Refined comedian, pantomime dame, revusical writer, songwriter, and troupe leader.
Bert Desmond has first been identified performing in Australia in 1908 and over the next four years worked as a solo comedian for the Peoples' Concerts (Melbourne), Ted Holland, Harry Rickards and James Brennan. In 1912 he established a stage partnership with soubrette Mattie Jansen. The couple, who married in 1916, found engagements with all the major Australian variety organisations including Harry Clay, Fullers' Theatres Ltd, J. C. Bain, Holland and St John, and the Taylor-Coleman Pantomime Company, among other firms.
From the mid-1920s Desmond and Jansen toured "Mugsy" Desmond's Revue Company around Australia and New Zealand. Among the comedian's more popular productions from the late 1920s were A Midnight Cabaret, Goanna Creek, The Health Resort, Wicky Wacky Isle, Mugsy in Cabaret, and Mugsy Out West.
A specialist dame, Bert Desmond appeared in Fullers pantomimes from 1920 up until at least 1928, and continued his association with the popular genre well into the 1930s. Among his more acclaimed dames were Calamity Kate (from the Fullers' 1920 pantomime The Babes in the Wood) and Dolly Dimples (Little Red Riding Hood, 1928).
Desmond and Jansen was still performing professionally in the early 1940s.
