Lilias Munro is Spotted in Blackpool by Dancer Margaret Kelly

LILIAS MUNRO former Bluebell girl, head of make-up at BBC Television in the north of England and step mother of deceased Disney movie actress JANET MUNRO, died at 2am on 19 July 2004 at Victoria Hospital in Blackpool of cancer. Lilias (Lily) Smith was born in Wigan on 24 January 1917. She was spotted by Miss Bluebell (Margaret Kelly) on a visit to Blackpool in 1935 and brought to Paris to dance as one of the famous Bluebell Girls.

Margaret Kelly. Photo taken by Teddy Piaz (1899 – 1966).

Madam Bluebell with the Bluebell Girls at the Ritz Hotel for a press conference on 10 March 1979.

Lilias returned to England on the outbreak of World War 11 and married Scots Comedian Alex Horsburgh (Munro) in Preston, Lancashire on 29 June 1946. Alex had a daughter from his previous marriage to Phyllis Robershaw who died in June 1943 from TB. Lilias took the daughter JANET under her wing and got her started in Preston Rep in 1952. Then she brought Janet to London to pursue an acting career in Television and Movies. JANET MUNRO (1934-1972) starred in many well known movies of the period including “Darby O’Gill and the Little People“, (for which she won a Golden Globe Award in 1959), Swiss Family Robinson, “Tommy The Toreador” and “Day The Earth Caught Fire“.

Lilias joined the BBC in 1956 as a Make Up Artist and worked on many of the popular shows of the period including “The Good Old Days“. She retired in 1977 and later worked with a TV Station in New Zealand. In later years she lived in Gatley, Cheshire and Blackpool and is survived by her son Alex Munro Junior and Airline Executive who lives in Australia. When she lived in blackpool it was on Whitegate Drive (background image) in the house now occupied by David Slattery-Christy. You can see Lilias’s signature on the property deeds and details for the witness from the BBC.