Lily Elsie by Bain News Service, ca. 1908

English actress and singer Lily Elsie, 1/2 portrait, undated and unattributed photograph from the Bain News Service, assumed to be from around her biggest stage success, the role of the merry widow in Franz Lehár's eponymous operetta, ca. 1907-09.

Lily Elsie's biggest success came in creating the title role in the English-language version of The Merry Widow in the London production. Edwardes took Elsie to see the original German version in Berlin. Elsie was at first reluctant to take on the demanding part, thinking her voice too light for the role, but Edwardes persuaded her to accept. Edwardes brought her to see the famous designer, Lucile, for a style coaching. Lucile later wrote, "I realized that here was a girl who had both beauty and intelligence but who had never learnt how to make the best of herself. So shy and diffident was she in those days that a less astute producer than George Edwardes would in all probability have passed her over and left her in the chorus.

From the George Grantham Bain Collection at the U.S. Library of Congress.
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[PD] This picture is in the public domain.