• Continue along Upper street to Islington Green…

 

On your right you will see the ‘Screen on the Green’ cinema. The present building was opened in 1913 and it is one of the oldest continuously running cinemas in the UK. It is an example of the many purpose-built cinemas that followed the regulations set by the Cinematograph Act 1909.

 

Gracie Fields, born over a fish and chip shop in Rochdale, (Lancashire), lived here at 72a Upper Street, Islington when she first moved to London. Her professional debut in variety took place at the Rochdale Hippodrome theatre in 1910. In 1915 she married struggling comic Archie Pitt, who became her manager. By 1925 she was starring at the Alhambra Theatre in London's West End, and made her first appearance in the 1928 Royal Variety Show.  ///pitch.junior.moons

 

Her most famous song, which became her theme, ‘Sally’, was worked into the title of her first cinema film, Sally in Our Alley (1931), which was a major box-office hit. She went on to make films in both England and America.

 

In 1940 she married film director, Monte Banks, following her divorce from Pitt. However because Banks remained an Italian citizen and would have been interned in the United Kingdom, Fields was forced to leave Britain during World War II. Although she spent much of her time entertaining troops and supporting the war effort outside Britain, this led to a fall-off in her popularity. 

 

After the war she continued recording, but made no more films, moving more towards light classical music as popular tastes changed. She also carried out a great deal of charity work for which she was belatedly honoured. Her final appearance at the Royal Variety Show was at the age of eighty in 1978 and she died at her home in Capri, Italy the next year.