Beloved Adelaide entertainer Phyl Skinner dies, aged 98

The last Australian vaudevillian, Phyl Skinner, who danced with the likes of US superstar Bob Hope, has died in Adelaide at the age of 98.

Skinner, at home in Parkside in 2015. Photo Calum Robertson

Beloved Adelaide entertainer Phyl Skinner has died aged 98.

She was the last Australian vaudevillian having first worked at the Tivoli and Majestic Theatres in 1937.

She toured Australia in vaudeville as a dancer and comedienne often stooging for Mo (Roy Rene) and George Wallace.

She danced with Bob Hope, entertaining the troops in the jungles of New Guinea during WWII. Miss Skinner worked for JC Williamson’s in musicals and pantomimes and many Adelaide theatre companies as dancer, actress, choreographer and director.

In 2014 she choreographed a Fringe show and in 2018, aged 96, she appeared in a concert farewelling the old Her Majesty’s Theatre and since she started as a dancer aged 5, she had then been entertaining audiences for 91 years.

Miss Skinner was the recipient of the Medal of the Order of Australia, the Adelaide Critics’ Circle Lifetime Achievement Award and many other honours.

Skinner with Barry Egginton in a production at The Olde Kings Music Hall, King William St, Adelaide, some time between 1967 and 1975.

Skinner in her younger days as a high-flying vaudeville performer. Photo Calum Robertson