Music Hall Entertainer. Born Matilda Victoria Wood in Hoxton, London, the eldest of nine children of John Wood, a maker of artificial flowers, and Matilda, a dressmaker. As a girl she organized her sisters and friends into a minstrel groups called the Fairy Bells Minstrels. They toured the local mission halls with a program on the evils of drink. Her first unpaid appearance on stage was under the name of Bella Delamare when she sang two songs, and then she danced an Irish jig. She adopted the name Marie Lloyd as sounding classy and progressed to appearing at small halls, sometimes two or three in a night. She married for the first time at 17 and produced a daughter but the marriage failed within five years. She played the famous Drury Lane Theatre for several years with great success and was dubbed the Queen of the Music Hall. She was, at one point, summoned to appear before the Vigilance Committee on a charge of vulgarity that was eventually dismissed. She toured South Africa successfully in 1896 incorporating her daughter in the act. She followed up the following year with an appearance in New York. She toured Australia with Alec Hurley whom she married in 1906 only to leave him for an Irish jockey, Bernard Dillon, 18 years her junior in 1910. She entertained troops during the First World War, but her career was on the decline. In October 1922 she was appearing at Edmonton where she collapsed on stage. Three days later she died. Immense crowds attended her funeral. In the cortage were twelve cars full of flowers and on top of the hearse was the ebony cane and sparkling top hat that she had used in her act. (bio by: Iola) Cause of death: Exhaustion