Marie Tempest

Marie Tempest, born Mary Susan Etherington on 15 July 1864 in London, England, was an English singer and actress whose career spanned 55 years. She died on 15 October 1942. The daughter of Edwin Etherington, a stationer, and his wife Sarah Mary, née Castle, she had a sister, Florence, who married theatre manager Michael Levenston. Tempest received her early education at Midhurst School and an Ursuline convent in Tildonk, Belgium, before pursuing musical training in Paris and at the Royal Academy of Music in London under Manuel García, who had also taught Jenny Lind, Mathilde Marchesi, and Charles Santley. Her stage name was drawn from Lady Susan Vane-Tempest, whom she described as her godmother.

Tempest made her professional debut in 1885 as Fiametta in Franz Suppé's operetta Boccaccio at the Comedy Theatre in London, where she also appeared in the title role of Erminie by Edward Jakobowski. Over the following two years she performed steadily in London in light operas by Hervé and André Messager, among others. Her portrayal of the title role in Dorothy by Alfred Cellier and B. C. Stephenson, which she took over from Marion Hood beginning in 1887, brought her international recognition; the production ran for a record 931 performances. Richard D'Oyly Carte considered engaging her for his opera company, but W. S. Gilbert, having seen her in Dorothy, reported that she screeched, and the proposal was abandoned. In 1889 she stepped into the title role of Cellier and Stephenson's Doris as a replacement, and the following year she created the role of Kitty Carol in The Red Hussar, first in London and then in New York. She subsequently toured the United States and Canada for a year with the J. C. Duff Comic Opera Company in productions including Carmen, Manon, Mignon, The Bohemian Girl, and The Pirates of Penzance. She returned to Broadway for three years in productions including The Tyrolean, The Fencing Master by Reginald De Koven and Harry B. Smith, and The Algerian, during which period she was regarded as one of the few rivals of Lillian Russell.

In 1895 producer George Edwardes brought Tempest back to London to star at Daly's Theatre, beginning with the role of Adele in An Artist's Model, which ran for more than 400 performances. She followed that with the title role in The Geisha in 1896, a production that ran for 760 performances, then A Greek Slave in 1898 and San Toy in 1899, both international successes. Her relationship with Edwardes was frequently contentious, and she departed San Toy in 1900, reportedly following a dispute over her costume. That same year, on the advice of her second husband, actor-playwright Cosmo Gordon-Lennox, whom she had married in 1898, she abandoned operetta in favor of straight comedy. She created the role of Nell Gwynne in Anthony Hope's English Nell at the Prince of Wales's Theatre in London in 1900, followed in 1901 by the title roles in Peg Woffington by Charles Reade and Becky Sharp, an adaptation of Vanity Fair written by Robert Hichens and Gordon-Lennox. Also in 1901 she played Polly Eccles in T. W. Robertson's Caste, and in 1902 she took the title role in The Marriage of Kitty, another work by her husband. These performances established her reputation as a leading comedy actress.

Tempest's Broadway appearances spanned 1903 to 1922 and included productions such as A Serpent's Tooth, Her Husband's Wife, A Lady's Name, The Great Pursuit, and Rosalinda. She toured America in 1904, reprising her role in The Marriage of Kitty and appearing in the title role of The Freedom of Suzanne. She returned to America in 1909 for a two-year tour in plays including Caste and Vanity Fair. Beginning in 1914, she undertook an eight-year tour that took her through America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Singapore, China, Japan, and the Philippines. Among the roles she performed during this period was the title role in J. M. Barrie's Rosalind in 1915. Barrie praised her capacity to blend laughter and tears, writing that she was a masterpiece at allowing the two to melt into each other, not only on her own face but on the faces of the audience.

Back in England in 1911, Tempest had joined the star-studded cast of Herbert Beerbohm Tree's production of The Critic by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, which also featured Arthur Bourchier, Lily Elsie, George Grossmith Jr., Charles Hawtrey, Cyril Maude, Gerald Du Maurier, Gertie Millar, and Violet Vanbrugh, among others. She subsequently began managing the theatres in which she starred, leasing the Duke of York's Theatre and producing a revival of The Marriage of Kitty. In 1913 she staged a revival of London Assurance in aid of the King George's Actors Pension Fund.

Tempest finally returned to England in 1922, reviving The Marriage of Kitty. Her second husband had died in 1921, and that same year she married actor William Graham Browne in Sydney; Browne had accompanied her throughout her tour and regularly appeared alongside her in her subsequent West End work. In 1924 she took a singing role in Clifford Bax's Midsummer Madness at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. The following year she created the role of Judith Bliss in Noël Coward's Hay Fever, a part later taken in revival by actresses including Edith Evans and Judi Dench. She appeared in further productions including Passing Brompton Road by Jevan Brandon-Thomas and The Cat's Cradle by Aimee and Philip Stuart, and in 1927 took another singing role in The Marquise, written for her by Coward.

Tempest married Alfred Edward Izard, a professor at the Royal Academy of Music, in 1885; that marriage ended in divorce four years later, with Izard awarded damages in the settlement. She had a son, Norman, born in 1888, who was later referred to in the press as Norman Lennox, adopting part of the surname of her second husband. Beyond her performing career, Tempest was at times her own theatre manager and played an instrumental role in the founding of the actors' union Equity in Britain. Originally from London, she remained one of the most prominent figures in British and Broadway theatre across more than five decades of work.