- Stephanie Voss
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- With a good deal more success than many other leading
ladies of her day, Stephanie Voss deserves to be remembered as
one of the most capable of her generation
-
 Stephanie
Voss was born in April 1936. She was educated at Minchenden Grammar
School and studied ballet with Pauline Grant and singing with
Harold Miller. The singing paid off, for Voss developed into
a fine soprano. Over a long career, she sustained her status
as a leading lady as well as she could, but British musicals
didn't really come up with the goods.
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- Her first professional appearances were in repertory at Woolwich.
She was in the chorus of the pantomime Jack and Jill at the London
Casino in December 1951, and two years later she was in the chorus
of Guys and Dolls at the Coliseum. In April 1954 she was in the
company of the intimate revue Intimacy at 8.30 at the Criterion
(it was her only revue) - and she made a mark in the Palladium
pantomime of 1956, The Wonderful Lamp, as Princess Yasmin. She
played Sarah in Meet Me By Moonlight, a sentimental Victorian
comedy with songs of the period, at the Aldwych in August 1957,
and although she didn't have much to sing she sang better than
the show's charming leading lady Sonia Graham. She seemed a perfect
choice for Cecily in Half in Earnest, Vivian Ellis's polite adaptation
of The Importance of Being Earnest, written for the opening of
the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, but the show didn't transfer.
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- She had better luck when she was cast as the heroine, Hilaret,
of the supposedly saucy Lock Up Your Daughters, a very substantial
hit first at the Mermaid Theatre in Puddle Dock in May 1959 and
subsequently in the West End, where it was endlessly revived.
That Christmas she was Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary in the Palladium's
Humpty Dumpty. A British attempt at a West Side Story-like musicalisation
of present day youth, Johnny the Priest, adapted from a pretty
unexciting play by R. C. Sherriff (The Telescope), had the advantage
of Voss as its leading lady. As a troubled vicar's faithful wife,
she coped well with the hymnal she was given to sing from, even
managing one or two haunting moments, notably the ethereal 'Beyond
These Narrow Streets'. But Johnny the Priest, despite undoubted
energy and probably integrity, didn't survive beyond a handful
of performances at the Princes Theatre in April 1960. She was
on much surer ground when she played the title role in a revival
of Rose Marie at the Victoria Palace that August, and the lure
of David Whitfield, a popular singer of a type that no longer
exists, ensured that the crowds rolled up, at least for a few
months.
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- Perhaps the British cast of The Fantasticks imagined that
the show would run for ever when it opened at the Apollo Theatre
in September 1961 (it ran for ever in America), but despite its
little cast of stalwarts - among whom Voss as Luisa was the only
female - the public didn't bother with it, and it was off in
a month. A if to prove that there is no accounting for taste,
the public had meanwhile developed an insatiable appetite for
Lock Up Your Daughters, and Voss returned to her old role in
a highly successful revival at Her Majesty's Theatre in April
1963. Compared with her next endeavour, Lock Up Your Daughters
seemed like a masterpiece. Instant Marriage - the musical equivalent
of a Brian Rix farce - was roundly denounced when it was seen
at the Piccadilly Theatre in August 1964. Voss was the second
female lead (Joan Sims was the lead), playing nice girl Miranda
who gets mixed up in a world of Soho strippers. She even had
a song, 'Flippin' Strippin', a number that perfectly summed up
the general standard. Inexplicably, Instant Marriage clung on
for a year.
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- Understandably, she decided to emigrate for her next show,
the second time she had played in Guys and Dolls, this time playing
the lead Sarah Brown, at the Civic Theatre, Johannesburg in April
1966. In Britain she took over the title role in Harold Fielding's
machine-made crowd-puller Charlie Girl from Christine Holmes,
but it was never a part to attract much notice. She was probably
excited to be cast as the female lead, Constance, in The Four
Musketeers, a highly expensive, lavish British musical - in reality
a vehicle for its star Harry Secombe - but it was a ghastly affair.
It opened at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in December 1967 (perhaps
a good time for it, as it was closer to pantomime than to a musical),
and - the British public proving true to type - ran despite a
severe trouncing by critics. Voss had the unenviable task of
coping with some of the worst numbers ever written for the stage.
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- There seems then to have been a considerable gap in her musical
activities, but Voss was busy appearing in plays (she did a season
of farces with Brian Rix), on radio and television. In 1975 she
was Mrs Poole in Cranford at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East,
and two years later she doubled as Miss King and Nice Woman in
an unsuccessful adaptation of an H. G. Wells favourite, Mr Polly,
at the New Theatre, Bromley. Neither shows went further. Of rather
more interest was Dear Anyone at the Cambridge Theatre in November
1983 in which Voss played Mildred, but it didn't catch on. She
was barely noticed in a supporting role in the disappointing
70, Girls, 70 at the Vaudeville Theatre in 1991.
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- Selected Discography
Original London cast recordings of :
- Lock Up Your Daughters
Johnny the Priest
Instant Marriage
The Four Musketeers
70, Girls, 70
RETURN TO UNSUNG HEROINES
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