Les Girls

by Constance Tomkinson

‘Wanted. Dancers for Scandinavian tour. Must be experienced tap and ballet,’ read the advertisement in The Stage. Constance Tomkinson was experienced at neither but, as she tells us in her gloriously funny memoir Les Girls, she was broke and desperate. To her astonishment she passed the audition and soon found herself in the chorus line of a company called the Millerettes and on her way to Sweden.
It was 1937, and work of any kind was hard to come by. Constance, the daughter of a Canadian Nonconformist minister, had already tried her luck as an actor after drama school in New York and then had moved on to London, where her only job so far had been in the pantomime chorus of a touring production of Dick Whittington.

There was nothing very high class about the Millerettes ­but a certain degree of competence was required. Constance didn’t have it but she was up for anything, and one of the delights of the book is the picture of its author as she gamely struggles to obey instructions, at one performance early on in the tour losing her balance and landing in the middle of the orchestra (‘The drummer, muttering Swedish curses, untangled me from the cymbals, pulled me off the drum, propped me up with his right hand and went on drumming with his left’). Alas, after Sweden no further bookings were forthcoming, so the girls decided to try their luck in Paris where, after a stint at the Folies-Bergère (then starring the fabulous Josephine Baker), Constance eventually joined a group called the Basil Beauties, touring the European capitals.

The delectable memoir that came out of all this is not only a wryly observed picture of the seedy world of the chorus line and the touching esprit de corps that kept the girls going – even when ‘the stick make-up was worn down to little stumps and there was not an unbroken eyebrow liner’ – but an unusual glimpse of Europe on the eve of the Second World War, with Hitler and Mussolini in power, not long before the curtain finally came down.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, World War II

271 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1956

Reviews

[Big Ship · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars

This is the memoir of Constance Tomkinson (Canadian via New York), covering her time immediately before and after her time as a member of various dance troupes and chorus lines as they travelled all over the Continent during the mid to late 1930s, where Tomkinson and her colleagues "not only thought [about] but were experts in navigating the rackety worlds of show business, finance and sex while defending their virtue as energetically as a Samuel Richardson heroine." [page 5]

Whilst they were not a raging success, they went from job to job and had lots of varied experiences, including being pursued by high ranking German military names.

The memoir is witty and very readable.

It was made into a film in 1957, though Tomkinson is not named (or portrayed?) in it, most likely by reason that there was a dispute as to changes made in the film, which apparently made the film more salacious than the book.

A delightful memoir of a time and of places well outside my experience.

[Kitty · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir, recollecting Constance Tomkinson's years as a show-girl in the 1930s, is a pure delight to read, with sparkling descriptions of the troupe’s cameraderie, the admirers they counted on as ‘meal tickets’, and the chaotic backstage life of a travelling dancer. Constance, lacking in any experience except a pantomime, is surprised to be taken on by the Millerettes for a tour to Scandinavia. When this comes to an abrupt end, 'Les Girls' jump on a train to Paris where Constance finds work at the Folies-Bergere, where Josephine Baker is the star of the show. She talks her way into the ranks of the Basil Beauties and goes on tour to Germany and Italy - and here a shadow creeps in to the light-hearted narrative, as amidst the high spirits she witnesses the growing power of these Fascist regimes… The Slightly Foxed hardback is beautifully produced with the charming original illustrations.

[Boyschool · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a memoir of Constance Tomkinson, and while at first I enjoyed it, I began to be aware that the author continually toots her own horn, to the point that I became tired of reading about how wonderful she found herself. Here is a quote from chapter 4. “In my dramatic school, which hoped to turn out actresses of a great emotional depth, I had been a disappointment. They used to say sadly, “Constance is doomed to be a comedienne.”Apparently they were right. I brought the house down in Munich every night.” Under the guise of self-deprecation, she ends up singing her own praises again. This is a repeating theme throughout the book. I ended up skimming and ultimately dnf’ing this one.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slightly Foxed’s Winter publication. 2.5 ⭐️. Very much of its time.