GRACIE FIELDS - Rochdale’s “Our Gracie” By Margaret Brecknell
One of Lancashire’s most famous daughters, Dame Gracie Fields, was born 125 years ago this month. “Our Gracie”, as she was affectionately known, was born in the humblest of surroundings, but rose to become one of the highest paid film stars in the world in the years leading up to World War II.
singer named Lily Turner, who was lodging nearby, heard young Gracie sing and it was she who encouraged her to enter the competition. The budding child star won the first prize of ten shillings and sixpence in the contest held at Rochdale’s now long-gone Old Circus and Hippodrome Theatre.
hristened Grace Stansfield, she was born in Rochdale on 9th January 1898. In early childhood, Gracie lived with the rest of her family above her grandmother’s fish and chip shop in the town. There was not much space and Gracie was compelled to share a bed with her two younger sisters. She later described her childhood home as the “tiniest, smelliest, dingiest little fish shop in the North of England”.
Thereafter Gracie became a regular performer at local charity concerts under the billing of “Rochdale’s Clever Little Girl Vocalist”. Through one of Lily Turner’s showbiz contacts, Gracie auditioned successfully, in 1908, for a new touring dance troupe called “Clara Coverdale’s Nine Dainty Dots” and at just ten years of age left home for the first time to tour all over the country. Over the following four years she spent most of her time touring with various juvenile dance troupes and was often not even able to make it back home to Rochdale for Christmas.
At the age of just seven, she entered her first talent competition. Her mother, Jenny, was herself an enthusiastic amateur singer and she encouraged all four of her children to go on the stage. However, the story goes that a music hall
Gracie’s first big break came when, in 1915, she signed a professional contract with a Manchester theatrical agent and soon afterwards was offered a prominent role in a touring musical revue called Yes I Think So. One of her fellow cast
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