Mary Elizabeth Lawson (30 August 1910 – 6 May 1941) was a stage and film actress during the 1920s and 1930s. In addition to her performances on stage and screen, Lawson was known for her romantic affairs, including with tennis player Fred Perry and her future husband, the married son of the Dame of Sark. Lawson and her husband died in the Second World War during a German bombing raid on Liverpool.
Early life
Mary Lawson was born in Darlington, County Durham, England on 30 August 1910. She grew up in a humble terraced house on 58 Pease Street on the Freeholders' Estate in Darlington and attended Dodmire School. The Lawsons were a working-class family that had relocated from Gateshead to Darlington several years before Mary's birth. Lawson's father, Thomas Ed Lawson (b. 1876), was an assistant fitter for the North Eastern Railway Company, while her mother, Jane Hood Lawson (b. 1875), died when Mary was only three. As a result, Mary was largely raised by her elder sister Dorothy (b. 1899). Mary also had two brothers: John (b. 1896) and Francis James (b. 1906)
Stage and film career
Lawson began performing at a young age. When she was only five she sang at Feethams for soldiers wounded during the First World War and soon became a regular at Darlington's Scala theatre on Eldon Street. Lawson took on other roles and in 1920 she had a part in a Babes in the Wood panto. At the age of twelve she led a performing group of young girls that toured County Durham for three years. In addition to her pure acting ability, Lawson developed into an exceptional dancer. In her mid-teens she landed a role in a panto in Brighton and later performed in Frinton-on-Sea in Essex, where she was spotted by comedian Gracie Fields. With Fields's support, Lawson was able to become the resident act at The May Fair Hotel in London. Lawson incorporated into her show the song Varsity Drag from the musical Good News, which at the time was being performed by American Zelma O'Neal at the Carlton Theatre in the West End. Her performance was such a success that when O'Neal returned to the United States, the Carlton Theatre choose 17-year-old Lawson as her replacement. Lawson made her name on stage in 1928 at the Carlton in the role Flo in the production of Good News. In 1929, Lawson departed for Australia on a tour, where she appeared in the productions of The Desert Song and Hold Everything!.
By the early 1930s, Lawson had established herself on the stage as a musical comedy star, able to earn fifty to sixty British pounds a week, and in 1933 she entered into the British film industry. Though she eventually acted in more than a dozen films, her screen career never matched her stage success. Her first major role was as Susie in Colonel Blood, which starred Frank Cellier. The most successful film that Lawson had a role in was the 1935 production of Scrooge, which starred Seymour Hicks and Donald Calthrop. She also appeared in films that included in their cast such notable actors as Stanley Holloway in D'Ye Ken John Peel? and Cotton Queen, Will Fyffe in Cotton Queen, and Vivien Leigh in Things Are Looking Up, and Bud Flanagan in A Fire Has Been Arranged. Lawson's last film was Oh Boy! in 1938.
Between films she continued her stage career, including a starring role in Life Begins at Oxford Circus at the London Palladium. Lawson appeared in a number of theatrical productions up through the first year of the Second World War. In late 1939 Lawson participated in a series of shows for the benefit of the British military personnel. The last production that Lawson had a role in was White Horse Inn at the Coliseum Theatre in early 1940.