A fine day for a wedding - Cyril Ritchard and Madge Elliott, St. Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, 16 September 1935.

 

I posted this same photograph, all on its own, almost eight years. I had no idea who the couple was, and said as much. I suppose I was just being lazy, as their identity has been quite simple to ascertain this go 'round. The groom is Cyril Ritchard (1 December 1898, Sydney – 18 December 1977, Chicago), the Australian stage, screen, and television actor and director, best remembered today for his Tony-winning performance as Captain Hook in the original 1954 production of Peter Pan. And the bride, Madge Elliott (12 May 1896, London – 8 August 1955, New York City), British-born Australian dancer and actress. 

The arrival of the groom.

The arrival of the bride's attendants.

The arrival of the bride.

First introduced circa 1916 - he would have been eighteen, she twenty - with the suggestion that they team up as dancing partners, Elliott rejected the young man as... he couldn't dance. Two years later, though, that liability appears to have been rectified, and the pair went on tour together, performing in musical comedies. Even so, they soon parted, pursuing their individual careers. But by 1927, Ritchard having joined Elliott in London, they reformed their partnership, going on to great success. 

In 1932 they returned to Australia, becoming the preeminent musical comedy stars of the period. Nineteen years after their first meeting, they were married in a lavish ceremony; there was said to have been a crowd of five thousand outside the cathedral, kept in check by fifty police officers. They remained together, onstage and off, until her death twenty years later.

A hand-tinted portrait of the bride and her attendants.

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