Biography
Born Patricia Kirkwood on 24 February 1921 in Pendleton, Salford, Lancashire, England, the performer died on 25 December 2007 in Ilkley, West Yorkshire. An actress and singer who ranked among the foremost leading ladies of West End musicals, British cinema, and Christmas pantomimes throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Kirkwood earned the description “the greatest principal boy of the Century” through her repeated appearances in the latter form; critic Kenneth Tynan once labelled her legs “the eighth wonder of the world.”
She launched her professional life at fourteen on the stage of the Salford Hippodrome and, a year afterward, took part in a pantomime in Cardiff. At sixteen she reached the West End for the first time, playing Dandini in Cinderella at the Princes’ Theatre. Only two years later, still eighteen, she topped the bill in the revue Black Velvet at the London Hippodrome, delivering a memorable rendition of “My Heart Belongs To Daddy,” the number that remained inseparably linked with her name. Additional West End triumphs followed in Top Of The World (1940), Lady Behave (1941), Let’s Face It! (1942), Starlight Roof (1947), Ace Of Clubs (1950)—where she first presented Noël Coward’s “Chase Me Charlie”—Fancy Free (1951), Wonderful Town (1955), and Chrysanthemum (1956). During the run of Starlight Roof, the venue of twelve-year-old Julie Andrews’s own West End debut, Kirkwood’s then-boyfriend, fashion photographer Baron, arranged an introduction to Prince Philip, consort of Queen Elizabeth; persistent rumours of an affair, always firmly rejected by the actress, resurfaced as late as the 1990s.
Her screen work commenced in 1938 with Save A Little Sunshine and continued through Me And My Pal (1939), Band Waggon (1940, alongside Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch), Flight From Folly (1945), No Leave, No Love (1946, filmed in America with Van Johnson), Once A Sinner (1950), Stars In Your Eyes (1956), and After The Ball (1957). Kirkwood also took part in several Royal Command Performances, cabaret engagements, radio broadcasts, and television programmes. In the 1950s she portrayed music-hall legends Marie Lloyd in All Our Yesterdays and Our Marie, and Vesta Tilley in The Great Little Tilley.
Following the 1954 death of her second husband, wealthy Greek-Russian ship-owner Spiro de Spero Gabriele, she married actor-broadcaster-songwriter Hubert Gregg—composer of “Maybe It’s Because I’m A Londoner” and “I’m Going To Get Lit Up”—in 1956; the couple divorced in 1976. Kirkwood then spent four years in Portugal, where she met solicitor Peter Knight, who became her fourth husband. The pair eventually settled in Yorkshire, where she repeatedly declined invitations to return to the stage; even Cameron Mackintosh could not persuade her to accept the role of Carlotta Campion in the 1987 London production of Follies. She did reappear in 1993 with her solo revue Glamorous Nights Of Music, which opened to strong notices at the Wimbledon Theatre, and the following year she made a memorable guest appearance in the Cole Porter–Noël Coward celebration Let’s Do It!, staged in Chichester and elsewhere. Her autobiography appeared in 1999, though Alzheimer’s disease overshadowed her final years.
She launched her professional life at fourteen on the stage of the Salford Hippodrome and, a year afterward, took part in a pantomime in Cardiff. At sixteen she reached the West End for the first time, playing Dandini in Cinderella at the Princes’ Theatre. Only two years later, still eighteen, she topped the bill in the revue Black Velvet at the London Hippodrome, delivering a memorable rendition of “My Heart Belongs To Daddy,” the number that remained inseparably linked with her name. Additional West End triumphs followed in Top Of The World (1940), Lady Behave (1941), Let’s Face It! (1942), Starlight Roof (1947), Ace Of Clubs (1950)—where she first presented Noël Coward’s “Chase Me Charlie”—Fancy Free (1951), Wonderful Town (1955), and Chrysanthemum (1956). During the run of Starlight Roof, the venue of twelve-year-old Julie Andrews’s own West End debut, Kirkwood’s then-boyfriend, fashion photographer Baron, arranged an introduction to Prince Philip, consort of Queen Elizabeth; persistent rumours of an affair, always firmly rejected by the actress, resurfaced as late as the 1990s.
Her screen work commenced in 1938 with Save A Little Sunshine and continued through Me And My Pal (1939), Band Waggon (1940, alongside Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch), Flight From Folly (1945), No Leave, No Love (1946, filmed in America with Van Johnson), Once A Sinner (1950), Stars In Your Eyes (1956), and After The Ball (1957). Kirkwood also took part in several Royal Command Performances, cabaret engagements, radio broadcasts, and television programmes. In the 1950s she portrayed music-hall legends Marie Lloyd in All Our Yesterdays and Our Marie, and Vesta Tilley in The Great Little Tilley.
Following the 1954 death of her second husband, wealthy Greek-Russian ship-owner Spiro de Spero Gabriele, she married actor-broadcaster-songwriter Hubert Gregg—composer of “Maybe It’s Because I’m A Londoner” and “I’m Going To Get Lit Up”—in 1956; the couple divorced in 1976. Kirkwood then spent four years in Portugal, where she met solicitor Peter Knight, who became her fourth husband. The pair eventually settled in Yorkshire, where she repeatedly declined invitations to return to the stage; even Cameron Mackintosh could not persuade her to accept the role of Carlotta Campion in the 1987 London production of Follies. She did reappear in 1993 with her solo revue Glamorous Nights Of Music, which opened to strong notices at the Wimbledon Theatre, and the following year she made a memorable guest appearance in the Cole Porter–Noël Coward celebration Let’s Do It!, staged in Chichester and elsewhere. Her autobiography appeared in 1999, though Alzheimer’s disease overshadowed her final years.