Beryl May Jessie Toye, (1 May 1917 – 27 February 2010), known professionally as Wendy Toye, was a British dancer, stage and film director and actress.Obituary The Times, 1 March 2010.Obituary London Guardian, 1 March 2010.Obituary The Independent, 2 March 2010.
Life and career Toye was born in London. She initially worked as a dancer and choreographer both on stage and on film. She joined the Markova-Dolin Ballet Company as a soloist and was taken under the wing of Dame Ninette de Valois. She was soon collaborating with the likes of directors Jean Cocteau and Carol Reed. She first appeared on film as a dancer in Anthony Asquith’s film Dance Pretty Lady in 1931. In 1936 she was working on the opera film Pagliacci with the director Karl Grune, who, caught up in technical matters, asked Toye to direct the actors for him.'Backed by the Butter Board – then a Cannes premiere: rediscovering the films of Wendy Toye', in The Guardian, 18 November 2022
Toye directed the original production of the musical Bless the Bride in 1947. Her debut film short as a director, The Stranger Left No Card (1952), won the Best Fictional Short Film prize at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival, while her Christmas-themed short On the Twelfth Day… (1955) received an Oscar nomination in the Best Short Subject category. She directed films from the early 1950s until the early 1980s. Toye also was an advisor to the Arts Council and lectured in Australia.
She was attacked and robbed in her maisonette in Westminster on 27 November 1956. Two men stole jewellery and money.
On 6 January 1958, she appeared as Roy Plomley's guest on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs. Her choices were wide-ranging, including Bach, Mahler and Lena Horne. She was the head of the jury at the 13th Berlin International Film Festival in 1963.
Among the many charities supported by Toye were the Theatrical Guild (formerly the Theatrical Ladies' Guild), where she helped backstage and front-of-house staff, and became president, and the Actors' Charitable Trust, to which she was recruited by Noël Coward, and of which she was vice president.
Toye married Edward Selwyn Sharp in 1940; they divorced in 1950.
Toye collaborated with the cartoonist and illustrator Ronald Searle on the stage play Wild Thyme (1955), and then on two films: On The Twelfth Day (1955) and The King’s Breakfast (1963). Searle designed the decor and costumes and painted the sets. Based on a poem by A A Milne, The King's Breakfast, with music by Ron Grainer, tells of a quest to find an appropriate spread for the royal bread. Initially sponsored by the British Butter Board, the film ended up having its premiere at Cannes. On its re-release in 2022, The Guardian described it as "a half-hour banquet of uproarious slapstick, dance and mime, with pantomime sets and costumes".
She was awarded the Silver Jubilee Medal in 1977, and appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1992 for services to the arts. She was made an honorary D. Litt. in 1996 by the City University.Who's Who 2010 Page 2316 Toye was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1991, when she was surprised by Michael Aspel at the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham.
She died on 27 February 2010 at Hillingdon Hospital, Greater London.
She refused to write or authorise a biography during her lifetime, in spite of encouragement by her friends and family. Her theatrical archive is mostly in the Wendy Toye Archive, V&A Theatre & Performance Department, THM/343 of the Victoria and Albert Museum, with some items in the University of Bristol Theatre Collection.
Selected work This list is a collation from three biographical dictionaries, an obituaryDebrett's People of Today 2010The International Who's Who 2004 and the information web sites from some of the theatres.
Early career Produced a ballet on the colours of the rainbow at the London Palladium when aged 10, 1927–28 First professional appearance: Moth in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Old Vic, April 1930Programme in Bristol University Theatre Collection Winner, European Championship Solo Amateur competition at C. B. Cochrane's Charleston Ball at the Albert Hall, 1926
