Guildford Guildhall |
My home town is famous for its cathedral, the crumbling old castle,
the Spectrum Leisure
Centre, the Royal
Grammar school in the Upper High Street and, well not a lot else really.
Yvonne Arnaud Theatre frontage |
But down by the River Wey, lurking
alongside the Debenham’s department store, sits the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre.
The auditorium was built in the middle 1960’s and will soon celebrate its 50th
anniversary.
I have to admit to vaguely remembering it being built, although I
was only knee high to a grasshopper at that particular time (honest I was guv!).
But until recently I never gave much of a
thought as to who it was named after, or inspired by. This is a sad reflection
from someone who actually worked in the building for a short period about 20
years ago.
So the question now has to be asked, who
was Yvonne Arnaud and exactly what relationship did she hold to this fairly
nondescript Surrey market town?
Yvonne Arnaud |
Germaine Yvonne Arnaud was a French born
actress, pianist and singer (b. December 20th, 1890). Born in
Bordeaux, she was raised in Paris and at the age of 9 entered the Conservatoire de
Paris.
Regarded as something of a child protégée,
she started her career as a child concert pianist, touring and performing with
many leading orchestras throughout Europe and the USA.
In her early 20’s, she moved on to
musical comedy and then, after an operation on her larynx affected her singing
voice, into non-musical comedy and drama around the time of the early 1920’s.
She married the actor Hugh McLellan in
1920 and lived in Effingham near Guildford for many years, hence her continual connection to
the town.
She appeared on stage and in numerous
British films in the 30’s and 40’s, going on to playing a maid in Jacques Tati’s
“Mon Oncle” (1958 - her final
performance). This production was in fact the first of Tati’s films to be
released in colour.
Not that she ever gave up “tinkling the
ivories” occasionally returning to perform as a pianist in her later career (e.g.
with the Halle Orchestra in 1948 and at the 1956 Hoffnung Festival).
Memorial stone |
She died in Guildford aged of 67, after an operation on a cerebral haemorrhage.and
her ashes were scattered in St Martha’s churchyard* where there is a memorial
dedicated to her.
7 years after her death, the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre was
opened.
We never witnessed anything, but with the amount of red wine that was consumed on that rather damp evening, it is a wonder we knew what day it was let alone anything else!
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