Florence Tempest

Florence Tempest, born Claire Lillian Ijames on June 25, 1889, was an American comedian, dancer, and vaudeville and musical theatre performer active in the early twentieth century. She is perhaps best known for her partnership with her younger sister, Marion Sunshine, under the billing "Sunshine and Tempest." Tempest described herself as born in Louisville, though other sources identify Richmond, Virginia as her hometown. Her parents were Edward Henry Ijames and Mary Henesey Ijames. Around 1901, following the death of her father, her mother relocated the family to New York City, bringing daughters June, Claire, and Marion with her. The three sisters occasionally performed together as a trio act.

The act Tempest developed with Marion Sunshine centered on a recurring dynamic in which Tempest played the boy and Sunshine played his sweetheart. The pair toured with their mother. Reviewers noted not only the humor of the act but also the technical craft Tempest brought to her male characterizations, with one critic observing that she combed her own front and side hair into her wig to create a convincing boy's pompadour with no trace of a feminine coiffure. In 1915, the duo appeared together in a short silent film, Sunshine and Tempest, in which they portrayed telepathic twin sisters living in the Tennessee mountains.

Alongside the duo act, Tempest maintained a solo vaudeville career in which she continued performing masculine characters while also appearing as the sole female character in her "College Town" act, supported by a chorus billed as "Ten 'Rah-Rah' Boys." A 1917 headline described her as vaudeville's "Most Lovable Boy and Daintiest Girl." Her stage persona extended to sheet music cover art, where she appeared in masculine suits, caps, and youthful poses. For the 1913 song "I Want a Boy to Love Me" she was depicted lounging on a bench with a hand in her trouser pocket, and for the 1914 song "I Love the Ladies" she appeared in a boater hat under the caption "Our American Boy." In the 1920s, having moved away from boyish characterizations, she formed a new vaudeville act with her second husband, comedian Homer Dickinson, and the pair were billed as "Broadway's Smart Couple." They were still performing together as late as January 1932, after which the record of her life goes silent. Florence Tempest died after January 1932.

Tempest's Broadway career spanned from 1907 to 1923. She appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1907 and subsequently toured with the Ziegfeld Follies during the 1907–1908 season. She then starred in Little Nemo, which ran from 1908 into 1909. Her subsequent Broadway appearances included H.M.S. Pinafore in 1911, La Belle Paree also in 1911, and Stop! Look! Listen!, which ran from 1915 into 1916. Her final Broadway credit was Earl Carroll's Vanities in 1923. She was sometimes billed under the alternate spelling Florenze Tempest.

In her personal life, Tempest married theatrical agent Joseph E. Shea in 1915. The couple separated within months and divorced in 1920. By 1924 she had married Homer Dickinson, her vaudeville partner and collaborator in the "Broadway's Smart Couple" act.