Vivienne Rane Scrapbooks

This collection contains materials related to Vivienne Rane's career especially as member of The Tiller Girls. Materials includes scrapbooks, playbills and other printed materials relating to her performances, touring with The Tiller Girls, and the reunion for the troupe's centenary in 1986.

Born on 25 September 1929 in a musical family in London, Vivienne Rane started learning tap and ballet at a young age. The family moved to Egypt in 1935 and South Africa in 1940 and moved back to England in 1945. In the meantime, she kept learning ballet, winning the Birley Annual Prize in 1936 and passing a ballet examination in 1943.

Shortly after she returned to England, she had her first formal performance in the chorus in Happy Go Lucky in 1946 with her sister Carolyn Dee. They appeared in Cinderella at the Finsbury Park Empire in 1949 while Vivienne got a place in a summer season show Gaytime at Cosy Nook Theatre Newquay in 1950 followed by Goody Two Shoes at Casino Theatre London in 1951.

Vivienne Rane first appeared in The Tiller Girls in 1951 in the production of Aladdin at the London Palladium. She then toured in South Africa in 1953, in Denmark and Sweden in 1959, in Italy in 1960 and in Germany between 1960-1961. Between tours of The Tiller Girls, she also performed in the Piccadilly Balleten tour of Denmark and The Stefan Mourad Show tour of Lebanon, Egypt and Italy. Her last appearance with The Tiller Girls was for the Sunday Night at London Palladium television show.

In late 1960s, she joined the Croydon Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society and performed in a number of performances such as The Sound of Music , Love from Judy and The Wicked City . In 1986, she attended the centenary celebrations of The Tiller Girls at The Old Ship Hotel in Brighton. She died at the age of 81 in 2011.

This collection has been arranged into two series

• THM/483/1: Scrapbooks
• THM/483/2: Printed Materials

This archive collection is available for consultation in the V&A Blythe House Archive and Library Study Room by appointment only.
Full details of access arrangements may be found here: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/a/archives/.

Access to some of these files may be restricted. These are identified at file level.

Given by Carolyn Dee, 2016.

Information on copying and commercial reproduction may be found here: https://www.vam.ac.uk/info/archives.

This collection was appraised in line with the museum collection management policy.

No further accruals expected.