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Yvonne Banvard

Australian actress and theatre producer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ21539709 ↗
Source-derived summary

Yvonne (Fifi) Banvard (25 December 1901– 24 June 1962) was an Australian actress. As a child, she toured North America and gained notoriety as a talented tragedienne. She later went onto perform and produce plays, dramas, comedies and romances across Australia, as well as becoming a radio personality.

Early life

Yvonne (Fifi) Banvard was born on 25 December 1901 in Melbourne. Her father was William Horley, an actor from England who toured the world with his family as The Flying Banvards. Her mother was Annie née Moore, a dancing mistress from Victoria. After her parents separated, Yvonne travelled America with her mother as part of the Pollard Lilliputian Opera Company. Banvard made her début appearance on stage aged 7 as Fifi in The Belle of New York, after which she came to be known as 'Fifi'. During her time in America, Banvard was known as the youngest tragedienne on the stage. By the time she was 17, she was playing Sadie Thompson in W Somerset Maugham's Rain.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Yvonne Banvard” as australian actress and theatre producer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Yvonne, Banvard and Australian.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1901, 1962—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1901-12-25. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Yvonne, Banvard and Australian providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Yvonne Banvard”, the useful work is to connect “australian actress and theatre producer” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

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 Mar 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q21539709. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1901 and 1962.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Yvonne Banvard”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Yvonne Banvard primary sources, Yvonne Banvard archive and Yvonne research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Yvonne Banvard”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Yvonne Banvard” 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.