she made them sing, she had memorable songs and nobody ever sang those songs as she could". Theatre historian Roy Busby described her as "a fine buxom woman, splendid in feathers, sequins and tights." She made the first of her many sound recordings in 1903 and in all made 700 individual recordings by 1936. She ran her own touring revue company, which provided a platform for new rising stars, the most famous being the singing duo of Flanagan and Allen. For 36 consecutive years Forde performed for a summer season at Douglas, Isle of Man. She continued to appear in London pantomimes as a "principal boy" into the 1930s, when she was in her sixties, and performed in the 1935 Royal Variety Performance. At the start of the Second World War, she planned to continue to entertain the troops. She collapsed and died from a cerebral haemorrhage after singing for troops in Aberdeen, Scotland, on 18 April 1940; she was 64. Personal life On 2 January 1893 in Sydney, she married Walter Emanuel Bew, a 31-year-old police constable. On 22 November 1905 at the register office, Paddington, London, as Flora Augusta Flanagan, spinster, she married Laurence Barnett (d. 1934), an art dealer. Legacy The Anglo-Irish poet Louis MacNeice left a tribute to her in a poem, 'Death of an Actress', recalling how:<blockquote>With an elephantine shimmy and a sugared winkShe threw a trellis of Dorothy Perkins rosesAround an audience come from slum and suburbAnd weary of the tea-leaves in the sink.</blockquote> She is buried in Streatham Park Cemetery, London. National Film and Sound Archive Florrie Forde's song Hold Your Hand Out Naughty Boy was added to the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia registry in 2013. Selected songs "Down at the Old Bull and Bush" "She's a Lassie from Lancashire" "Oh! Oh! Antonio!" "Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?" "Flanagan" "Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty" "Hold Your Hand Out, Naughty Boy" "Good-bye-ee!" "A Bird in a Gilded Cage" "Daisy Bell" "I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside" "Now I Have to Call him Father" "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag" "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" Selected filmography My Old Dutch (1934) Say It with Flowers'' (1934) References External links Florrie Forde – you can hear her sing 'I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside' Eight digitally restored recordings to listen to or