She began her career entertaining soldiers in the Second World War, before going on to perform alongside Judi Dench, Topol and Kate Winslet.
But now Thelma Ruby is lowering the curtain on her sparkling 78-year career with a one-woman show.
The 97-year-old Jewish showbiz veteran will perform That’s Entertainment at The Pheasantry in west London next week, sitting down because of “wobbly legs”. Over 100 minutes, she will showcase songs and sketches and extracts from a career stretching back to wartime shows with the Entertainments National Service Association as a 19-year-old. In the final 20 minutes, she’ll reprise her performance as Gold Meir.
Thelma and a young Judi Dench
Born in Leeds but a resident of Wimbledon for most of her adult life, Thelma told the JC: “I’m still nervous going on stage after all these years. I’m excited too, but now I worry about whether everything still works.”
She performed opposite Topol as Golde in Fiddler on the Roof in 1984, played Mistress Quickly to Orson Welles’s Falstaff on stage in Chimes At Midnight in 1960, and was Fraulein Schneider alongside Judi Dench as Sally Bowles in 1968’s original London production of Cabaret. Dame Judi has remained a close friend, says Thelma: “She always sends me a bottle of champagne on my birthday.”
She has just returned to London after filming an episode of US TV series Documentary Now! with Kate Winslet and Harriet Walter. “Much as I enjoyed it — and Kate and Harriet’s company, in particular — it’s time to call it a day, both on stage and on the screen. The Pheasantry will be my last show.”
Thelma and Kenneth Williams
Though she goes to Wimbledon Synagogue, Thelma still describes herself as “a Yorkshire lass”. Her father, Louis Wigoder, was born in Lithuania but was taken to Dublin at three months old. He qualified as dentist in 1914, moved to Yorkshire, and met Thelma’s mother, Paula, from Leeds.
Thelma’s husband, actor and film director Peter Frye, died in 1991. She and Frye did not have children, but he had a daughter from a previous marriage.
“I’m very close to my stepdaughter and she has made me a grandmother 10 times and a great-grandmother 47 times,” she says. “They live in Jerusalem and I go out to Israel every year to see them all. It is always quite a party.”
Thelma, who worships at the Wimbledon Synagogue, attributes her longevity to “an optimistic frame of mind”. She says she has never lost her temper and tries not to let things worry her.
“That’s Entertainment” is on at The Pheasantry in Chelsea on 23 June. Visit pizzaexpresslive.com
