Maxi remembers the superstar that was Maureen Potter on the 100th anniversary of her birth

 

‘I am not a dress person; I feel more comfortable in a suit’ …

 

Maureen Potter, comedienne, actress, dancer, and singer was thumbing through the hangers on a rail and rechecking that all was well after the night’s performance. “In my case it should never be called a dress rail,” she said smiling. We were in her dressing room in Clontarf Castle a venue steeped in historical grandeur tucked away in perfect tranquillity just outside the city centre, a short drive from Dublin Airport.

Maureen, was relaxing having been on stage. She never allowed friends to visit her before the performance. Afterwards was a completely different story, so having attended her show I chose my time wisely and went to see her when was finished, and she was enjoying a well-earned refreshment after the gig.

Her accompanist, Thelma Ramsey, shared her dressing room and was band leader and baton carrier on stage. Her nimble fingers on the keyboards filled every conceivable gap with a six-piece band at her command. Maureen loved her company on stage and off – their lifelong friendship apparent with every glance exchanged. No words are necessary when your relationship is as close as a clam’s shell.

Maureen’s performances began in childhood. She was known as Maria Philomena Potter, when she was at school in Fairview. It was the band leader, Jack Hylton, who called her Maureen and it stuck. He booked her to tour Germany with the band, as a singer and dancer, and at that stage, she had done her training with Connie Ryan in her dancing school.

As part of that ensemble, she entertained Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering, who would infamously go down in history a few years later.

She was thirteen and often recalled the heavy ochre make-up she had to wear and the fact that, because she was doing a Shirley Temple act, had to wear her long hair in ringlets.
In those days the curls were put in by winding the hair around lengths of long cloth and sleeping all night on them, a most painful experience.

She toured with the band for a year and returned home with a gift given to her by Hitler. Her mother, she often recalled in future interviews, threw it immediately in the bin. Maureen frequently stated publicly she would like to have kept it for its historical value.

Anyway with the knowledge that it, and her time as Shirley Temple was gone, she cut her hair and for the rest of her life wore it short.

If ever curls were needed for a character part again, she happily wore a wig!

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