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This real photograph postcard by the Hana Studios Ltd of London is of the English music hall comedienne Princess Pauline. According to the 'Who's Who in Variety' section in the 3rd edition of Who's Who in the Theatre (London, 1916), she was born in 1873 and married M. Serpentello (a variety agent of Chancery Lane, London). From a very early age she toured with various circus companies, the first being as a member of the Jennins Family with Ginnett's Circus. She afterwards became a popular turn on the music hall circuit, both in the United Kingdom and abroad, and also appeared in pantomime.
Tony Pastor's, New York, June 1906.
'Princess Pauline, an English comedienne, made her American debut last week in an act consisting of character songs. She has some magnetism and dances cleverly, but her selection of songs was so wretchedly poor that she made scarcely any impression. ''This Is Love,'' ''In Sunny Spain,'' ''The Military Girl,'' and ''I've Got 'Em'' were the ditties used by the performer, the last-named being the only one that was favorably received. It tells the story of a girl who frequents the music halls and goes crazy over the songs she hears. Every song had three verses and the singer repeated the choruses twice, so that the agony was unduly prolonged. With good songs Princess Pauline would stand a fair chance of success.''
(The New York Dramatic Mirror, New York, Saturday, 30 June 1906, p.16b)
The artist Walter Sickert captured her in pastel and coloured chalk at the Old Bedford Music Hall, London.
For a list of titles of some of Princess Pauline's songs, see Michael Kilgarriff, Sing Us One of the Old Songs, Oxford University Press, 1998, p.307.
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