Lila Prentice: Obituary
This is the obituary that appeared in the Daily Telegraph on Lila’s demise. She died on 4th January 2007 at Brinsworth House, the home for retired variety artists run by the Variety Artists Benevolent Fund. Royal Command Performances, like the one Lila appeared in 1946, are held in aid of this fund.
From The Telegraph
Lila Prentice, who died on Thursday aged 98, was one half of the rope spinning, whip-cracking variety act El Granadas, which played halls, theatres and miners' galas from the 1920s until the 1970s; they took part in the Royal Command Performance in 1946 at the Palladium, an evening that included performances by Arthur Askey, Sid Field, Tessie O'Shea and Terry Thomas.
Lila's partner was Cecil Prentice, a variety artist whom she first met on stage in pantomime in Derby in 1928. He was a stepbrother of Kay Smart, of Billy Smart's Circus. As they came off stage he whispered to Lila: "I'm going to get you drunk tonight." He did that, and more.
Two months later, finding herself pregnant, Lila advertised in The Stage for Cecil to get in touch "as a matter of urgency". He did, and remained with her until his death in 1971. Their stage act featured fancy rope-spinning, stock-whips, unicycling, lassooing and baton-swinging. One turn saw Cecil using a bullwhip to remove a lit cigarette from Lila's mouth; however, it dropped down her bosom too many times for her comfort.
They would play a theatre for six nights, spend a day travelling, and then begin the next six days' work. Often they would be on tour for months at a time. During a 10-minute variety spot Lila's clothing would gradually reduce from rhumba dress, to two-piece, to tunic, and finally to bikini. Lila made all her own costumes, insisting on using diamantés, never sequins.
When they found themselves being asked to provide a full evening's entertainment Lila acquired a troupe of 13 dogs and trained them to jump through hoops, dance and push prams. The animals were rewarded with morsels of cooked liver dispensed from her pocket at regular intervals. The act was billed as "Lila and her lovable canine pets". All the animals were trained with love and kindness, and visitors to the family home would sometimes find themselves forced to sit on the floor while the dogs occupied the best chairs.
For their finale Cecil (not a small man) would leap on to Lila's shoulders, his rope still spinning over his head, while the band crescendoed to a mighty cadence. The audiences loved it.
As their popularity grew Lila roped in her son, Peter, then aged 13, renaming the act El Granadas and Peter. When her son was 17, her future daughter-in-law also joined the show. But in due course the younger ones had their own family, leaving Lila, Cecil and the dogs alone once more.
There were numerous memorable occasions. Once Danny Kaye tried to ride Peter's unicycle and promptly fell off; they appeared on Blue Peter in its early days, and with Judy Garland at the London Palladium in 1947 in a variety show that also featured Max Bygraves, Dina Shaw and the Debonairs.
The show continued until one summer afternoon at Paignton in 1971 when Cecil was making his way on to the stage for a rehearsal. He tripped, fell into the pit cracking several ribs and died shortly afterwards. Lila, unable to drive, never worked the boards again.
One of 11 children, she was born Lilian Rosemary Darbonne on September 19 1908 at Shepherd's Bush, west London. Her father was a stonemason of French extraction. From almost the moment she could walk Lila was scrubbing doorsteps to earn a sixpence to pay for Saturday morning lessons at Madame Victor's School for Dancing.
When Lila was 16, Mme Victor was asked to supply a troupe for a tour of Palestine and surrounding countries. Her father refused to allow her to go, so she forged his signature on the consent form, got a passport and one night slipped away from the family home to join the party on its way to Marseille, from where they sailed to the Middle East.
They toured for several months, as The Royal Scots, a troupe of all-girl trick cyclists that included bagpipes (mostly stuffed with straw, as only a couple of the girls could play). Lila soon met and married a Palestinian policeman called Hussey, who was a Roman Catholic. When he turned out to be violent, she saved her housekeeping money, secretly bought a passage home and returned to her forgiving parents. Months later she tried her family's patience once more by falling pregnant.
Lila and Cecil settled at St John's Wood, London, but spent much of their lives on the road. Initially, they were known as La Rope and Lady, but Cecil had a romantic notion of Spain and renamed their act El Granadas. They adopted Spanish-looking costumes, with Lila enjoying the part of the senorita.
During the war years they visited Army camps around the country, and on the eve of D-Day toured several bases around London to boost morale. After the war, when Britain became a popular destination for European entertainers, they found plenty of work on the Continent, where a non-speaking act had no language difficulties; they appeared at the Moulin Rouge in Paris and the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen.
As higher-profile engagements emerged during the 1940s the cycling act was dropped and the rope-spinning expanded. Travelling round the country with the dogs was an arduous experience. Cecil refused to drive at more than 30mph, and when the motorways arrived he steadfastly avoided them. Challenged about this, he cited the sign on every motorway that read "no animals".
In the late 1970s Lila could be found running the children's roundabout at Windsor Safari Park, which was at that time owned by the Smart circus family. After living alone, and later with her son, Lila Prentice moved into Brinsworth House, the retirement home for variety artistes, in 1990. There she embroidered tablecloths, enjoyed a glass of dry white wine before lunch, and continued to demonstrate her strong will to residents and staff alike.
She is survived by her son.
Lila as she would probably like to be remembered - the girl with the figure
My grandmother Lila was extraordinarily kind to me when I was a child and toured with her and Cecil in my summer holidays. It was a revelation to find when I was older that she was a much tougher and more difficult woman than I had imagined.
She could be very sharp with people, sometimes choosing her target badly. In one case where, coming off the stage to collect a prop she pushed a woman who was standing in her way and swore at her. The woman turned out to be a Cissy Williams the booking agent for the hugely important Moss Empires circuit. Cecil was not amused.
Despite her sharp tongue she did have her soft side. This is the envelope I found in a small case she owned. It must have been written shortly after Cecil died in 1971 and is probably the only way she could express what she was feeling. It is the words of the song “You’ll Never Know” written by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon based on a poem written by a young American war bride.
