Lupino Lane

Lupino Lane
Lane and his father in Jack and Jill, 1907-08 at the Prince's Theatre, Bristol
Born	Henry William George Lupino (1892-06-16)16 June 1892 Hackney, London, England
Died	10 November 1959(1959-11-10) (aged 67) London, England
Occupation	Actor, theatre manager, director, producer
Years active	1896–1940
Spouse(s)	Violet Blythe (1917–1959; his death)

Lupino Lane (16 June 1892 – 10 November 1959) was an English actor and theatre manager, and a member of the famous Lupino family. Lane started out as a child performer, known as 'Little Nipper', and went on to appear in a wide range of theatrical, music hall and film performances. He is best known for playing Bill Snibson in the play and film Me and My Girl, which popularised the song and dance routine "The Lambeth Walk".

Lane was born Henry William George Lupino, in Hackney, London, son of Harry Charles Lupino (1867–1925), part of the Lupino family. He adopted the surname Lane from his great-aunt Sarah Lane (1822–1899, née Borrow), the director of the Britannia Theatre, Hoxton. Lane married actress Violet Blythe on 10 February 1917, and their son was the actor Lauri Lupino Lane (1921–86). Lane's brother was the actor Wallace Lupino, and his nephew, Wallace's son, was another actor, Richard Lupino. Lane's niece, Ida Lupino, the daughter of actors Stanley Lupino and Connie Emerald (1892–1959), was the most famous member of this acting family.

Lane made his first stage appearance at the age of four in a benefit in Birmingham for Vesta Tilley. He made his London début in 1903 as Nipper Lane at the London Pavilion. He worked steadily as a performer thereafter. In 1915, he appeared at the Empire Theatre and played comic roles in theatre and film on both sides of the Atlantic from then on. In 1921, he dived through seventy-four stage traps in six minutes while performing in a 1921 pantomime production of Aladdin at the Hippodrome. Lane and his wife Violet Blythe were both in the Broadway production of the musical Afgar, at the Central Theatre, in 1920–21, and he appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1924 at the New Amsterdam Theatre, from June 1924 to March 1925, and subsequently played Ko-Ko in The Mikado on Broadway in 1925, receiving good reviews.