Gladys Moncrieff

Gladys Moncrieff OBE (13 April 1892 – 8 February 1976) was an Australian singer who was so successful in musical theatre and recordings that she became known as 'Australia's Queen of Song' and 'Our Glad'.

Moncrieff was born in Bundaberg, Queensland. Her father Robert Edward Moncrieff was a piano tuner, and her mother, who went by the stage name Amy Lambell, was a professional singer. She attended several schools in north Queensland, and quickly became involved in music. Her first stage performance was at the age of six at the Queen's Theatre in Bundaberg, where she sang the American folk song "The Merriest Girl That's Out" with her father accompanying on piano. She performed in Gilbert and Sullivan productions. At the 1907 Charters Towers eisteddfod, Gladys shared first prize for her junior soprano rendition of "O for the Wings of a Dove" with local girl Eileen Coleman.

When she left school, she and her parents travelled around far north Queensland performing. Moncrieff was billed as 'Little Gladys: The Australian Wonder Child' and her performances helped her to raise funds to move to Brisbane to pursue her career. She worked in Brisbane and Toowoomba during 1909, and then went to Sydney with her mother. In Sydney she auditioned for Hugh J. Ward for a position in J. C. Williamson's theatre. She was successful, and with a starting salary of £3 per week she spent 18 months receiving singing lessons from Ward's wife, Madame Grace Miller. In 1914 she was in the chorus of a house Gilbert and Sullivan production; for there she took on leading roles such as Josephine in H.M.S. Pinafore. The company toured New Zealand and performed in Melbourne.

Moncrieff toured South Africa and New Zealand as a leading lady in numerous productions. When she returned to Australia she landed her most famous role as Teresa in Harold Fraser-Simson's light opera The Maid of the Mountains, which she first performed in Melbourne in 1921. The waltz song "Love Will Find a Way" became particularly associated with her. The Maid was to become the most frequently revived musical of the Australian stage, and Moncrieff appeared in it some 2,800 times. She also was a success in A Southern Maid in 1923.

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