RETURN

Eileen Gourlay
 
One of the most talented and overlooked British musical actresses of the 1960s
 

If anybody cared, it would be a crime that Eileen Gourlay never got the parts and recognition she deserved in British musical theatre. Even if it was actually in two American shows that she got the opportunity to shine at her best, she was nevertheless top quality home bred material. She had a spark that most other leading ladies would have envied, and seemed especially good at ladies who might flutter their eyelashes but who also might just bite back. But this firing red-head with a Broadway-sized voice wasn't around too long.

Gourlay's career seems to have kicked off with some pantomimes and a summer show, followed by the role

Eileen Gourlay as Belle Poitrine in Little Me
of principal boy in a Glaswegian production of Robinson Crusoe. She played in summer season in Edinburgh, and then was hired as Elizabeth Seal's understudy in Damn Yankees at the Coliseum in 1957. So runs her official biography in the programme of Little Me, but research shows that in 1952 she played her first principal role when she took over the part of Julia Pendleton in Love From Judy at the Saville Theatre (she was already playing in the chorus). For Christmas 1955 she was cast as Anne Pelham in John Morley's musical May Fever at the New Lindsey Theatre, and the following year she was seen as Edna in the pre-London tour of Jubilee Girl - she had been dispensed with by the time this troubled production reached the West End.
 
As well as cabaret appearances, and a starring role at the Talk of the Town nightclub, Gourlay was seen at the Strand Theatre in 1958 in the Peter Myers revue For Adults Only. But it was March 1963 before she had what could be called her big break, when she was cast as Hedy La Rue in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying at the Shaftesbury Theatre. She made a big impression as the dumbest of blondes, memorably delivering her only song 'Love From A Heart Of Gold'. The next year she was perfectly cast opposite Bruce Forsyth in Little Me at the Cambridge Theatre. As the Hollywood star Belle Poitrine, Gourlay did her best (as did Forsythe) to point the pastiche of Patrick Dennis's original story, and had a lion's share of the score, including 'Poor Little Hollywood Star', 'On The Other Side Of The Tracks' and the title song, sung in duet with her older self, played by Avril Angers. It was to be the role of her career, and should have been followed by other good work, but Gourlay's name seems simply to have slipped from the frame after Little Me closed in September 1963.
 
There is one more listing. In a seasonal outing for a musical version of Treasure Island (music by Denis King) at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in December 1984, she played Nurse Alison Cunningham and Mrs Hawkins. Twenty years after Little Me, the glory days seemed to be over.
 
Discography
Original London cast recordings of
How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying
Little Me

RETURN TO UNSUNG HEROINES