Marie Tempest

Dame Marie Tempest DBE
In the title role of Dorothy
Born	Marie Susan Etherington 15 July 1864 London, England
Died	15 October 1942 London, England
Occupation	actress
Years active	1885–1938
Spouse(s)	Alfred Edward Izard Cosmo Gordon-Lennox (1899–1921) W. Graham Brown (1922–1937)

Dame Marie Tempest DBE (15 July 1864 – 15 October 1942) was an English singer and actress known as the "queen of her profession".

Tempest became the most famous soprano in late Victorian light opera and Edwardian musical comedies. Later, she became a leading comic actress and toured widely in North America and elsewhere. She was, at times, her own theatre manager during a career spanning 55 years. Tempest was also instrumental in the founding of the actors' union Equity in Britain.

Tempest was born Mary Susan Etherington in London. Her parents were Edwin Etherington (1838–1880), a stationer, and Sarah Mary Castle Etherington. Tempest was educated at Midhurst School and an Ursuline convent in Thildonck, Belgium. Later, she studied music in Paris, France and at the Royal Academy of Music in London, as a singing pupil of Manuel García, the tutor of Jenny Lind. She adopted as her stage name part of the name of Lady Susan Vane-Tempest, whom she referred to as her godmother. Tempest had a sister named Florence Etherington who married theatre manager Michael Levenston.

Tempest married Alfred Edward Izard, another student at the Academy, in 1885. That marriage ended in divorce four years later, and Izard was awarded damages in the divorce settlement. She had a son named Norman in 1888, who would later be referred to in the press as "Norman Lennox", taking the surname of Tempest's second husband, Cosmo Lennox, whom she married a decade later.

Tempest debuted in 1885 as Fiametta in Franz Suppé's operetta Boccaccio at the Comedy Theatre in London, where she also took the title role in Erminie by Edward Jakobowski. She starred steadily in London for the next two years in light operas by Hervé and André Messager, among others. She became internationally famous for her performance in the title role in Dorothy by Alfred Cellier and B. C. Stephenson (1887), which ran for a record-setting 931 performances (becoming a hit after Tempest took over the title role from Marion Hood). Her marriage was damaged by rumours of an affair with her producer, but the same rumours only enhanced her appeal to her audiences.Richard D'Oyly Carte considered engaging her for his opera company but W. S. Gilbert (after seeing her in Dorothy) reported that she "screeched", and the proposal was dropped.