Dame Gracie Fields (born Grace Stansfield; 9 January 1898 – 27 September 1979) was a British actress, singer, and comedian. A star of cinema and music hall, she was one of the top ten film stars in Britain during the 1930s and was considered the highest-paid film star in the world in 1937. Fields was known affectionately as Our Gracie and the Lancashire Lass and for never losing her strong, native Lancashire accent. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and an Officer of the Venerable Order of St John (OStJ) in 1938, and a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1979.
Fields was born Grace Stansfield, a daughter of Frederick Stansfield (1874–1956) and his wife Sarah Jane 'Jenny' Stansfield née Bamford (1879–1953), over a fish and chip shop owned by her grandmother, Sarah Bamford, in Molesworth Street, Rochdale, Lancashire. Her great-grandfather, William Stansfield (b.1805), of Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, was a descendant of the Stansfield family of Stansfield, Yorkshire.
Fields made her first stage appearance as a child, in 1905, joining children's repertory theatre groups such as "Haley's Garden of Girls" and Clara Coverdale's "Nine Dainty Dots". Her two sisters, Edith Fields and Betty Fields, and brother, Tommy Fields, all went on to appear on stage, but Gracie was the most successful. Her professional debut in variety took place at the Rochdale Hippodrome theatre in 1910, and she soon gave up her job in the local cotton mill, where she was a half-timer, spending half a week in the mill and the other half at school. Early newspaper clippings show her appearing locally in venues such as Todmorden (December 1913), Milnrow (February 1914), and Burnley (July 1914), with an appearance at The Palace in Blackpool in April 1914. The Burnley newspaper described her as “The Girl with the Double Voice”.
Fields met the comedian and impresario Archie Pitt and they began working together in Percy Hall's touring show Yes, I Think So. Pitt gave Fields champagne on her 18th birthday, and wrote in an autograph book to her that he would make her a star. Pitt began to manage her career and they began a relationship; they married in 1923 at Clapham Register Office. Their first revue together, written by Pitt, was called It's A Bargain! in 1915, and the two continued to tour Britain together until 1931.
Throughout the period 1918–1924, they appeared in the revue Mr Tower of London, which took Fields to the West End for the first time. Other shows following with Pitt in subsequent years were The Show's The Thing and Walk This Way.
Pitt was the brother of Bert Aza, founder of the Aza Agency, which was responsible for many entertainers of the day, including the actor and comedian Stanley Holloway, who was introduced to Aza by Fields, and Betty Driver, who was discovered by Archie; she was a replacement cast member in Mr Tower of London. Fields and Holloway first worked together on her film Sing As We Go, in 1934 and the two remained close friends for the rest of their lives.
Fields came to major public notice in Mr Tower of London, a show staged in London's West End. Her career accelerated from this point, with dramatic performances and the beginning of a recording career with the His Master's Voice. She was one of the most successful recording artists at the label: her first record, My Blue Heaven sold 500,000 copies in 1928. In 1933, His Master's Voice produced the four millionth Fields record, which was pressed by the singer herself on camera and celebrated with a special 'Lancashire Lunch' at the Trocadero.
At one point, Fields was playing three shows a night in the West End. She appeared in the production SOS with Gerald Du Maurier, a play staged at the St James's Theatre.
Fields' most famous song, "Sally", which became her theme, was written for her first film, Sally in Our Alley (1931), a major box office hit. She went on to make a number of films, initially in Britain and later in the United States (when she was paid a record fee of £200,000 for four films). Regardless, she never enjoyed performing without a live audience, and found the process of film-making boring. She tried to opt out of filming, before director Monty Banks persuaded her otherwise, landing her a lucrative Hollywood deal. Fields demanded that the four pictures be filmed in Britain and not Hollywood.
The final few lines of the song "Sally", which Fields sang at every performance from 1931 onwards, were written by her husband's mistress, Annie Lipman. Fields claimed in later life that she wanted to "Drown blasted Sally with Walter with the aspidistra on top!", a reference to two other of her well-known songs, "Walter, Walter", and "The Biggest Aspidistra In The World".
The famous opera star Luisa Tetrazzini heard her singing an aria and asked her to sing in grand opera. Fields decided to stay "where I knew I belonged."
In the 1930s, her popularity was at its peak, and she was given many honours: she became an Officer of the Venerable Order of St John (OStJ) for her charity work, and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for her services to entertainment in the 1938 New Year Honours, and was granted the Freedom of the Borough of Rochdale in 1937.
In 1933, she set up the Gracie Fields Children's Home and Orphanage at Peacehaven, Sussex, for children of those in the theatre profession who could not look after their children. She kept this until 1967, when the home was no longer needed. This was near her own home in Telscombe, and Fields often visited, with the children all calling her 'Aunty Grace'.
She donated her house in The Bishops Avenue, north London – which she had not much cared for, and shared with her husband Pitt and his mistress – to an orphanage after the marriage broke down. In 1939, she became seriously ill with cervical cancer. The public sent over 250,000 goodwill messages and she retired to her villa on Capri. After she recovered, she recorded a special 78 rpm record simply called "Gracie's Thanks", in which she thanks the public for the many cards and letters she received while in hospital.
Fields also helped Rochdale Association Football Club in the 1930s, when they were struggling to pay fees and buy sports equipment.
In 1939, Fields suffered a breakdown and went to Capri to recuperate.
World War II was declared while she was recovering in Capri, and Fields – still very ill after her cancer surgery – threw herself into her work and signed up for the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) headed by her old film producer, Basil Dean. Fields travelled to France to entertain the troops in the midst of air-raids, performing on the backs of open lorries and in war-torn areas. During the war, she also paid for all servicemen and women to travel free on public transport within the boundaries of Rochdale. Once, Fields travelled to Chester with serviceman Harrison after he had watched her perform in France. She stayed with his family of nine as a guest in their small 2 up 2 down house.
Following her divorce from Archie Pitt, she married Italian-born film director Monty Banks in March 1940. However, because Banks remained an Italian citizen and would have been interned in the United Kingdom after Italy declared war in June 1940, she went with him to North America, possibly at the suggestion of Winston Churchill, who told her to "Make American Dollars, not British Pounds", which she did, in aid of the Navy League and the Spitfire Fund. She and Banks moved to their home in Santa Monica, California. Fields occasionally returned to Britain, performing in factories and army camps around the country. After their initial argument, Parliament offered her an official apology.