Promotional photograph of the British actress and dancer, Aimi MacDonald, taken at The Cinema Museum, Kennington.
Aimi MacDonald (born 27 February 1942) is a British actress and dancer. She is best known for her role as "The Lovely" Aimi MacDonald in the television sketch comedy show, At Last the 1948 Show (Rediffusion, 1967). Aimi MacDonald's Scottish father was a medical doctor. Her mother was English. She is the youngest of three daughters. MacDonald went to ballet school and entered show business at 14. She was a dancer, working during her teens in Britain and the United States. While performing with a troupe in Las Vegas, she met Elvis Presley at the Silver Slipper casino, remarking years later that he would "jam with the rest of them" and on his ability as a jazz guitarist. MacDonald married an American musician at 17 and they had a daughter named Lisa. The marriage did not last and MacDonald returned to Britain, appearing during the 1960s in musicals in London's West End and in cabaret. She played in the first London production of the musical The Boys from Syracuse (Jewel Courtesan) in 1963 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, alongside Bob Monkhouse and Ronnie Corbett. She recalled that she had to keep working to support herself and her daughter and that this was sometimes a struggle. MacDonald came to national attention in At Last the 1948 Show, for which she had been spotted by David Frost. At the opening and closing of the show and between longer sketches, she would present short pieces on the theme of her loveliness. Her excitable, squeaky voice was likened to "a choir of frantic mice". Forty years later a journalist referred to MacDonald as "bubble-and-squeak Aimi. Macdonald's acting on television included The Avengers, Man at the Top, The Saint, Man About the House, Dixon of Dock Green and Rentaghost. Her appearance in The Avengers was in Return of the Cybernauts (1967), in which she played a mini-skirted secretary, similar to her 48 Show role, whose tights were laddered as she was swept aside by a large robot.
Size: 3331px × 4653px
Location: The Cinema Museum, 2 Dugard Way, Kennington, London, SE11 4TH,
Photo credit: © John Gaffen 2 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 1948, actress, aimi, british, cinema, dancer, lovely, macdonald, museum, musician, show, singer, theatre, tv
