Biography
Born Adelaide Mary Reeve on 3 March 1874 in London, England, she died in the same city on 5 October 1966. At four she appeared in pantomime, and at six she took a dramatic part in East Lynne alongside her actor parents. Beginning in 1883 she performed in pantomime, plays and musical comedies, maturing into a skilled comedienne and vocalist. In 1894 she wed actor Bert Gilbert and joined George Edwardes’ Gaiety Girls. Her West End debut came that year in the title role of The Shop Girl opposite Seymour Hicks, yet she left the production to give birth. Subsequent London engagements included All Abroad (1895) and The Gay Parisienne (1896) before she and Gilbert sailed for Australia. Although subjected to spousal abuse, the marriage endured until 1900. During this period she appeared in Milord, Sir Smith (1898) and, in 1899, both The Great Caesar and Owen Hall’s Florodora, in which she portrayed Lady Holyrood. After another Australian tour she repeated the role on a British tour in 1901. Later that year she joined San Toy, eventually assuming the lead, and starred in Kitty Grey. In 1902 she performed in Paul Rubens’ Three Little Maids and remarried actor-manager Wilfred Cotton, whose stepdaughter was the emerging Lily Elsie. Working alongside Cotton, she took part in The Medal And The Maid (1903), Winnie Brooke, Widow (1904) and The Adventures Of Moll (1905). The following year the couple toured South Africa to widespread acclaim. Further London triumphs followed, among them Butterflies (1908), before another visit to South Africa. In subsequent years Reeve played British music halls, revisited Australia and South Africa, and crossed the United States. Throughout the war she toured Britain in A Modern Eve, the retitled Winnie Brooke, Widow. In 1919 she appeared in the silent film Comradeship. Most of the 1920s found her abroad, yet in 1935 she returned to London for cabaret at the Trocadero. Past sixty, she maintained stage work through the late 1930s and early 1940s and, from the mid-1940s onward, accepted minor screen roles that included Night And The City (1950). She remained active on stage until eighty and continued occasional film parts for three additional years.