Lew James

(b. London, **/**/1878/ – d. **/**/****). Actor, comedian. Lew James (originally Laurie Cohen) was born in London of East European Jewish parents who arrived in England in the late 1850s. He was the youngest of 15 children and the family lived in the London borough of Stepney. He eventually shortened his name to Lou and married Reine, the daughter of Flora Solomon, a music hall entertainer who eventually immigrated to South Africa and opened a theatrical boarding house in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. Reine and Laurie formed a comedy and dance duo, first performing in England and then following Reine’s mother to South Africa. They worked in vaudeville as Potash and Perlmutter, the characters created by Montague Glass, at venues like the Orpheum and the Standard Theatre, while Laurie, billled as Lew James, also performed as a stand-up comic.

Early in 1917 he appeared on the stage at the Empire Palace of Varieties before his departure for Australia and New Zealand and was offered a farewell benefit concert at the Carlton Hotel on 7 February of that year. It was announced that J. Langley Levy would be in the chair, Dick Cruikshanks would be the stage manager and the MC's would include M.A. Wetherell and Norman H. Lee. In 1920 he was back in South Africa to act in the film The Madcap of the Veld (1920), directed by Joseph Albrecht and there is a record of him having attended a meeting in 1921 at the Carlton in order to organise an actors' union, but he seems to have returned to Australia not long afterwards. Incidentally, in 1913 he had become the father of Sidney Joel Cohen, the future Sidney James. (FO)

(Note: He should not be confused with his contemporary and near-namesake Lou James who also visited South Africa.)

Sources

Stage & Cinema, 3 February 1917

Stage & Cinema, 23 July 1917

S.A. Pictorial, 11 December 1920

Goodwin, Cliff - Sid James: a biography

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