Violet Cameron

Violet Lydia Thompson (7 December 1862 – 25 October 1919), better known by her stage name of Violet Cameron, was an English actress and singer who gained fame in Robert Planquette's operettas Les cloches de Corneville and Rip Van Winkle, and Francis Chassaigne's opéra bouffe Falka, and notoriety for her affair with Hugh Lowther, 5th Earl of Lonsdale.

Cameron was born in London in 1862 to Mary Josephine (née Brougham) and William Melfington Thompson, a linen merchant. Her "aunt" was the Victorian burlesque actress and dancer Lydia Thompson.

She made her stage début in 1871 at the age of 9 in the part of Karl in Boucicault's Faust and Marguerite. She also appeared as a child in the Drury Lane Theatre's Christmas pantomimes. She also played at the Adelphi Theatre and the Globe. In 1876 she created the role of Joconde at the Criterion Theatre in H. B. Farnie's burlesque Piff Paff and soon played Perdita in A Winter's Tale in Liverpool. Later in the year, she was engaged at the Folly Theatre, where she appeared in burlesque and opéra bouffe productions, including Polly in Farnie's burlesque of Robinson Crusoe, Pearlina in an adaptation of Charles Lecocq called Sea Nymphs, Antoinette in Farnie and Robert Reece's adaptation of Jacques Offenbach's La créole. Her greatest success at the Folly came in 1878 as Germaine in the long-running British premiere of Robert Planquette's Les cloches de Corneville.

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