[‘Good old-timers’: Naomi Jacob, writer and actress, to theatre historian W. J. Macqueen-Pope.] Seven Typed Letters Signed (three ‘Mickie’), with copies of two replies, discussing Marie Lloyd, Bernard Dillon, Julian Wylie, Ivor Novello, ENSA, BBC.

An entertaining and characteristic correspondence. See both their entries in the Oxford DNB. The nine items (seven by Jacob and two by Macqueen-Pope) are in fair overall condition, with all text clear and complete, on lightly aged and creased paper, with slight rust-staining from paperclips, and minor wear to edges. All folded for envelopes. The first seven of the nine following entries are NJ’s letters (the last four of which are addressed to ‘My dear Popie’), the last two the copies of MP’s. ONE: 24 June [1945]. ‘ENSA Entertainments. / C/o Welfare, 6th. Brit. Armde. Div. / C. M. F.’ Signed ‘N J’. 1p, 8vo. Twenty-six lines. MP is not named as the recipient, but NJ ends by praising his 1945 History of Drury Lane. Begins: ‘I went off to Trieste after having seen two companies leave here, and found the hostel at Trieste being excellently run. Much brighter then [sic] it was before. The “Nine to Six” Company were in, moving on to Mestre. They then go to Austria.’ She continues on the subject of an ‘informal’ road-side ‘conference’ with ‘Captain Roberts’. She has travelled from Trieste with Jean Webster Brough, to Udine ‘where we did “A sister to assist ’er” from B.4 radio station. Apparently this went over excellently, and everyone seemed very much pleased. I go back there to do a single talk on Wednesday.’ The second half of the letter touches on an ENSA hostel (‘no longer shared with the D.A.R.’), another meeting with Roberts, an ‘extensive programme for the station’ arranged by NJ and Brough, a trip to Venice, where she met ‘the Theatre Manager... The well known and universally repected “Fop”. This man is probably one of the most popular people ENSA has ever had out in C.M.F.’ The following six letters are all from ‘Casa Micki’. TWO: 6 February 1951. 1p, 8vo. Signed ‘Naomi Jacob.’ On pink paper. Expressing anticipation regarding his new book. She has all his others ‘up to date and, as we have no lending libraries out here in Italy that should bring a certain satisfaction to the heart of any author!’ In an autograph postscript she asks him to forward a letter to Basil Dean. THREE: 11 December 1951. 1p, 8vo. Signed ‘Naomi Jacob.’ Twenty-eight lines. On pink paper. She has just finished his ‘superb article dealing with that wonderful woman, Our Marie [Lloyd]. To be quite frank, as a rule I dislike impressions of her. Either people become fulsome or impertinent. I rank this article of yours with the one which dear James Agate wrote of her soon after her death.’ After praising his ‘beautifully written’ piece she reminds him that she ‘wrote a full length life of Marie [...] My publishers were very dubious [...] When it came out I have never had so many, such long and such enthusiastic criticisms [...] entirely due to the fact that Marie will always live in the hearts of the people who were fortunate enough to see her and still more fortunate to have known her.’ She ends by offering him one of her two copies of the ‘special photograph [Lloyd had] taken to send to Sarah Bernhardt [...] quite different from any other photograph she ever had taken [...] she does not look unlike Bernhardt in it’. FOUR: 18 January 1952. 2pp, 8vo. Signed ‘Naomi Jacob. / (but “Mickie” to my friends)’. Thirty-eight lines. In sending the photograph she gives ‘its history’. ‘She had some of these photographs taken after Sarah Bernhardt had seen her on the stage and christened her “the Sarah Bernhardt of the Music Hall Stage”. Marie of course was tickled to death because no-one venerated other great artistes more than she did and she had these photographs taken and sent one to Bernhardt with the inscription “To Sarah Bernhardt, the Marie Lloyd of the Theatre”.’ She criticises a BBC radio programme on Lloyd as a ‘hotch-potch [...] I have a great admiration for Compton Mackenzie and for Max Beerbohm but what either of them knew about Marie Lloyd I cannot imagine. To refer to her voice as being harsh is of course sheer rubbish. Her voice was a little hoarse but there was no harshness about it and her diction was perfect.’ Responding to Item Eight below, she reassures him over his own criticisms of his biography of Ivor Novello. ‘I see your point that there was no light and shade, very clearly, and I think that you dealt with the prison incident very beautifully indeed because you neither over-sentimentalised nor did too much castigation of anyone.’ She suggests a meeting on her next visit to England, adding ‘both you and I have, I think, the right to call ourselves “good old-timers”. Long postscript, signed ‘M.’, regarding Marie Lloyd’s husband ‘Dillon’: ‘It is one of my proudest memories that I was instrumental in getting that gentleman free board and lodging from His Majesty. [...] when we meet I will tell you more about that wretched little bit of God’s handiwork. God damn his soul, and with that Christian thought I leave you.’ FIVE: 27 July 1953. 2pp, 8vo. Signed ‘Mickie’. Twenty-seven lines. Begins by praising his ‘Shirt Fronts and Sables’, and in particular his treatment of Marie Tempest, ‘a person for whom I had a great admiration and affection’. It is however another of the book’s subjects, Julian Wylie, that she is writing to him about. ‘Years ago at the Middlesbrough Empire, at a time when it was scarcely considered respectable for a young woman to go to the Music Halls and I went just the same, there was a turn called the Wylie Brothers. This consisted of a man getting out of bed after an obviously very thick night, and going over to a full-length looking glass. I believe they were called Sheval glasses.’ She describes the act (‘The same idea of course as the Volonoffs did in their Shadow dance’), and asks if ‘this was Julian Wylie and his brother’. She thinks his style of writing is ‘growing so much more easy’, and commends an anecdote in the book about George Dance, which made her laugh ‘till I cried’. SIX: 28 January 1956. 2pp, 8vo. Signed ‘Mickie’. Forty-three lines. She begins with a reference to ‘Julia’ and MP’s ‘tribute’, before stating that she has been ‘deeply distressed’ at the news about MP’s wife. ‘I have a proposition to make to you. We have had some grey days but the last two or three have been quite perfect with brilliant sunshine. Now, why not send your wife out here for a few weeks? I have my sister coming to stay on the Tuesday before Easter but until then I have nobody here at all, except my admirable secretary and myself. You can even tiell your wife that we have a bottle of Gees Linctus which shall be handed over to her for her exclusive use.’ She describes the ‘easy journey’, before commenting: ‘Both Miss Martin and I liked your wife so much when we met her and you have always been such a very good Pal, it would be a pride and pleasure to do anything either for you or Mrs. Popie.’ She agrees with his view of negiligent critics, citing the response to her book ‘Prince China’: ‘It says on the cover in large letters, “written by himself but dictated to Naomi Jacob.” Again and again they have said to [sic] their so-called reviews “dedicated” to Naomi Jacob. So if they don’t even read what is on the cover, how can you expect them to open the book and read what is inside.’ She ends by stating that she will hold him to his promise ‘about writing my life. I will even promise to tell you at least seventy per cent of the truth.’ SEVEN: 26 November 1956. 1p, 8vo. Signed ‘Mikie’. Commending his ‘Nights of Gladness’, which she has just finished, as ‘the very best thing you have done yet. I felt that you had really let yourself go and had not been afraid now and then to get lyrical and almost a little sentimental. / The result is a most delightful and colourful book. The final two items are carbon copies of letters by MP. EIGHT: 19 December 1951. 2pp, 12mo. Twenty-two lines. A response to Item Three above. Regarding ‘that amazing piece of humanity which was Marie Lloyd’ he writes: ‘I knew the dear lady and was a devoted admirer. I followed in the amazing funeral. I had many tussles with Dillon in my time.’ His ‘Ivor book’ was ‘a most difficult job. To begin with, there was no light and shade - it was all success. I had only the imprisonment to set against that rocketing fame and it was a strangely uneventful life outside the Theatre, from which he had no separate existence whatever.’ NINE: 21 January 1952. Responding to Item Four above. Addressed to ‘My dear Mickie’. He thanks her for the ‘lovely picture of Marie’, commenting: ‘She made herself quite Bernhardt-ish, didn’t she.’ He ‘just could not bear to listen’ to the broadcast: ‘The B.B.C. continually leave out people who have first hand knowledge and prefer second- and third-hand views, if they can be so called. [...] I did a broadcast recently about Harlequin which, judging by the post, was an enormous success. They even reprinted a cut form of it in The Listener occupying a page, for which they paid me the sum of £2. 15. 0d! Will they give me another broadcast? Not they! You see, I might get it right - and that does not do.’ He looks forward to their meeting, reminiscing: ‘We usted to see a good deal of each other in the ENSA days. I remember frighting the life out of Dean with a report of yours about an act being cruel to some birds. I showed him and sai[d]: “There you are - another ENSA scandal. [...] He was really terrified - which was all to the good.’ He ends with an anecdote regarding ‘our friend Bernard Dillon’: ‘I have the liveliest recollection of seeing him hit a waiter at the Cafe Royal over the head with syphon of soda water and I am very happy to say that my fist connected with his jaw. It was at the time when I had been runner-up in the A.B.A. Heavyweight Championship and it was quite a good punch. Mr. Dillon was out despite his toughness. I left the building hastily because I did not want to make an appearance at Vine Street.’