"Madly keen to entertain the trroooops."

With the outbreak of war in 1939 Lillie returned to England, one of the first stars to entertain the troops during World War II. She performed in several shows in London and toured Army bases in the Mediterranean, Africa and the Middle East, receiving the Africa Star, the King George VI Medal and from General de Gaulle himself, the French Liberation Medal. Her son Bobbie (Sir Robert) joined the British Royal Navy. In April of 1942, shortly after his 21st birthday, he had just arrived in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to report for duty on the aircraft carrier Hermes, when all the sirens in the harbor went off, indicating an air attack. Bobbie raced down to the harbor and boarded the carrier to see how he could help. He was barely on board when Japanese bombers struck. Receiving the news that her son was missing in action, Bea went on with her performance in London that night. She later recieved confirmation that Bobbie had been killed. Again, the show went on. For many years she refused to accept that he would not return.

"Come, Oh Come to Pittsburgh!"

Back home she went for healing--back to the stage. She spent the next few years between England and America. In 1944 she made a triumphant return to the American stage in "Seven Lively Arts." During the 1948 Broadway show "Inside USA" Bea introduced her trademark pearl swing duing the song (yes, really) "Come, Oh Come to Pittsburgh." In that show she met a young singer named John Philip Huck. A big man, he carried Bea onstage every night for her opening scene as the Massachusetts Mermaid.

Despite their disparity in ages, Bea and John became a couple, and were companions for the rest of their lives, with John Philip, as he was now called, taking over the management of Bea's career.

Enchanted "Evenings with..."

In 1952 Bea began a tour of summer theatres in "An Evening with Beatrice Lillie," costarring Reginald Gardner. The show ran for a year in New York, then toured the United States, Canada and England until the end of 1955. In 1953 Broadway paid her its highest compliment: a Tony Award. Brooks Atkinson called Lillie "the most brilliant comic spirit of our time."

From Atkinson’s New York Times review: "Geniuses on the stage are always highly individual, no matter what they happen to be playing. So it is with Miss Lillie in this show. The slender sharp-featured lady with the polite, embarrassed smile and the dainty manner dominates the material, the stage and the theatre. She radiates satiric comedy even when she is standing still. She sits at a table and looks blank: it is funny. She pauses for a beat in a song: it is funny. She sits at a table and looks blank: it is funny. It almost seems as though her thoughts were funny. For she is one of the most eloquent actresses of the theatre, and she can set the audience to laughing without saying a word, singing a note or making a gesture."

"Milady Dines Alone"

In "Ziegfeld Follies of 1957" Bea favored Broadway audiences with one of her funniest sketches; "Milady Dines Alone," in which she devoured asparagus, corn-on-the-cob, artichoke and lobster, all dipped in butter, while wearing long black gloves. She did a year’s London run of "Auntie Mame" in 1958, and in 1960 brought "Late Evening with Beatrice Lillie" to the Edinburgh Festival.