Esmé Wynne-Tyson

Esmé Wynne-Tyson (29 June 1898 – 17 January 1972) was an English actress and writer. As a child she acted in West End plays, and became a close friend, confidante, and collaborator of Noël Coward. She left the stage in 1920 and wrote a series of novels. A growing interest in religious and moral matters led her into non-fiction and journalism, sometimes in partnership with the writer J. D. Beresford.

Dorothy Estelle Esmé Innes Ripper was born in , London, the only child of Harry Innes Ripper (1871–1956), a stockbroker, and Minnie Maude née Pitt (1874–1940). Educated first by governesses, then at an English boarding school and at a Belgian convent, she became a child-actress, taking the stage name Esmé Wynne in 1909.

She made her professional début in Maeterlinck's The Blue Bird and was the original Rosamund in Where the Rainbow Ends in 1911. While in the latter play, she became friendly with the young Noël Coward, who was in the production, and their friendship was for a time the most important in Coward's life. She began writing plays, sometimes alone and on other occasions in collaboration with Coward. Her first play, The Prince's Bride, was produced by Charles Hawtrey at the Savoy Theatre, London, when she was 13. Coward was in the cast. At the age of 19, she wrote a light comedy, Little Lovers, which was staged in London in 1922, drawing a dismissive review in The Times. With Coward, she wrote a series of short plays, under the joint pen-name "Esnomel": The Last Chapter (staged 1917), To Have and to Hold (not staged), and Women and Whisky (staged 1918). Her last stage appearance was as Faith in Coward's comedy I'll Leave It to You, in 1920, to which she contributed lyrics for a song.

In 1918 Wynne married Linden Charles Tyson, an officer in the Royal Air Force. They combined their names as "Wynne-Tyson" the following year. There was one son of the marriage, Jon Wynne-Tyson, who became a writer and publisher. She became a convert to Christian Science and vegetarianism and was estranged from the worldly life of the theatre, though she remained friendly with Coward, who was amused at her attempts to improve his moral character. He teased her by professing "a selfless absorption in the well-being and achievement of Noël Coward" and an "unregenerate spiritual attitude".

...
Wikipedia