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Celebrating television's This Is Your Life

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THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Minnie Barnard, actress and theatrical dresser, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in the audience at the BBC Television Theatre, having been led to believe she was there to watch a programme about the ballerina Alicia Markova.

Minnie, known affectionately as 'Morty', was born in Rivenhall, Essex. Having worked in service from age 9, she travelled to Paris on a whim at age 16 and found work in the household of Edmund Rostand, author of Cyrano de Bergerac. She returned to London in 1900 and, following some time lodging with Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley, she set up her own guest house.

The guest house was a success until the outbreak of the First World War, when she found work as an actress, calling herself Silva Mortimer and appearing in early British silent films such as Lass of the Looms, Call of the Sea and Heart of a Rose. However, the introduction of talkies ruined her film career, and she became a theatrical dresser and worked with ballerina Alicia Markova and actress Jessie Matthews among others.

programme details...

• Edition No: 50
• Subject No: 50
• Broadcast live: Mon 13 Jan 1958
• Broadcast time: 8.15-8.45pm
• Venue: BBC Television Theatre
• Series: 3
• Edition: 16

on the guest list...

• Lizzie Wilson
• Alice Snow - sister
• Olive Prior
• Topliss Green
• Stella Sylvester
• Edna - daughter
• Kay Cavendish
• Jessie Matthews
• Ezra Drury - brother
Filmed tribute:
• Alicia Markova

production team...

• Researchers: Ray Marler, Michael Williams
• Writer: Peter Moore
• Director: unknown
• Producer: T Leslie Jackson

• names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

An Actor's Life For Me

spotlight on the stars

Maurice Leonard

the researcher's story

Alicia Markova

Jessie Matthews

Maurice Leonard - a former researcher and production associate of the programme - recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his book Markova, The Legend, reproduced here with kind permission of the author...

About this time Alicia acquired a permanent dresser... Silva Mortimer, formerly an actress in silent films.

Morty, as everyone called her, became a dresser quite suddenly. It had happened when she had been walking down Charing Cross Road one day and met a Mr Lestocq, a producer friend who was now manager of the Windmill. Morty confessed 'talkies' had ruined her career. She had no work.

Lestocq told her that the Windmill needed a wardrobe mistress. She took the job. At the Windmill Doris (Alicia's sister) told Morty that Alicia needed a dresser on tour. Morty joined Alicia on the road and her daughter Edna, a former Tiller Girl, took over from her at the Windmill.

Morty stayed until she retired, and then Edna took over and remained with Alicia for the rest of her dancing career.

The previous year, in New York, she had received a call from BBC Television. Her former dresser Morty, Edna's mother, had been discovered by a This Is Your Life researcher. She was to be honoured as a subject of the show. Could Alicia appear?

She could not make it in person as she was dancing at the Met but she agreed to film a tribute at the BBC studio in New York. She was regularly asked to contribute to This Is Your Life and always did so if she could.

Morty's show was live and the public saw Alicia flashed up on their screens at home, in black dress and pearls. Morty chatted to the image, not realising that Alicia had filmed the piece.