doing it for the war.

Mary Ellis23:32

My husband was sent away to Iceland to open an airfield and

Mary Ellis23:36

I just felt I wanted to be

Mary Ellis23:38

part of it the hard way. So for three years I went into

Mary Ellis23:42

emergency hospitals and learn to do all kind of therapy.

Mary Ellis23:47

Occupational therapy chiefly and work with children and things. It was one I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Presenter23:53

Um

Presenter23:54

And it was Ivan Novella who tempted you back into the theatre again.

Mary Ellis23:57

Yes, finally. During that time, Emily Williams and Hugh Beaumont wanted me to come back to do

Mary Ellis24:04

Little Foxes.

Mary Ellis24:06

And uh I couldn't because I was getting five pounds a week from the Ministry of Health.

Presenter24:12

Ha ha ha.

Mary Ellis24:13

But Ivor finally got me back because he said he had an idea, and that was.

Presenter24:18

Yeah.

Mary Ellis24:19

In nineteen forty three, while the buzz bombs were going on.

Mary Ellis24:23

An Arc de Triomphe.

Presenter24:25

Arctur Triomphe, which was set in Paris.

Mary Ellis24:27

Yes, and it had the whole last act, which was an opera.

Presenter24:30

Joan of Arc

Mary Ellis24:30

John of Ark, yes. And very, very good it was, too.

Presenter24:34

There was a story that Novello proposed to write the rest of that opera.

Mary Ellis24:38

Well, several of the critics said he should. And I think if Ivel had lived, he would have, uh, I hope.

Mary Ellis24:45

Taking the right road to that way.

Presenter24:48

Record number six. What's that to be?

Mary Ellis24:49

Out there.

Mary Ellis24:50

Oh, well, this is something that always

Mary Ellis24:53

It gives me a thrill, and I think in these sort of downbeat days we need something to

Mary Ellis24:59

just make us feel that everything's worthwhile.

Mary Ellis25:03

I think I want the Saint Crispin's Day speech.

Mary Ellis25:06

From Henry Five, with Laurence Olivia saying it.

Speaker 425:11

This day is called the Feast of Crispian.

Speaker 425:15

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a tiptoe when this day is named, And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

Speaker 425:24

He that shall live this day and see old age, will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, and say, To morrow is St. Crispian.

Speaker 425:34

Then will he strip his sleeve, and show his scars, and say, These wounds I had on Crispin's Day.

Presenter25:41

Laurence Olivier as Henry the Fifth.

Presenter25:44

Mary, some of your post-war successes, a memorable double bill by Terence Rattico.

Mary Ellis25:49

Oh he is wonderful. Uh play Bill.

Mary Ellis25:53

The Browning version and hollow grenade.

Mary Ellis25:55

That was a wonderful experience in the theatre. Eric Portams was a superb actor.

Presenter25:59

You made a glorious team in those two plays.

Mary Ellis26:02

I'm glad to hear that. But it was a wonderful experience anyway, because the Ratican.

Mary Ellis26:07

I don't think he ever got enough credit, really. I think he was a very fine playwright.

Presenter26:12

Yes he was. Beautifully constructed place. After that you played some serious Shakespeare at Stratford.

Mary Ellis26:17

Yes, that was right. I had a nine-month season a whole season of nineteen fifty two there. It was very interesting and

Mary Ellis26:24

I felt like a student again, and that's always very healthy.

Mary Ellis26:28

I was very lonely.

Mary Ellis26:30

because they were all Shakespeareans to the

Mary Ellis26:33

I teeth, and I was quite new to new to that kind of thing. But I love teamwork in any case. I love belonging to a theatre.

Speaker 126:34

Night has

Mary Ellis26:41

that does things all together all the time. So it was a lovely experience.

Presenter26:46

And you were in a a Nell Card musical.

Mary Ellis26:49

Well, I I don't think you can call it that, because he only wrote the music to an Oscar Wilde play, Lady Windermill's fan. I played misses Erlin in it, which is the lovely part to play.

Mary Ellis26:59

But um

Mary Ellis27:00

It somehow didn't gel.

Presenter27:01

Yeah.

Mary Ellis27:02

Terrifically well, but a lot of people liked it very much.

Presenter27:05

What was it called after the ball?

Mary Ellis27:06

After the ball. Yeah.

