Daphne Pollard
| Daphne Pollard | |
|---|---|
Pollard with The Passing Show of 1915
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| Born |
Daphne Trott 19 October 1891 Melbourne, Australia |
| Died | 22 February 1978 (aged 86) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Years active | 1897–1943 |
| Spouse(s) | Ellington Strother Bunch |
| Children | Ellington W. Bunch b. 1922 |
| Parent(s) | Walter William Trott and Annie nee Daniels |
Daphne Pollard (19 October 1891 Fitzroy, Melbourne – 22 February 1978 in Los Angeles) was an Australian-born vaudeville performer and dancer, active on stage and later in US films, mostly short comedies.
Born Daphne Trott, in the inner Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy, to Walter William Trott and Annie nee Daniels, she joined the Pollard Lilliputian Opera Company at the age of six, having been taken to rehearsals by her older sister, Ivy, who was also a performer. The Pollard company featured performers whose ages ranged from six to sixteen years, playing light opera, operetta and musical comedy (LeCoq, Offenbach, etc.). They toured Australia, New Zealand and the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and were well received and highly acclaimed.
Like many of its performers, Daphne Trott took her stage name from the Pollard company. In later years she claimed she was related to the "cricketing Trotts," presumably meaning famous Australian cricketers Albert Trott and Harry Trott
Daphne Pollard first arrived in Los Angeles during a company tour in September 1901 and was singled out in enthusiastic reviews. In a November 1903 review, the Los Angeles Herald reported that "Daphne has charm. A full contralto speaking voice, a fine mimicy and good health are her ordinary stock in trade possessions; her delightful small personality is the crown, and makes her every inch a little queen of comic opera." Following further tours of Australia, the company was again in North America from late 1905. By 1907 Pollard was confident and popular enough to strike out on her own. Her Broadway debut was in Eddie Foy's Mr Hamlet of Broadway in 1908. She appeared soon after in The Bohemian Girl at the Los Angeles Theater, at $60 per show. The Los Angeles Times reported that because she was small and not well-developed for her age, Humane Officers thought she was no more than seven. She convinced them that she was actually sixteen.
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