Laura Henderson

Laura Henderson (1864 – 29 November, 1944) rose to prominence in the 1930s when, as a wealthy and eccentric widow, she founded the Windmill Theatre in London's Great Windmill Street in partnership with Vivian van Damm, and they went on to turn it into a British institution, famed for its pioneering tableaux vivants of motionless female nudity and for having 'never closed' during the Blitz.

Laura Henderson was the well-traveled wife of a wealthy jute merchant and lost her only son in 1915 in France during the First World War. In 1931, she bought the "Palais de Luxe" building and hired Howard Jones, an architect, to remodel the interior to a tiny, one-tier theatre. It was renamed "The Windmill". It opened on June 22 1931, as a playhouse but it was not profitable, soon returning to showing films. She then hired Vivian Van Damm and they produced 'Revudeville' a programme of continuous, non-stop variety with 18 entertainment acts, but this was also a commercial failure, so they added the dimension of nudity to emulate the "Folies Bergeres" and the "Moulin Rouge". The key element was Van Damm's exploitation of a legal loophole (or zone of tolerance) that nude statues could not be banned on moral grounds, and this led to the legendary "Windmill Girls".

On her death in 1944, Laura Henderson bequeathed The Windmill to "My Dear Bop", Vivian Van Damm. In his 1952 autobiography he described her as "a great strain on one's nerves, patience and tact".

She was portrayed by Dame Judi Dench in the 2005 film "Mrs Henderson Presents".

References

*"The Times", Obituary, 30 November, 1944.