Presenter27:07

It did have some songs in it, of course.

Mary Ellis27:09

Yes, yes.

Presenter27:11

And then a whole long list of productions we really haven't time to deal with in any detail. You've written an autobiography, Those Dancing Years, which has been a very good idea.

Mary Ellis27:21

As I originally called it something quite different.

Mary Ellis27:25

I called it more than I deserve.

Presenter27:28

Title T

Mary Ellis27:29

Yes, but I suppose they thought it was too apologetic or something.

Mary Ellis27:33

Those dancing ears. I don't want it to sound as though I was

Mary Ellis27:36

hanging on to the novello sort of

Mary Ellis27:40

plays I I meant it to sound like that period of the theatre which was was really a golden dancing time.

Presenter27:48

I think it's a good title, there's Dancing Years. It's it's evocative.

Mary Ellis27:52

Yes, but it actually is more than I deserve.

Presenter27:56

And it's an honest book with a marvellous collection of pictures.

Presenter28:00

You going to write another book?

Mary Ellis28:00

You better write a not

Mary Ellis28:02

It depends on how people like this one. Naturally I'd like to r write another one. I enjoy writing very much.

Mary Ellis28:09

I enjoy talking and I enjoy writing.

Presenter28:11

And you paint a lot.

Mary Ellis28:12

Oh, not very much now. But it's very good therapeutic exercise.

Mary Ellis28:18

I think it's wiser to write things down than to paint them badly.

Presenter28:21

You always preferred to paint from memory, not at what you were doing.

Mary Ellis28:25

Yes, I never paint at the time. Sometimes I do a sketch and then months afterwards decide to paint it. And I only paint in the dark winter months when I can't go out very much.

Presenter28:37

Another record.

Mary Ellis28:38

Oh, I think it's got to be

Mary Ellis28:40

Dovisiono by Mozart.

Mary Ellis28:43

from Nazi de Figero, sung by my favorite opera singer.

Mary Ellis28:47

Kerete can.

Speaker 428:51

The race one.

Speaker 429:02

I don't change

Speaker 429:28

We have the Romans on every step.

Presenter29:46

Dove sono from Mozart's The Marriage of Figure, sung by Kiri Tekanawa.

Presenter29:53

Now we've come to your last record. What's that?

Mary Ellis29:56

Well, I think it's one of the most exciting things I've ever heard. Very stimulating and uplifting.

Mary Ellis30:05

I I just don't know why I like it so much. I can't explain it, but here it is. It's the Missa Criola.

Speaker 430:14

Oh yeah.

Speaker 430:16

Te la satura, pasa los hombres, pasa losombres, tiam el secur.

Speaker 430:24

Ela Satura, Pasa losomre.

Speaker 430:30

What's that?

Speaker 430:45

Tera must gracias.

Speaker 430:50

El Saturday, pasadosombres, pasa losombres, Qiam el señor, El la satura, pasadosombres, pasa señor.

Speaker 131:02

Yeah

Speaker 431:05

Passionafundres dia Mexico.

Presenter31:10

part of the Gloria from the Missa Crayola.

Presenter31:13

If you could take only one disc out of the eight you've played, which would it be?

Mary Ellis31:17

I think it would be that one.

Presenter31:19

And you're allowed one luxury, one item to have with you of no practical use.

Mary Ellis31:21

One

Mary Ellis31:24

Oh dear.

Mary Ellis31:26

Well, I've I don't know which to choose really. There are two things I would need very much paper and pencils or a hammock. I think paper and pencil.

Presenter31:34

Yes, sooner or later you'll be able to make a hammock.

Mary Ellis31:37

Yes, I think so.

Presenter31:39

And one book, you've already got the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, there.

Mary Ellis31:43

Oh, it would have to be an encyclopedia, so that I could learn something every day a very large encyclopedia.

Presenter31:49

Yes, we put the bar up on the very big encyclopedias with uh dozens of volumes because

Mary Ellis31:55

Oh, not that. It would have to be in one volume of

Presenter31:58

One good one.

Mary Ellis31:59

One good encyclopedia so that I could choose a subject to learn about every week.

Presenter32:04

Right, that's allowed. And thank you, Mary Ellis, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Mary Ellis32:09

Thank you very much.

Presenter32:11

Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 132:19

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/radio four.