The life of Nancy Weir, Melbourne-born pianist turned spy

A celebrated classical pianist born in Melbourne, Nancy Weir’s career was put on hold when WWII hit and she turned spy for the Allies. But did she really parachute behind enemy lines to conduct clandestine operations? LISTEN NOW

Pianist Nancy Weir in 1929. File picture.

Nancy Weir was a celebrity classical pianist who became a “musical spy” for the Allies against Germany during World War II.

Stories abound among her former students of the Melbourne-born musician being parachuted behind enemy lines to conduct clandestine spying operations.

Her extraordinary story is almost impossible to believe, yet her name is virtually unknown, in part because of the lifelong self-imposed veil of secrecy over her WWII exploits.

Weir, who died aged 93 in 2008, is the subject of the fifth episode of the In Black and White podcast series about some of Victoria’s forgotten characters, available today.

She shot to fame as a child prodigy when she performed in the Melbourne Town Hall, playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 at age 13 with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

Weir was such a sensation that Melbourne’s Lord Mayor set up a subscription scheme to enable the teen to study in Berlin with a leading music teacher.

But when WWII interrupted her promising career, Weir began working for RAF Intelligence, where she became valued for her fluency in German, acute listening skills, and phenomenal memory and intelligence, moving up the ranks to Flight Officer.

The biggest mystery surrounding Weir’s life is whether or not she was parachuted into the war zone behind enemy lines to spy for the Allies. File photo.

Melbourne musician and music teacher Stephen Langley has been researching Weir’s life and hopes to give her little-known life story long-overdue recognition.

While she gave little away, Weir once mentioned her WWII duties included “sitting on a hilltop in Kent listening to the chatter of young German pilots … I think I prevented a few bomb attacks”.

Mr Langley believes the intelligence gathered by Weir would have been relayed to decryption sites such as the famous Bletchley Park, the top-secret home of Britain’s WWII “codebreakers”.

It is known Weir spent two years of WWII in Cairo, 15 months in Rome, and seven months in Algiers, and helped during German-language interrogations of prisoners of war.

But the biggest mystery surrounding Weir’s life is whether or not she was parachuted into the war zone behind enemy lines to spy for the Allies.

After the war, Weir went to Queensland

In one extraordinary story, Weir once said: “I was to fly into Rome, but the Allies had destroyed the airfield, so I had to parachute in.”

She added: “I think I am the only classical pianist in history who ever parachuted into Rome.” Whether this was a statement of fact, or simply evidence of Weir’s quirky sense of humour, has long been a subject of debate.

Mr Langley says daring stories of parachuting feature heavily in recollections of those who knew Weir long after the war, but question marks remain.

“Some of the stories are incredible,” he says.

“One of her students said she parachuted into Germany night after night, behind the lines and spied for the Allies.

“And he also validated that she went to Cairo concertising as a cover, while she was spying.

“She said she had a ‘very interesting war’, that’s her words, so go figure.”

There’s a resurgence in interest in Weir’s life since the recent discovery of a film, showing her being interviewed and playing the piano at age 14 at the 3LO radio studios in Melbourne, which has been found in the University of South Carolina archives.

It is believed Weir was probably the first artist to be recorded on sound film in Melbourne, when Fox Movietone News visited in 1929, and you can see the extraordinary footage here:

Much of what we know about Weir is thanks to research in the 1990s by Griffith University academic Belinda McKay, who raised doubts that Weir was parachuted into Rome.

But Melbourne musician and music teacher Di Beatty and her family knew Weir well when she was studying in the 1960s at the Queensland Conservatorium, where Weir taught.

She describes her as a gregarious, eccentric and much-loved teacher who lived life on a very large canvas, and believes the stories about Weir parachuting behind enemy lines are true.

“My knowledge about the war years is that she was a member of the resistance, she was dropped into occupied France, and she was obviously parachuted in,” she says.

Listen to the full interviews with Stephen Langley and Di Beatty, available today on the latest episode of the new free In Black and White podcast series.

And tune in to previous episodes on singer-turned-jailbird Black Elsie, Navajo wrestler and showman Chief Little Wolf, would-be royal assassin Edward Oxford, and young motoring pioneer Alice Anderson, whose mysterious gunshot death 93 years ago has finally been solved.

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Check out In Black & White in the Herald Sun newspaper Monday to Friday to see more stories like this .