THE Duchess of Kelvin Court, as Mary Lee was once described by her comedy chum Johnny Beattie, is 100-years-old.

However, the news that Lee, the one-time variety star, singer and wife of the comedian Jack Milroy has reached her century, will come as no surprise to those who know her well.

“Mary is a force of nature,” says Glasgow's Pavilion Theatre boss Iain Gordon, who worked with Lee and Milroy many times over the years in variety shows. “She’s unstoppable. She’s a real character. And next to Stanley Baxter, she’s the last of the variety performers of that generation.”

Mary Lee, who once beat Vera Lynn to the title of most popular singer in the UK, was born to be a performer, although her background would have suggested otherwise.

Born in a tenement flat in Glasgow’s Kinning Park, the lorry driver’s daughter who was born Mary Ann McDevitt began singing as a child in church, and was soon doing impressions.

At the age of 13, she won a talent competition and was offered the chance to join Roy Fox’s famous dance band, where she was headlined ‘Little Mary Lee’. A recording career followed, and in 1937 Melody Maker readers voted her Best Girl Singer, with Vera Lynn in second place.

Lee worked with several dance bands, but during wartime she moved back to Scotland and began working as a singing act and a comedy feed at the likes of the Gaiety Theatre in Ayr and the Pavilion. "I still loved singing, but I knew I would always make a good living from comedy. I spent most of the 1940s perfecting the art and also writing scripts."

Lee began working with her future husband Jack Milroy, who would later star alongside Rikki Fulton in the Francie and Josie double act. She revealed however it wasn't exactly love at first sight.

Mary was the star – and he was the new boy in town. At the end of their first performance together, they took a bow to thunderous applause and Mary told him: “Don't get too excited the applause is for me!”

Yet, they became a great double act in every sense, topping the bill at the Tivoli Theatre in Aberdeen. However, Mary Lee stepped back from the limelight for a time to bring up her family.

She came to resent this. “When the two kids came along and Jack was touring different theatres every week I just couldn't place the kids in different schools.

"I resented bitterly that I was grounded by responsibility – and Jack was off working with somebody else. You see, I didn't know how to be a housewife. I had been performing since the age of 13. I didn't know how to make sausage rolls.

"I was only interested in what was going on in the theatre. And these years were hard for me.”

The couple split for a period. Aged 50, Mary made her comeback on stage. “Who the hell wants a 50-year-old chanteuse? Well, I thought 'To hell with this!' I took myself off to England to work in the theatre and clubs. And I did this very successfully until Jack said one day: 'When are you coming home?'

"I said: 'I don't know, Jack. We'll see.' But I came back, and he had me working with him again."

Their partnership continued, in every sense. Mary Lee also branched out. She appeared in an episode of Rab C.Nesbitt in 1991. And the tiny comic-singer fronted her own Sony Award-winning show on Radio Clyde.

All this time, Lee never forgot it was important to look like a star, retaining the glamour that would make a 1940s film star seem frumpy; the Mansfield-blonde hair, perfect make-up and eyelashes the length of which a pantomime camel would surely envy.

“You should always look your best, darlin’,” she declared.

After Jack Milroy died in 2001, Mary Lee wrote of their time together in Forever Francie: My Life with Jack Milroy, published in 2005.

She was honest enough to talk about the darker side of showbiz relationships; Jack Milroy’s nervous breakdown, of the 1960s period when her husband couldn’t work and they fled to London where she worked as a secretary. She wrote of her own early battles with depression.

Yet, Mary Lee survived. Her toughness prevailed. And Mary Lee, says Iain Gordon, is a true star. “Mary was a great favourite at the Pavilion, a woman of great character who stood firm in a man’s world. She knew exactly what she wanted and knew exactly how to get it –and generally did.”

Mary Lee always had an impish side, always prepared to have a laugh. Variety star Dean Park recalls playing alongside Lee, late in her career, but being shocked as they took a bow together at the end of one show. “Mary would always hold my hand as we took the bow. But one night I realised she’d slipped a wee present into my hand. It was her false teeth.”

Happy birthday, Mary.