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Ella Shields, 1879-1952. American

Ella Shields, real name Ella Catherine Buscher, was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1897. Although American born she achieved her greatest successes in Britain.

Her signature song was “I’m Burlington Bertie from Bow”, a comic ditty she performed as a down-and-outer who affects the style and manner of a fashionable swell. Like other British male impersonators she often performed in military attire singing songs about life in the army or navy. Her musical hits included “Show Me the Way to Go Home”, “Oh! It’s a Lovely War”, "The King’s Navee”, and “What a Difference the Navy’s Made to Me”.

In the later 1940s she performed with the young Julie Andrews who is said to have used Shields as a model for her role as ‘Victor’ in the film musical Victor Victoria (1982).

Dream Sweetheart. Music/ Words and music by Bud Green. Sydney: J. Albert & Son, 1932.