Teddy Joyce, Part 2

One of the costume designs for Teddy Joyce’s The Girl Friends was for a white blouse with a huge raised colour, and black satin trousers. This was actually a female version of the traditional black evening suit and white dress shirt the male bands of the time were wearing, and echoed the dress suit Teddy himself wore as conductor.

 My illustration was photographed at a performance at the magnificent Trocadero cinema at the Elephant and Castle, now, sadly, demolished. Mabel as the leader, is sitting sixth from the left in a line-up of seventeen musicians, with Ivy Benson fifth from the left on saxophone, and Blanche Coleman on the other side of Mabel.

Mabel’s debut as conductor

Mabel recalled: “One day at the big Trocadero Cinema the show presented was called ‘Rhapsody in Blue’.  We played that whole work including the band in the pit, two grand pianos painted white on stage, and ballet dancers.  The stage was draped in white voile curtains beautifully lit.  It really was a lovely presentation. 

The “pit” was a rising platform which, at the touch of a button, came up to almost stage level while we played Teddy’s signature tune: “Sunrise.”  Velvet curtains on stage would part a little, and Teddy stepped out and into the pit, and then the performance would follow.  This particular day, according to routine, the pit came up but no Teddy.  We kept playing, no Teddy!

Then, instead of Teddy, the resident organist came out to inform the packed house that Teddy hadn’t arrived at the theatre.  The performance had to go on while they tried to find out the reason for his non-appearance, and the management of the theatre had requested that the leader of the orchestra should take over.

It was an awful moment for me – I was horrified – but the organist came down to encourage me – and there was a lot of applause, so it had to be faced.  A deep breath and a prayer, and off we went – the girls played their best to support me, even the dancers smiled down encouragement, and all went well. Panic however backstage – still no Teddy – his manager was not there either and we later found out he had been visiting an agent.  We had a 20-minute band show on stage a little while later – and this was a nightmare for me, partly because I only had my band costume to wear a- black satin trouser outfit and didn’t feel comfortable or at my best on that huge stage.

About 30 minutes later, after all was over and the big picture was on the screen, Teddy arrived in a flaming temper (at himself, we suspected), because he had overslept after a night “on the town”. He blamed the hotel staff for not waking him, and he blamed his manager for not being there – in fact, when the two got together, the row was momentous.  I was furious too at the whole thing, and being pushed into the ordeal, so tempers flew all round that day!”

Mabel used to recall also the skill with which Ivy played the beginning of Rhapsody in Blue, (by Gershwin,) which begins with a long glissando upwards by the clarinet.  It is not easy to do smoothly, but Ivy managed it well.

Teddy the Golden Boy

The background to the founding of the girls’ band shows that Teddy was burning the candle at both ends.  He had had a glamorous early career in Hollywood, and rumours had linked him to the film star, Dolores del Rio, Jean Harlow, and Pola Negri.  He had learnt to conduct by using three diagrams drawn for him by Mendoza, the conductor at the Capitol in New York – one for a foxtrot, one for a waltz, and one for a one-step.  He arrived in England with only about £100 in his pocket, but landed the MC job at the Kit-Cat club, and in the next few years had been earning between £3000-£5000. However, in December 1935 he had over-reached himself by opening a bottle party club in Mayfair called The Continental with a partner only named as ‘Spiegel’. It failed almost at once as he lacked sufficient capital, and in February 1936 he filed for bankruptcy with debts of £3589.

On questioning he admitted that “he had to live at a high rate, and when travelling to the provinces had to keep two homes going.” He had been out of work for about nine weeks, but was just about to start a girls’ band, and “intended to earn big money in the future and would be able to pay his creditors in full.”

He was good at so many things. He was a brilliant sportsman, and once played a demonstration tennis match against Suzanne Lenglen, the French tennis star, and one newspaper article marvelled at the number of things Teddy could do brilliantly.  An article by Arthur W Willcox in “Tune Times” for September 1934 had describe Teddy as “hot ginger and dynamic” , and a man with boundless energy who would be capable of doing anything he put his hand to, but the bankruptcy hearing showed that he was flying dangerously close to the sun.

Teddy and Chili Bouchier

In 1936 Teddy had become engaged to Chili Bouchier, (Dorothy Hill)., who was an actress born in Fulham in 1909.  Her first public performances had been dancing in shows put on by Madam Cleaver Lee’s School of Ballet in the early 1920s, and her first job was working at Harrods, where she modelled clothes from the Ladies Wear Collection, and acquired her nickname of Chili. In 1927 she was selected to perform in a series of short sound pictures by Phonofilm in Clapham, and she appeared as a bathing beauty in ‘Shooting Stars’ in 1927.   She married another actor in 1929, but divorced him soon after. She starred in a number of other films such as Warner Brothers ‘Gypsy’ and in 1939 was to form her own repertory company: ‘The Chili Bouchier Players.’ For Teddy, having this beautiful girl friend was all part of his own glamourous persona.

In tomorrow’s blog, Mabel and the band join a publicity shoot with Teddy.