Trivia

In 1993, well past age 90, she appeared in a new TV series of Sherlock Holmes adventures.

She was married four times -- divorced three husbands, including actor 'Basil Sydney', and her fourth husband died in a mountain climbing accident.

Joined the New York Metropolitan Opera at age 18.

Was made a British citizen in 1946.

Was Ivor Novello's inspiration for the leading ladies in his most successful operettas.

Switched to acting after feeling she didn't have the commitment nor patience to dedicate herself to an operatic career.

She played Nerissa in a production of "Ther Merchant of Venice" in New York in 1922. Two years later, she played the titular heroine in "Rose Marie" on Broadway but left the show after an argument with managers and never sang in the United States again.

Moved to England in the 30s and continued theatre, finding success on the London stage with "Strange Interlude" and "The Browning Version" among others.

For most of World War II, Ellis was absent from the theatre, performing welfare work in hospitals, and from time to time giving concerts to entertain members of the armed forces.

Probably the last surviving singer to have created a rôle in a Puccini opera (Suor Genovieffa in "Suor Angelica" at the Metropolitan Opera in 1918).

After appearing with the Metropolitan Opera beginning in 1918, she acted on Broadway, creating the title role in Rose-Marie.

In 1954, Ellis was cast as Mrs. Erlynne in Coward's musical After the Ball, but her singing voice had deteriorated drastically, and much of her music had to be cut. Coward blamed her performance for the relative failure of the show.

In 1948 she gave one of her most praised performances as the embittered Millie Crocker-Harris in Terence Rattigan's The Browning Version.

Returning to the stage after the war, Ellis was successful in the 1944 and 1947 British productions of Noël Coward's melodrama Point Valaine, playing a hotel keeper in a sordid, clandestine relationship with her head waiter.

Ellis published her memoirs in 1982 under the title Those Dancing Years. A further autobiography Moments of Truth followed in 1986.

She was an American actress and singer appearing on stage, radio, television and film, best known for her musical theatre roles, particularly in Ivor Novello works.

In 1930, Ellis emigrated to England with Basil Sydney, her third husband, whom she had married in 1929. In London's West End, she starred in Jerome Kern's Music in the Air (1933) and went on to her best remembered roles as the heroines of three Ivor Novello operettas: Glamorous Night (1935), The Dancing Years (1939) and Arc de Triomphe (1943).

She made her last stage appearance in 1970, playing Mrs Warren in Shaw's Mrs Warren's Profession at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford.

She first became interested in performing around 1910, and under a vocational course trained her lyric soprano under the tutelage of Belgian contralto Freida de Goebele and Italian operatic coach Fernando.Tanara.

She also became known for film roles, including in The 3 Worlds of Gulliver in 1960.