Evelyn Laye; British Stage, Screen Star

British musical comedy star Evelyn Laye has died after a career on stages and screens from London to Los Angeles that spanned eight decades. She was 95.

Family friend Michael Thornton said Laye died at her London nursing home Feb. 17 after developing respiratory problems.

“She was the quintessential star. Even in very old age, she retained her charm and dignity,” Thornton said.

Laye made her stage debut at 15 and enjoyed her first big success in “The Merry Widow” in 1923.

She became an international star when she played the lead in the 1929 Broadway production of Noel Coward’s “Bitter Sweet,” in which she sang “I’ll See You Again,” which became her signature tune. Ironically, her theatrical family had warned her as a teenager to “never have anything to do” with Coward. She later credited him with handing her her greatest success.

Laye reprised the Broadway role for appreciative Los Angeles audiences at the Shrine Auditorium in 1935.

“I like playing ‘Bitter Sweet’ here,” she told The Times that year. “[In New York] I was horribly nervous about it. I was sick with fear, really. After I had walked for hours in Central Park and finally arrived at my dressing room, it was the gift of a little pink coral elephant [that Florenz] Ziegfeld put in my hand just before I went on, that calmed me down.

“Noel Coward didn’t write it for me,” she said. “He doesn’t write that way. He wouldn’t think of trimming down a character to suit a personality. He expects the players to be actors.”

Blond and bewitching, Laye was idolized in her 1920s heyday. London audiences would roar “Boo”--her pet name--and people would stand in line for up to 26 hours to see her on stage.

She starred in silent films and then switched successfully to talkies, including “The Night Is Young.”

The durable Laye made a farewell British tour in 1992 at the age of 92. The same year, more than 100 stars paid tribute to her in a gala at the London Palladium.

She married actor Sonnie Hale in 1926 but divorced him for adultery in a bitter case four years later. She then married British actor Frank Lawton. He died in 1969.