Lauri de Frece was born Maurice de Frece in Liverpool on the 3rd of March 1880. He was one of four sons of Harry de Frece, of the Gaiety Music Hall, Liverpool, a prosperous theatrical manager and agent from a Jewish theatrical family. The four sons were well educated at the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys, in the hope of keeping them out of the theatre. However, Frece's brother Jack became the manager of the Alhambra Wooden Theatre, Liverpool, his brother Isaac managed the Theatre Royal, Liverpool, and in 1890 his brother Walter gave up an apprenticeship with a Merseyside architect to marry Vesta Tilley, taking a job in the office of Warner's Theatrical Agency, and going on to become a leading theatrical impresario.
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| Mr & Mrs De Frece - Vesta & Walter |
At the Liverpool Institute, de Frece was a contemporary of Albert Coates, the English conductor and composer. In 1910, Lauri appeared as Blatz in the musical 'The Balkan Princess' at the Prince of Wales Theatre, London. In 1912, he sang the part of Brissard in an Edinburgh production of Franz Lehár's operetta 'The Count of Luxembourg', when he was one of the five principals, together with Daisy Burrell, Phyllis le Grand, Eric Thorne and Robert Michaelis, collectively described by the Musical News as "all consummate artists in their own style". This was in the late winter of 1912 beginning with a fortnight in Edinburgh before moving to Glasgow. For the return in the autumn the company went straight up to Aberdeen, returning south via Dundee to finish in Edinburgh again. The 4th of June, 1914 saw him acting in Jean Gilbert's musical, 'The Cinema Star', at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London with Dorothy Ward, Harry Welchman, Cicely Courtneidge, H.V. Tollemach and Fay Compton in the cast.
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| Fay Compton (1912) |
In 1914, after the death of the producer H.G. Pelissier, Lauri married his young widow, Fay Compton with whom he later starred in 'The Labour Leader' (1917) as Bert Slade. As an actor, he was also known for 'All the Sad World Needs' (1918) and 'Once Upon a Time (1918).
He died in August 1921, aged 41, from undisclosed causes, in Trouville-sur-Mer, Calvados, France. In February 1922 his widow remarried Leon Quartermaine.
Laurie had sometimes been confused with a cousin called Lawrence Abraham de Frece, who was born in 1881 and died later the same year.
In his Idols of the "Halls", Henry Chance Newton recalled, "I knew many de Freces, both of the Liverpudlian, and of the London brand; for example, that wonderful old couple, Isaac and Maurice de Frece, Walter's brother Jack, a big variety agent, also that late fine comedian, poor Lauri de Frece, who was the second husband of that brilliant young actress, Fay Compton."
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2023/05/a-history-of-liverpool-thespians-vivian.html
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