Bert Errol
English singer and female impersonator
Bert Errol (born Isaac Whitehouse; 11 August 1883 – 28 November 1949) was a British singer and female impersonator, who was a popular entertainer in both Britain and the United States.
Life and career
Born in Birmingham, he had a voice ranging from tenor to falsetto. From the age of 18, he worked in music halls and concert parties, and in the all-male Harry Reynolds' Minstrels, before making his first London appearance in 1908, billed as "The Famous Male Soprano and Double-Voiced Vocalist". His act included parodies of musical comedy stars, as well as invented personalities.
He first visited the United States in 1910, when there was publicity over the fact that he had paid $1,000 customs duty on his gowns, many of which he had bought from Henry Paget, the Marquess of Anglesey. He returned to the U.S. several times, receiving good reviews and touring on the Orpheum and Keith vaudeville circuits, and also toured Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada. He was said to have a "Tetrazzini voice". He always appeared with his wife, Ray Hartley, whom he presented on stage, "for fear of any suspicion of homosexuality", and who assisted with his rapid changes of clothes.
In later years, he developed the comedy side of his act, and became known in Britain for his performances as a pantomime dame. In 1935, he appeared in the pantomime Cinderella on BBC radio, and was described as "one of the finest female impersonators of modern times, who must have played in nearly every music-hall in the country".
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as english singer and female impersonator. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 13, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q19038154. VIAF identifies the subject as 46574229. The Library of Congress control number is no2008078725. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1883, 1949, 1908 and 1910.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bert Errol” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.