Today, Phyllis Dixey is thought of as a fan dancer but this was only a part of her life on the stage and film. By 1947 the tastes of the London audience had changed, and Phyllis Dixey was forced to return to the provinces. She was not able to adapt to the direction that the public required; leaving the stage in the late 1950s, bankrupt. [4] In the early 1960s she worked as a cook at Loseley Park near Guildford. She died of cancer in 1964, aged 50, [4] in Epsom, Surrey. [5] Posthumous [ edit ] In 1978 Thames Television produced a drama documentary on the life on Phyllis Dixey. The documentary was televised and had a memorable performance by Lesley Anne-Down in the role of an adult Phyllis Dixey.

His first experience of television drama came when his second novel, a downbeat story of espionage and defectors, Four Days to the Fireworks, published in 1964, was adapted the following year in ITV’s Play of the Week series, with Denholm Elliott starring. Philip then adapted the story Calf Love for the BBC’s Wednesday Play slot (1966), and contributed an episode to ITV’s successful drama series A Family at War (1971). Philip Purser worked as a freelance journalist, contributing columns to the Oldie and writing obituaries for the Guardian. Photograph: Martyn Goddard a b c Jasper Copping "English Heritage plans a really 'blue' plaque for stripper", Sunday Telegraph, 13 November 2011A journalist on the News Chronicle until its demise in 1960, Philip vowed never to be “on anyone’s staff” again and became a dedicated freelance. Having reviewed television for the Chronicle and the Daily Mail, he decided to specialise and became the television critic for the Sunday Telegraph from its birth in 1961. He was to hold the post for 26 years, combining his critical viewing with careers as a novelist and dramatist.

In 1959 Dixey and Tracy declared bankruptcy. She became a professional cook and Tracy became a milkman. In 1961 she discovered that she had breast cancer. It killed her in 1964. She then worked as a researcher with Rediffusion Television and its successor broadcaster, Thames TV. She mostly made children’s programmes, but in 1978 she was the associate producer on the film The One and Only Phyllis Dixey, about the famous fan dancer and entertainer; she also co-authored, with Philip Purser, a book based on the film. In search of more professional autonomy, she returned to college in 1977 to train as a film director at the National Film School. February 10 was the birthday of British impresario and performer Phyllis Dixey (1914-1964). Dixey is best remembered as a “striptease artiste” but her career was much more varied than that in her early years, and she was skilled as a singer and dancer. It was during the last few months of her life that she turned to the comfort of the Catholic Church. She was received into the Church during a visit in Guys Hospital from Father Crispin in April 1964. At the end of that month she returned home to “The Retreat” for the last time. Phyllis Selina Dixey Tracy died at home on Tuesday 2 June 1964 aged 50.

The Exorcist: Believer (2023)

In 1990, Philip combined his love of British film with his interest in wartime thrillers in the novel Friedrich Harris: Shooting the Hero, a tongue-in-cheek fantasy to plant an Irish-German Nazi agent among the crew filming the battle of Agincourt (in Ireland) for Laurence Olivier’s film of Henry V in 1944. The agent, Harris, working for Joseph Goebbels, is tasked with either persuading Olivier to come over to the Germans to help fight Bolshevism, or, failing that, assassinating him. Needless to say, an ample supply of Guinness and the course of the war thwarted the plan. Phyllis Dixey (10 February 1914 – 2 June 1964) was an English singer, actress, dancer and impresario. Her earlier career was as a singer in variety shows in Britain. During World War II, she joined ENSA and entertained the British forces. She sang, recited and posed in naked tableaux which were very popular. The first tours were very successful a third tour was arranged for 1953 which was a dismal failure, ending up with Phyllis working in Gothenburg, Sweden on a boat which had a small stage. Due to the nature of running shows on a boat considerable additional charges were incurred so little money was made and it was decided to return home.

The One and Only Phyllis Dixey by Philip Purser and Jenny Wilkes.Published by Futura Publications Ltd., London. 1978 ISBN 0 7088 14360 In 1946 she appeared in the film Dual Alibi with Herbert Lom. The following year she closed her Whitehall show on the heels of five years of success. For several years she and Tracy toured her revues through Britain and Scandinavia. By the mid-1950s competition from similar revues plus the advent of television had taken their toll and she was forced to stop headlining and producing her own vehicles. In 1956, billed as “The One and Only Phyllis Dixey”, she appeared with Paul Raymond’s touring revue. She danced professionally through 1958. Jenny’s life was transformed in the early 1980s when she met and married the radical American historian Bradley Smith. For many years the couple alternated their lives between his teaching base in California and her apartment overlooking Primrose Hill, in north London.Wilful, capricious, determined and bossy, Jenny had a lovely voice and a joyous laugh. The loyalty and support of friends and family during her final illness testified to her ability to inspire respect and affection. In 1968 he produced what many consider his best thriller, Night of Glass, about four Cambridge undergraduates, one of them, like him, a provincial grammar school boy, who turn a rag-week dare into a genuine attempt to break a prisoner out of Dachau concentration camp in 1938. Shooting the Hero was an extended version of one of his favourite journalistic devices: the spoof. Notable April Fools’ Day articles included the Last Great Tram Race, inspired by his “childhood memories” of Liverpool, which prompted a huge number of fond recollections from readers but was completely untrue. It went on to provide the title of his memoir (1974). For a declining number of the British population the variety artiste Phyllis Dixey is remembered for her “ Peek a Boo” revues.

For his debut thriller, he chose a down-at-heel, out-of-work screenwriter, Colin Panton, as the hero of Peregrination 22 (1962), who, working reluctantly for a travel agency, accompanies a tour party to Spitsbergen and discovers a Nazi-revivalist conspiracy. In 2011, English Heritage made plans to erect a blue plaque at Dixey's former home at Wentworth Court in Surbiton; however, the installation of the plaque was turned down by the residents' association of the building due to the proposed title 'Striptease Artiste' being used on the plaque. [4] Filmography [ edit ] Phyllis’s mother was known as Selina who died aged 87 in 1978. Phyllis’s father worked away a lot as a ship’s steward and later as a train carriage attendant.During this time the well know photographer Roye produced a book of Phyllis Dixey figure studies. This was the “ Phyllis Dixey Album” and was followed shortly by another book, “ Phyllis in Censorland“. In 1970, she informally adopted a small boy, Mark Ugbomah, who lived in Wood Green, north London, enrolling him at the Michael Hall Steiner school, in Forest Row, East Sussex, and later becoming godmother to many members of Mark’s extended family in the UK, Jamaica and the US. Hazel Ballan was so intrigued by the description of Phyllis in Maurice’s article above that she has used her extensive genealogical skills to uncover a few more items about the One and Only: Phyllis Selina Dixey (1914-1964). Phyllis Dixey’s life was immortalized in the 1978 film The One and Only Phyllis Dixey and in a 2009 play called Barely Phillis. And this plaque, placed on her former home after much controversy: Roye: "Phyllis in Censorland", 1942, Elstree Publications Ltd. and The Camera Studies Club, a larger edition 1950s.