Joyce Grenfell
Joyce Irene Grenfell, OBE (née Phipps; 10 February 1910 – 30 November 1979) was a British comedienne, actress and, in her time, one of the country's best loved entertainers, immortalised in roles such as the gym mistress Miss Gossage in The Happiest Days of Your Life and Ruby Gates in the St Trinian's films. She achieved success as a writer and performer of songs and monologues at a time when it was unusual for a woman of her social background to work.
Early life
Born in Montpelier Square in Knightsbridge, London, Joyce was the daughter of architect Paul Phipps (1880–1953), the grandson of Charles Paul Phipps and a second cousin of Ruth Draper. Her mother was an American socialite, Nora Langhorne (1889–1955), one of five daughters of Chiswell Langhorne, an American railway millionaire. Nancy Astor, née Nancy Langhorne, was one of her mother's sisters, and had also married in England. Grenfell often visited her at Astor's home of Cliveden and later lived on a cottage on the estate ('Parr's'), a mile from the main house, in the early years of her marriage.
Podcasts:
Joyce Grenfell
ALBUMS
- Requests the Pleasure: The Best of Joyce Grenfell released: 1992
Requests the Pleasure: The Best of Joyce Grenfell
Released 1992- I'm Going to See You Today
- Nursery School: Flowers
- Learn to Loosen (The Music's Message)
- Visitor
- Old Tyme Dancing (Stately as a Galleon)
- I Wouldn't Go Back
- Committee
- Green Summer (In the Green Time of Moon Daisies)
- The Wedding Is on Saturday
- Narcissus (The Laughing Record)
- The Old Girls' School Reunion
- Wrong Songs for Wrong Singers (or Songs to Make You Sick)
- Shirley's Girlfriend: "Fun Fair"
- Dear Francois
- Nicodemus
- Drifting
- Nursery School: Sing Song Time
- Ballad
- Hostess
- Artists' Room
- Lullaby
Born: 1910-02-10
Died: 1979-11-30
