Betty Knox
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Betty Knox (10 May 1906 – 25 January 1963) was an American dancer and journalist. Her early career was in American vaudeville and British variety as the original ‘Betty’ (1928–1941) of Wilson, Keppel and Betty – a dance trio who performed slick comedy routines in Egyptian dress, including the Sand Dance and the Dance of the Seven Veils. When she retired from dancing, she became a journalist for the London Evening Standard and was subsequently a war correspondent in Normandy and a reporter at the Nuremberg trials.
Knox was born Alice Elizabeth Peden in Salina, Kansas, on 10 May 1906,[1] the daughter of Charley E. Peden and Elizabeth Jane (née Anderson). As a teenager, she ran away from home twice. Aged 16, she fled to Louisiana, fearing arrest after a joyriding incident with a borrowed car.[2] Less than a year later, she eloped with boyfriend Donald Knox to obtain a marriage licence in Omaha, Nebraska.[3] Their daughter Patsy was born in December 1923, though the marriage (if it ever happened) was short-lived.[4]
Dancing career
After several years working as a chorus girl in vaudeville, Knox met Liverpudlian Jack Wilson and Irishman Joe Keppel, a clog dancing double act. She joined the act in 1928 and the trio became known as Wilson, Keppel and Betty. Over the next couple of years, they tried out various new routines, before coming up with the idea of wearing Egyptian costumes and performing eccentric dancing in a comic imitation of hieroglyphic wall paintings. This rapidly propelled them to the top of their profession and the trio moved to the UK in 1932, making their British début at the London Palladium.[2]
Knox left her daughter Patsy behind in America, finally bringing her to the UK in late 1937, in Knox's own words, 'so that she could see the war.'[5] In addition to helping to devise new routines for Wilson, Keppel and Betty, Knox also scripted sketches and lyrics for several other variety acts, particularly Tessie O'Shea, for whom she wrote one of her most successful wartime songs, International Rhythm.[6]
Journalism
In 1941, Knox retired from the act and became a journalist on the London Evening Standard.[7][8][9] Although she was totally untrained in the profession, editor Frank Owen was impressed by her extensive knowledge of Britain and the British, gained by her natural curiosity and her non-stop touring lifestyle. Her daughter Patsy subsequently became the new 'Betty' in the dance trio.
In 1943, Michael Foot (Owen's successor as Evening Standard editor, and future leader of the Labour Party) gave Knox her own thrice-weekly column,[10] which she titled Over Here, celebrating the contrasting cultures of the British and the increasingly prevalent American GI (the title was a reference to the popular description of American servicemen – 'overpaid, oversexed and over here'). Her first column featured an interview with novelist John Steinbeck,[11] who had recently returned from Capri where he was war correspondent with the United States Navy. Her columns were peppered with humorous anecdotes and American slang, and frequently poked fun at the inability of the British to make a proper cup of coffee.[12]
