Betty Bolton

Who was Betty Bolton?

Betty Bolton was a British actress, beginning as a child star during World War I and continuing her career in the 1920s and 1930s.

Bolton made her debut in 1916, at the age of 10, in a revue called Some, at the Vaudeville Theatre in London. Gertrude Lawrence was the principal dancer. Bolton's mother Maud was a West End stage manager. 'Betty', as she was originally billed, played in several revues by Harry Grattan, such as Odds and Ends and Mind Your Backs during the World War I, some of them produced by Andr Charlot. Betty played precocious little boys and little girls in these shows. Photographs from two of these revues, including Cheep and Back Again, show her remarkable powers of facial expression. The last show in which she performed as a child was the musical fantasy Fifinella, in late 1919.

Bolton was a versatile performer, appearing in almost every branch of entertainment available in the 1920s and early 1930s: revues, straight plays, films, recordings, even early television.