Jean Clyde – Actress

Actress Jean Clyde was born in Glasgow on March 17 1889, to Scots theatre producer/actor John Clyde and his wife Mary. Jean was one of six children, two of whom, David and Andy, were also to find fame in the entertainment business as Hollywood film actors.

Jean started acting at a very early age, five years, when she travelled with her Father’s touring company around Scotland. The 49th Street Theatre Opening Night Playbill for one of her later plays ‘Marigold’, actually stated that she made her first appearance aged six months, when she was carried on as the child in her father’s production of the play ‘Jeannie Deans’. The acting life suited Jean and she was to spend the rest of her life treading the boards.

At age 19 Jean played the role of the ‘Bride’ in the play ‘Bunty Pulls the Strings’ a play for which she would become synonymous. The play was written in 1910 by Scottish actor and playwright Graham Moffat. Moffat whose wife Margaret was a suffragist, is also noted for founding the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage in Glasgow in 1907. He also penned a suffrage propaganda play, The Maid and the Magistrate.

‘Bunty Pulls the Strings’ is set in the early Victorian era and features Bunty as the Scottish heroine who has her hands full solving various domestic problems. Her brother faces a prison term, and she herself is in danger of losing her boyfriend. All ends happily with a double wedding ceremony, with Bunty’s father not only giving her away as a bride but also taking a bride himself.

The play was a massive hit in London’s West End, running for 617 shows at the Haymarket Theatre in 1911. In reviewing the play when it debuted on Broadway late in 1911, the New York Times classed Moffat beside J. M. Barrie and wrote, “it is the freshest and most wholesome thing that the theatres in New York have housed since the days of Peter Pan.”

Jean was to play the lead role of Bunty over 1,000 times in London, the UK, Africa and Australasia.

The Ararat Advertiser in Victoria, Australia, 16th February 1915, described her performance thus: ‘Bunty Biggar’, as presented by Miss Jean Clyde proved a captivating heroine, and she certainly ‘held the strings’ in her capable hands, and managed so unobtrusively and so tactfully to ‘pull’ them, that out of the entanglement of the plot came a happy conclusion.’

Jean married her co-star and leading man, David Urquhart, who played Weelum Sprunt in ‘Bunty’, In Halifax and together with fellow ‘Bunty’ co-star Bunty Abie Barker, formed a new touring company – The Bunty Comedy Company.

The trio toured both the UK and overseas for a period of two years performing a revue called “Sandy’s Wedding Present.’ New Zealand’s Otago Daily Times, dated 18 September 1917 carries the following review of the trio’s performance at the Princess Theatre. ‘These three performers were warmly greeted last night when they made their appearance. Urquhart was on this occasion a grocer and Jean Clyde his daughter, and Barker, Sandy the grocer’s assistant. Sandy’s love making with the grocer’s daughter was provocative of roars of laughter. The Bunty Comedy Trio is assured of a successful run during their season.’
In 1918, Jean travelled to America where she was to make her US stage debut in Philadelphia. In America she played in the ‘Little Brother’ with Richard Dix, Tyrone Power and Walker Whiteside.

In 1920, Jean returned to the family home in Helensburgh to care for her dying father before resuming her career. Several more roles and tours ensued. As a Scots woman, Jean ‘specialised’ in Scots parts and played many of the JM Barrie heroines, and also lead parts in ‘Hunky Dory’ and the ‘Scrape of the Pen’.
In 1925, Jean starred in the play ‘Courting’ as Jeannie Grant, at the 49th Street Theatre on Broadway NY from September 12th to October 1st.

Jean returned to the stage until 1927 when she decided to retire. This was to be a short lived retirement as she was tempted to return to the greasepaint in the role of Mrs Pringle in a play called Marigold. In a similar vein to the role of ‘Bunty’, Jean was to appear in the play over 1000 times and toured extensively in it. The play was a huge hit in London, and the original cast took it on tour to the States and Canada. The Montreal Gazette, January 3rd 1931, was delighted that the London cast had chosen to perform ‘Marigold’ in Montreal, just as Jean had performed the role for the thousandth time, at Her Majesty’s Theatre. It described it thus: ‘Those who saw the play early this season will recall it as a comedy which appears but once in a decade, one to linger in the memory.’
Jean continued with her theatre career, turning her hand to production and staging. She married her second husband Bill McQuaid in 1934, following the tragic loss of her first husband.

Following Bill’s death in 1949, Jean returned to Helensburgh until her death in Rhu on 24th June 1962 aged 73.

In 1934 in Hastings she married her second husband, Bill McQuaid, who worked for the Rank Organisation, and after his death on April 16 1949 she came home to Helensburgh where she lived until her death in Rhu on June 24 1962 at the age of 73.