In Part 1, we saw how Gracie Fields led the way by breaking official military embargoes in November 1939 to become the first major star to entertain the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France. Her performances at Lens and Douai made her the undisputed heroine of the "Phoney War".
Yet within months of her triumphs in France, Gracie's national image collapsed. With the British still reeling from their retreat to Dunkirk, Benito Mussolini declared war in June 1940, and Britain’s highest-paid movie icon was suddenly transformed in the public eye into an apparent draft-dodger enjoying a "pleasant war in America".
Unpicking this dramatic downfall reveals a story of international law, marital devotion, and secret diplomacy. Further insights can be drawn from the first-hand observations of Virginia Vernon—ENSA’s Chief Welfare Officer and "Madam V"—who formed a lifelong friendship with Gracie during these turbulent years.[1]
"The Bravest, Grandest Person": Virginia Vernon Meets Gracie
To those working behind the scenes at Drury Lane, the idea that Gracie Fields was unpatriotic was laughable. Virginia Vernon had first met Gracie in Paris in late 1939 while organising military gala performances. Though Madam V confessed to having never seen a Gracie Fields film before, she was instantly captivated by the singer’s warmth and unpretentious courage.
The banner presented to Gracie Fields on the occasion of her first visit to France for NAAFI and NESA. To entertain the troops is hands on the landing of the grand staircase. Princes Side and is draped over a picture by Romney. ‘IWM HU2758 Basil Dean Collection’, London, n.d., Imperial War Museum, London, LBY K.
Writing to her husband after managing Gracie’s concerts for the BEF in Roubaix and Amiens, Virginia recorded:[2]
You are right. Gracie Fields is absolutely wonderful. Now that IS the stuff to give the troops... She is the bravest, grandest person and I wish she could stay with us forever. The chaps ADORE her. And they KNOW she loves every mother’s son of them. And what an artist!
The two women bonded immediately. After a show in Paris, Gracie thoughtfully presented Virginia with a small novelty watch shaped like a cat, telling her with characteristic Rochdale warmth: "For luck, luv".[3]
The Italian Complication: June 1940
On June 10, 1940, Italy declared war on Great Britain. Italian nationals living in the UK who might be a security risk were designated "enemy aliens" and subject to immediate arrest and internment in high-security camps on the Isle of Man.[4]
Image: Monty Banks (source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Montybanks.jpg , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
For Gracie, who always wore her heart on her sleeve, this was a disaster. In March 1940, she had married the Italian-born actor and film director Monty Banks (born Mario Bianchi in Cesena). Although Banks had lived and worked in Hollywood and London for decades, he had never naturalised as a British subject. Faced with the immediate prospect of her husband's internment, Gracie made the heartbreaking decision to leave Britain for North America.
Before she sailed, Prime Minister Winston Churchill granted her an audience. Recognising her immense star power across the Atlantic, Churchill gave her a mission: she was to tour the United States and Canada, raising American dollars for British war relief charities and rallying American public opinion toward Britain’s cause.[5]
"A War Industry": Raising Millions in North America
Arriving in North America, Gracie threw herself into an exhausting, self-funded fundraising crusade across concert halls, munitions plants, and radio studios, frequently performing up to four shows a day.
She raised millions of dollars for the British War Relief Society, the Navy League, and aircraft funds. Every dollar generated in the US purchased vital supplies and weapons for blockaded Britain.
Her fundraising was so effective that Joseph Goebbels’s propaganda machine in Berlin officially denounced the singer. A German propaganda publication issued a stern warning:[6]
'Gracie Fields has earned for England the equivalent of a hundred new Spitfires. She is adjudged a war industry, and should therefore be treated accordingly.'
Meanwhile, in London, press columnists sniped about celebrities living in California sunshine while ordinary citizens endured blackouts and rationing. Gossip swirled that Gracie was enjoying "a pleasant war in America".[7] Perhaps unaware of the legal threat facing Monty Banks or Churchill's private instructions, the British public saw only that their favourite star had abandoned the country just as the Blitz began to rain fire on London, Coventry, and Liverpool.
Headline from Daily Mail
By 1941, the furore was settling and Basil Dean invited Gracie back to Great Britain to headline a massive, nationwide morale tour. The tour was coordinated by ENSA’s senior leadership team. Official records in the ENSA archives note a letter from Minister of Information Duff Cooper dated 4 June 1941 regarding the request to facilitate government-controlled transatlantic transport for Gracie Fields and Gertrude Lawrence from the US to England.[8] All was forgiven./
IWM (P 84) Singer Gracie Fields stands on a grand piano as she sings to a huge crowd of munitions workers during a performance at an ordnance factory, somewhere in Britain, possibly ROF Kirkby in Liverpool. The workers are densely packed into the room in which the concert is taking place.
Virginia accompanied Gracie on parts of her gruelling 83-concert factory tour across Britain in 1941. In Glasgow, after flying from an RAF base on the east coast of Scotland, followed by a midday Factory Show, Gracie performed before 6,000 dockers and shipyard workers packed into a hangar at John Brown’s shipyard on 18 July 1941.[9] Singing on her knees under a shaft of sunlight, Gracie brought the toughened Clyde-side dockers to tears with the Lord's Prayer and patriotic hymns, before turning to Virginia on the side of the stage with a grin: "Unbend my knees for me, luv, got cramp in 'em".[10]
The successful 1941 tour demonstrated that despite the political tension and press sniping surrounding Gracie’s departure to North America in 1940, her direct, unpretentious connection with British working-class audiences remained unbroken when she was face-to-face with them. Back in America she continued to raise funds for the British war charities and then filmed a couple of movies (Stage Door Canteen and Holy Matrimony, both released in 1943). In mid-1943, she requested that ENSA send her back overseas to entertain the troops. This set the stage for a dramatic reunion with Virginia Vernon in North Africa, torchlit performances in liberated Sicily, and an explosive clash with Montgomery's Eighth Army.
Next in the series (Part 3): Torchlight in Sicily and the Eighth Army Storm (Autumn 1943) —how Gracie's return to the Mediterranean ended in a bitter feud over an open letter in The Crusader.
[1] Matthew Eaton and Adam Fairclough, Madam V: Virginia Vernon’s War: Battling to Bring (ENSA) Entertainment to the British Troops (The History Press, 2026).
[2] Eaton and Fairclough, Madam V, p. 24.
[3] Eaton and Fairclough, Madam V, p. 46.
[5] Andrew Merriman, Greasepaint and Cordite: The Story of ENSA and Concert Party Entertainment during the Second World War (Aurum, 2012), pp. 31–32.
[6] Merriman, Greasepaint and Cordite, p. 31.
[7] ‘Basil Dean Private Papers: DEA 5 - ENSA Papers’, Manchester, n.d., Rylands Research Institute, DEA 5, fol. 5/1/84.
[8] ‘Basil Dean Private Papers: DEA 5 - ENSA Papers’, fol. 5/1/84.
[9] Eaton and Fairclough, Madam V, p. 85.
[10] Eaton and Fairclough, Madam V, p. 85.
