Mae Bacon

Mae Bacon (1897–1981) was a British actress. She was often sometimes credited as Mai Bacon. She was the eldest daughter of Mr. Hatley Bacon, who were living in Roundhay, Leeds at the time of The Great War.

During the early stages of WW1,she was often requested to perform at charity concerts and provided entertainment to wounded soldiers in the West Riding of Yorkshire. In February 1915, she appeared in a Leeds Grosvenor Amateur Dramatic Society’s comedy ‘Brother Officers’. According to a contemporary news report, Bacon's early performances also included comedic male impersonation routines. She became a professional actress later on in 1915. In February 1928, she starred in the musical play ‘Lumber Love’ at the Grand Theatre in Leeds. There she appeared alongside a number of well-known entertainers, actors and singers of the early twentieth century such as Jamieson Dodds, Joan Lockton, Dorie Sawyer, Fred Kitchen and Basil Howes' Plaza Tiller Girls. By 1933, she had become a well-known figure to theatre-goers throughout in Yorkshire as a whole and was known for her musical comedy roles.

In 1933, Bacon appeared as a London accented barmaid in the first film adaptation of J.B.Priestley's humorous novel 'The Good Companions' which featured famous actors such as John Gielgud. She stated herself in an interview that she went to a screening of the film in Blackpool and reported that 'Filmwork...is very interesting and fascinating and I hope to do more of it...but for preference please give me a happy laughing audience like this at Blackpool.' During the 1930s, she appeared in further musical comedy films such as The Public Life of Henry the Ninth (1935), the romantic comedy Second Best Bed (1939) and the Victorian set comedy Riding High (1939).

In 1939, she joined joined ENSA and for the duration of the war she performed as a comedian and singer entertaining armed forces personnel at home and overseas. In 1940, Bacon apparently regularly performed with the violinist Arthur Anton as part of her ENSA concert parties. She also performed with Baritone player Denis Darling and pianist Miss Dorothy James. In March 1940, she returned to London after spending 15 weeks entertaining British troops of the British Expeditionary Force in France. The tour which apparently kept going through the bitterly cold and notoriously bad winter of 1939/40 saw Bacon perform to soldiers in tents in freezing conditions. She claimed she had icicles on her dress during one ENSA concert party. Interestingly, a Yorkshire-based newspaper reported in April 1940 that Bacon had helped to trap two suspected spies whilst she was in France. Everything in the tour had gone as normal, until she arrived at a certain town where British troops were based. There, the military authorities warned her that there were two men in the town who they suspected were conducting espionage. In June 1945, the Lancashire Daily Post reported that she had completed her 2500th show since joining ENSA. This milestone was made while she was entertaining British troops in Germany in the weeks after VE-Day.

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