Person

Phillips, Nat, 1883-1932

• Stiffy, 1883-1932

1883-1932

Nat Phillips was born in New South Wales in 1883. His father was a prominent concert singer and his mother an actress/singer whose family had long been associated with the theatre. Her father, Ralph Tolano, is said to have put on the first production of East Lynne in Australia, while her brother, Joe, was a well-known and highly popular actor/stage manager in Australia over the last three decades of the nineteenth century. Nat Phillips made his debut stage appearance at the age of eight as an acrobat in an amateur show in Sydney, and four of his brothers (Ray, Harry, Jack, and Dave) similarly went on to carve out careers in theatre and film. At the age of 10, Nat Phillips teamed up with fellow acrobatic dancer, Tommy Armstrong, and toured Australia for the next ten years, before undertaking a tour of America at the age of 20. Nat Phillips stayed abroad for 12 years, working in America, England and Europe. In 1912, he and his wife Daisy Merritt returned to Australia and in 1914 Nat Phillips was asked to manage the Princess Theatre in Sydney and later the Gaiety and Bijou theatres in Melbourne, frequently managing, writing and composing in addition to his nightly performances. His most famous character, Stiffy the Rabbit-o, was introduced to audiences in late 1914, and by 1916, he was staging a number of one-act musical comedies (or ‘revusicals’) around the character. On July 16, 1916, he opened ‘What Oh, Tonight’ at Sydney’s Princess Theatre with a new partner, Roy Rene, playing a character called ‘Mo’. Response to the six shows they staged exceeded all expectations and for the next nine years, Nat Phillips and Roy Rene worked in partnership as ‘Stiffy and Mo’. In 1925, Rene’s tendency to prefer improvisation to rehearsals and his constant pushing of the boundaries of blue humour led to the temporary end of the partnership. Both comedians worked with other partners until in 1927, they bowed to public pressure and reformed ‘Stiffy and Mo’, choosing Brisbane for their debut reunion. The reunion was an overwhelming commercial success but it only lasted for 18 months. Phillips then put together his own ‘Whirligig Revue Company’, which included his wife and his brother Jack, but the onslaught of the talkies and the resulting demise of vaudeville struck a blow to his career. Nat Phillips died in Sydney on 21 June 1932, barely three and a half years after he and Rene ended their iconic partnership and just short of the age of 50. His former partner, Roy Rene, became an Australian theatre icon, with a career that stretched into the 1950s.

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Revised, JH, 7-May-2020