Dancer, choreographer and actress choreographer Mother Earth (Savoy), 1929 Marigold (later Phoebe) & produced dances Toad of Toad Hall, 1931–32 danced and choreographed for Camargo Society, Sadler's Wells Ballet, Rambert, British Ballet, 1930s (early) Danced in The Miracle (Lyceum Theatre), 1932 Masked Dancer in Ballerina (Gaiety Theatre), 1933 Member of Ninette de Valois' original Vic-Wells ballet, principal dancer in The Golden Toy (Coliseum), 1934 Toured with Anton Dolin's Ballet, 1934–1935 Dancer in Tulip Time (Alhambra), 1935 Touring as principal dancer and choreographer with Markova-Dolin Ballet, 1935 Love and How to Cure It (Globe), 1937 Choreographer for George Black's productions (including Black and Blue, Black Velvet, Black Vanities, Strike a New Note, Strike it Again), 1937–44 Gay Rosalinda (Palace Theatre), 1945–1948 Follow the Girls, 1945 Principal Girl in pantomime Simple Simon (Birmingham), 1947 Winnie Tate in Annie Get your Gun (London Coliseum), 1947 Ballet-hoo de Wendy Toye (Paris), 1948 Three's Company in Joyce Grenfell Requests the Pleasure (Fortune) (choreography), 1954
Stage director
London Big Ben, Bless the Bride, Tough at the Top (Adelphi for C.B. Cochrane), 1946 And So to Bed (New), 1951 Second Threshold (Vaudeville), 1950s??? Wild Thyme (Duke of York's), 1955 Lady at the Wheel (Lyric, Hammersmith), 1958 As You Like It (Old Vic), 1959 Majority of One (Phoenix), 1960 Virtue in Danger (Mermaid and Strand), 1963 Robert & Elizabeth (Lyric), 1964 On the Level (Saville), 1966 Show Boat (Adelphi), 1971 She Stoops to Conquer (Young Vic), 1972 Soldiers Tale (Young Vic & Edinburgh Festival), 1967 The Great Waltz (Drury Lane), 1970 Cowardy Custard (Mermaid), 1972 Stand and Deliver (Roundhouse), 1972 The Englishman Amused (Young Vic), 1974 Follow the Star (Westminster). 1976 Oh Mr. Porter (Mermaid), 1977 Colette (Comedy), 1980 This Thing Called Love (Ambassadors), 1984 Barnum (Victoria Palace) (assoc producer) 1985 Singin' in the Rain (London Palladium) (assoc producer), 1983 Get the Message (Molecule), 1987 Ziegfeld (London Palladium), 1988 Family and Friends (Sadler's Wells), 1988 Till We Meet Again concert (Royal Festival Hall), 1989 Captain Beaky's Heavens Up (Palace), 1990 The Sound of Music (Sadler's Wells), 1992 Under Their Hats (King's Head), 1994 Gala (last night of old Sadler's Wells Theatre), 1996
Chichester Festival R loves J, 1973 The Confederacy, 1974 Follow the Star, 1974 Made in Heaven, 1975 Make Me a World, 1976 Miranda, 1987
Watermill Theatre, Newbury Gingerbread Man, 1981 Songbook, 1988 Moll Flanders, 1990 The Drummer, 1991 See How They Run, 1992 The Anastasia File, 1994 Lloyd George Knew My Father, 1995 Warts and All, Rogues to Riches, 1996 30 Not Out, 1997
Other UK Boots with Strawberry Jam (Nottingham Playhouse), 1968 Once More with Music (Theatre Royal, Brighton), 1976 Barnum (Manchester Opera House) (assoc producer), 1984 Laburnum Grove (Watford Palace), 1987 Mrs. Dot (Watford Palace), 1988 Cinderella (Watford Palace), 1989 Penny Black (Wavendon), 1990 Mrs. Pat's Profession (workshop with Cleo Laine), 1991
Unknown location Dance for Gods, Conversations (??Stephenville), 1979 Gala tribute to Joyce Grenfell, 1985
International Feu d'artifice, Marigny Theatre, Paris (co-director and choreographer), date unknown Peter Pan, (Imperial, New York) (co-director and choreographer) 1950 Shakespeare Quatercentenary Latin American tour, 1964 Noel and Gertie (Princess Grace Theatre Monte Carlo), 1984 Celimar (Shaw Festival, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada), 1984 Madwoman of Chaillot (Shaw Festival, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada), 1985 Torville & Dean Ice Show World Tour (assoc producer), 1985 Kiss Me Kate (Aarhus & Copenhagen), 1986 Unholy Trinity (Stephenville Festival), 1986 When That I Was (Manitoba Theater Center), 1988 Oh! Coward (Playhouse Hong Kong), 1989 The Kingfisher (Vienna English Theatre), 1993 The Sound of Music (Vienna English Theatre), 1993 Under Their Hats (Vienna English Theatre), 1995
Operas The Seraglio (Bath Festival), 1967 The Impresario, Don Pasquale (Phoenix Opera), 1968 The Mikado (Ankara), 1982 Der Apotheker, la Serva Padrona (Aix-en-Provence festival), 1991
Sadler's Wells Opera/ENO Bluebeard's Castle, 1957 The Telephone, 1957 Russalka, 1959 Die Fledermaus, 1959 Orpheus in the Underworld, 1960 La Vie Parisienne, 1961 The Italian Girl in Algiers, 1968
ENO North La Cenerentola, The Merry Widow, 1979 Orpheus in the Underworld, 1981
TV Esmi Divided, 1957 Cliff in Scotland, c. 1965 Girls Wanted – Istanbul, (BAFTA nomination) 1969 Trial by Jury, 1982 Tales of the Unexpected 1982
Films Actress Dance Pretty Lady (1931) Invitation to the Waltz (1935)
Director The Stranger Left No Card (1952) The Teckman Mystery (1954) On the Twelfth Day... (1955) Raising a Riot (1955) All for Mary (1955) Three Cases of Murder (1955) True as a Turtle (1957) We Joined the Navy (1962) The King's Breakfast (1963)
References
External links
University of Bristol Theatre Collection The King's Breakfast (1963) Wendy Toye interviewed by Linda Wood 20 May 1991 (British Entertainment History Project) Wendy Toye - National Portrait Gallery