Lou Vernon

Lou Vernon (born Clarence Alphonse Lambert, 26 June 1888, Brisbane – 22 December 1971, Sydney) was an Australian actor of stage, radio and screen and producer. He started his career in musical comedy, and was particularly noted for his versatility and ability as a character actor. Roy Rene in his memoir mentioned Lou worked with him in the comedy farce, "Give and Take". It was described in The Bulletin, "There has not been so much laughter in any one spot in Melbourne for months and months". Marriage and children By 1917 we find Vernon in Sydney making substantial inroads into Sydney's theatre scene. He also found love in a stunningly good looking divorcee Olive Stella Josephine Lockyer Norris, nee Sinclair. The two were married at Waverley in 1917. Olive had a child, not to her then husband, but to Lou Vernon. Olive was four years older than her husband. Their child, Ross Vernon would later show ambitions to follow his famous father into theatre. However that was not to be. As Flt. Lieutenant Ross Vernon, leading a second bombing sortie over Mawaraka, Bougainville, Ross crashed his RAAF bomber during World War II and was killed 11 January 1945. Divorce By mid-1920's he was engaged by the J.C. Williamson Company and landed the plum role of Emile La Flamme in Rudolph Friml's romantic musical Rose-Marie. Also in the cast was Fifi Banvard, at the time separated from her husband and fellow member of Thespian Masonic Lodge in Brisbane, Edward de Tisne. The several times extended season of Rose Marie provided the venue for a long tempestuous love affair between Fifi and Lou Vernon. Rose Marie ran non-stop until 1928. A tolerant Mrs. Olive Vernon, meanwhile kept her own counsel only instigating divorce proceedings against Vernon a decade later in 1937