Wendy Toye


Beryl May Jessie Toye,, known professionally as Wendy Toye, was a British dancer, stage and film director and actress.

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.
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, won the Best Fictional Short Film prize at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival, while her Christmas-themed short On the Twelfth Day… 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, 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, and then on two films: On The Twelfth Day and The King’s Breakfast. 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 in 1992 for services to the arts. She was made an honorary D. Litt. in 1996 by the City University. 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 obituary and the information web sites from some of the theatres.

Early career

Dancer, choreographer and actress

  • choreographer Mother Earth, 1929
  • Marigold & produced dances Toad of Toad Hall, 1931–32
  • danced and choreographed for Camargo Society, Sadler's Wells Ballet, Rambert, British Ballet, 1930s
  • Danced in The Miracle, 1932
  • Masked Dancer in Ballerina, 1933
  • Member of Ninette de Valois' original Vic-Wells ballet, principal dancer in The Golden Toy, 1934
  • Toured with Anton Dolin's Ballet, 1934–1935
  • Dancer in Tulip Time, 1935
  • Touring as principal dancer and choreographer with Markova-Dolin Ballet, 1935Love and How to Cure It, 1937
  • Choreographer for George Black's productions, 1937–44Gay Rosalinda, 1945–1948Follow the Girls, 1945
  • Principal Girl in pantomime Simple Simon, 1947
  • Winnie Tate in Annie Get your Gun, 1947
  • Ballet-hoo de Wendy Toye, 1948
  • Three's Company in Joyce Grenfell Requests the Pleasure, 1954

Stage director

London

Big Ben, Bless the Bride, Tough at the Top, 1946And So to Bed , 1951Second Threshold, 1950s???Wild Thyme, 1955Lady at the Wheel, 1958As You Like It, 1959Majority of One, 1960Virtue in Danger, 1963Robert & Elizabeth, 1964On the Level, 1966Show Boat, 1971She Stoops to Conquer, 1972Soldiers Tale, 1967The Great Waltz, 1970Cowardy Custard, 1972Stand and Deliver, 1972The Englishman Amused, 1974Follow the Star. 1976Oh Mr. Porter, 1977Colette, 1980This Thing Called Love, 1984Barnum 1985Singin' in the Rain, 1983Get the Message, 1987Ziegfeld, 1988Family and Friends, 1988Till We Meet Again concert, 1989Captain Beaky's Heavens Up, 1990The Sound of Music, 1992Under Their Hats, 1994
  • Gala, 1996

Chichester Festival

R loves J, 1973The Confederacy, 1974Follow the Star, 1974Made in Heaven, 1975Make Me a World, 1976Miranda, 1987

[Watermill Theatre], Newbury

Gingerbread Man, 1981Songbook, 1988Moll Flanders, 1990The Drummer, 1991See How They Run, 1992The Anastasia File, 1994Lloyd George Knew My Father, 1995Warts and All, Rogues to Riches, 199630 Not Out, 1997

Other UK

Boots with Strawberry Jam, 1968Once More with Music, 1976Barnum, 1984Laburnum Grove, 1987Mrs. Dot, 1988Cinderella, 1989Penny Black, 1990Mrs. Pat's Profession, 1991

Unknown location

Dance for Gods, Conversations, 1979
  • Gala tribute to Joyce Grenfell, 1985

International

Feu d'artifice, Marigny Theatre, Paris, date unknownPeter Pan, 1950
  • Shakespeare Quatercentenary Latin American tour, 1964Noel and Gertie, 1984Celimar, 1984Madwoman of Chaillot, 1985
  • Torville & Dean Ice Show World Tour, 1985Kiss Me Kate, 1986Unholy Trinity, 1986When That I Was, 1988Oh! Coward, 1989The Kingfisher, 1993The Sound of Music, 1993Under Their Hats, 1995

Operas

The Seraglio, 1967The Impresario, Don Pasquale, 1968The Mikado, 1982Der Apotheker, la Serva Padrona, 1991

Sadler's Wells Opera/ENO

Bluebeard's Castle, 1957The Telephone, 1957Russalka, 1959Die Fledermaus, 1959Orpheus in the Underworld, 1960La Vie Parisienne, 1961The Italian Girl in Algiers, 1968

ENO North

La Cenerentola, The Merry Widow, 1979Orpheus in the Underworld, 1981

TV

Esmi Divided, 1957Cliff in Scotland, c. 1965Girls Wanted – Istanbul, 1969Trial by Jury, 1982Tales of the Unexpected 1982

Films

ActressDance Pretty Lady Invitation to the Waltz
DirectorThe Stranger Left No Card The Teckman Mystery On the Twelfth Day... Raising a Riot All for Mary Three Cases of Murder True as a Turtle We Joined the Navy