Hermione Gingold: The Sharp-Tongued Revue Star
Hermione Ferdinanda Gingold (9 December 1897 – 24 May 1987) was an English actress known for her sharp-tongued, eccentric character roles. Her signature drawling, deep voice became her trademark after nodules on her vocal cords in the late 1920s and early 1930s transformed her pitch from soprano to a distinctive contralto that critics likened to “powdered glass in deep syrup.”
Early Life and Education
Hermione Ferdinanda Gingold was born in Carlton Hill, Maida Vale, London, the elder daughter of James Gingold, a prosperous Austrian-born Jewish stockbroker, and Kate Frances Walter. She was named after her paternal grandmother, Hermine, though her mother may have drawn inspiration from Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. On her father’s side, she descended from Solomon Sulzer, a Vienna-based synagogue cantor and Jewish liturgical composer. Her father believed children should decide their own religious beliefs, and Gingold grew up without particular religious affiliation.
Her professional début came in 1908 at age eleven, when she played the herald in Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s production of Pinkie and the Fairies, later promoted to the title role for a provincial tour. She attended Rosina Filippi’s stage school in London and appeared in the original 1911 production of Where the Rainbow Ends. By her mid-teens, she had played Cassandra in William Poel’s Troilus and Cressida (1912), Jessica in The Merchant of Venice at the Old Vic (1914), and various roles in musical and dramatic productions.
Career and Achievements
Gingold’s adult stage career developed gradually. She married publisher Michael Joseph in 1918 and had two sons, the younger of whom, Stephen, became a pioneer of theatre-in-the-round in Britain. She divorced Joseph in 1926 and married writer and lyricist Eric Maschwitz later that year, divorcing him in 1945.
The vocal crisis of the late 1920s and early 1930s proved transformative rather than limiting. She described the shift as “One morning it was Mozart and the next ‘Old Man River’,” and this new voice became inseparable from her identity as a performer. She established herself at the Gate Theatre Studio in London, first as a serious actress before finding her true métier in revue. According to The Times, she discovered her calling in Spread It Abroad (1936), a revue at the Saville Theatre with material by Herbert Farjeon.
From 1938 to 1948, Gingold concentrated on West End revues, appearing in nine productions. She co-starred with actress Hermione Baddeley in a partnership The Times described as “briskly sustained mock-rivalry,” though they appeared together in only three shows. Her most celebrated revue series was the “Sweet” productions: A Sweet and Low (opened June 1943), revised as Sweeter and Lower and then Sweetest and Lowest, which ran for almost six years. During this run, she performed 1,676 times before 800,000 people and made 17,010 costume changes. In her sketches, she specialized in portraying what Alan Melville recalled as “grotesque and usually unfortunate ladies of dubious age and occasionally, morals.”
From the early 1950s, Gingold relocated to the United States and built a major career there. Her American stage work included John Murray Anderson’s Almanac (1953) and Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feelin’ So Sad (1963), which she also performed in London. She became a well-known guest on television talk shows and appeared in film and stage musicals including Gigi (1958), Bell, Book and Candle (1958), The Music Man (1962), and A Little Night Music (1977), typically playing formidable elder characters.
Notable Events and Milestones
Gingold’s 1908 début at age eleven marked the beginning of a career that would span nearly seven decades. Her appearance in Where the Rainbow Ends on 21 December 1911 was a significant early success. The vocal transformation of the late 1920s and early 1930s, while initially a crisis, became the defining characteristic of her mature voice and persona.
The opening of A Sweet and Low in June 1943 proved pivotal, establishing her as a major revue star during the Second World War. Her postwar transition to American theatre in the early 1950s extended her career internationally. An accident in 1977 ended her performing career, marking the close of her professional life at age seventy-nine.
Additional Resources
Gingold’s life and career are documented in greater detail through her autobiography and in theatrical archives. Readers seeking comprehensive biographical information, details of her numerous stage productions, and her television appearances may consult Wikipedia’s full entry on Hermione Gingold, as well as theatre history resources and interviews conducted during her American career.
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