Above: Lois Green c1939. The photo was taken about the time she appeared in Ken Hall’s Gone to the Dogs. State Library of Victoria Collection.

The Five Second Version
Lois Green left Australia in 1939 to try her luck on the London stage. Over the previous 10 years she had successfully built a reputation in musical comedy and had even starred in one of the few Australian feature films of the late 30s. These experiences established her reputation as an skilled actress, dancer and singer. But after only a year in London she left the country with a shadowy figure, an Australian-born commission agent, who she married while in South Africa. By 1944 she was no longer married and was working for ENSA in Egypt. By late 1945 she was back in London again, specialising in revues and pantomime. Nanette in No No Nanette became one of her signature roles, a musical she performed many times. She married a second time in 1947 and made a brief visit to perform in Australia. Her final roles in British pantomime occurred in the later 1950s. She and her second husband retired to the Isle of Man.

Lois’s 1947 comments about Australian men being “extremely tiresome” are unusual for the era.

<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Above: Lois Green and fellow dancer Frances Ogilvy on the cover of Table Talk in 1932.^[1]Table Talk, 25 Feb 1932, P1<script type="text/javascript"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_20519_20_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_20519_20_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });</script></figcaption></figure>

Growing up in Australia.1914-1939

Born in Tongue Street Footscray in December 1914, Mabel Lois Green was the only child of Beaumont Hamilton Green, a carriage-builder, and Mabel nee Thretheway, the daughter of a local grocer. The family moved to leafy Hotham Street, East Melbourne in 1925, coincidentally quite near the home of young Joan MacGillicuddy (who would one day become Joan Winfield in Hollywood).

Lois danced from a very young age, attending the school run by Mrs William Green (no relation) and her daughter Florrie in Fitzroy. By the mid 1920s, she was dancing under the tuition of the very well known Jeannie Brennan, who had a close association with JC Williamson’s, the Australian theatre monopoly. Years later, her mother elaborated – she had also studied singing with Mary Campbell and later with Carrie Cairnduff, and took elocution lessons from Victor Trotman.^[2]The Herald (Melb) 30 Jan 1947, p17<script type="text/javascript"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_20519_20_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_20519_20_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });</script>

This training translated into exciting opportunities for a young person like Lois, who had her heart set on the stage. In 1929, she impressed visiting Mieczyslaw Pianowski, Anna Pavolva‘s partner, who reputedly told her mother: For a child of fourteen and a half years, your daughter is, in my opinion, the most remarkable example of dancing ability I have ever encountered. It would be a pity to keep so rare a talent in Australia.^[3]The Herald (Melb) 26 June 1929, p5<script type="text/javascript"> jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_20519_20_3').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_20519_20_3', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });</script> If this really was said to her mother, then the expectations of a successful future were high.