Joyce Grenfell

Biography

Joyce Irene Phipps, 10 February 1910, London, England, d. 30 November 1979, London, England. An actress, singer and author, and a brilliant exponent of the monologue and witty song. The daughter of American parents - her mother’s sister was Nancy Astor - Joyce Phipps used to describe herself as ‘three fourths American’. She became interested in the theatre at an early age, and spent a term at RADA before marrying Reginald Grenfell in 1929. Subsequently, she worked for a time in commercial art, contributed to Punch and Country Life, and spent over three years as radio critic for the Observer. After impressing the humorist Steven Potter with her own charming recollection of a lecture that she had recently attended at a Women’s Institute, she was engaged by the theatrical producer Herbert Farjeon for The Little Revue (1939). In the early 40s she appeared in other Farjeon revues, Diversion, Diversion No. 2 and Light And Shade, and then, in 1944,...

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