Decima Moore
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Lilian Decima Moore (December 11, 1871 – February 18, 1964) was an English singer and actress, known for her performances in soprano roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and in musical comedies. She was the youngest of ten siblings (hence, 'Decima'), several of them singers or actors. Her sister, Eva Moore, was the mother of Jill Esmond, the first wife of actor Laurence Olivier.
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[edit] Life and career
Moore was born in Brighton, Sussex. She was educated at Boswell House College, Brighton. After leaving school in 1887, she won the Victoria Scholarship for singing at the Blackheath Conservatoire of Music.
[edit] Early career and D'Oyly Carte years
Moore made her debut as 'Decima Moore' at age 17 with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, creating the leading role of Casilda in The Gondoliers at the Savoy Theatre on December 7, 1889. W. S. Gilbert asked her if she had ever acted. When she replied in the negative, he replied, "So much the better for you. You've nothing to unlearn." (Ayre, p. 245) Moore earned good reviews. Her next role was Polly in Captain Billy (1891), the companion piece to The Nautch Girl. Her older sister, Jessie Moore, who sang with one of D'Oyly Carte's touring companies, replaced Decima in Captain Billy in November 1891.
Moore left the Savoy when her commitment expired, playing in a number of West End Theatre pieces, including her own successful show, Miss Decima (191 performances in 1891-92), A Pantomime Rehearsal (1892), The Maelstrom (1892), Ophelia in Gilbert's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (1892), The Wedding Eve (1892), and the title role in B. C. Stephenson and Alfred Cellier's hit, Dorothy (1892-93). In 1893, Moore returned to the D'Oyly Carte organisation to create the role of Bab in the unsuccessful Jane Annie.
After that, Moore left D'Oyly Carte to appear in La Fille de Madame Angot. Next, she appeared in A Gaiety Girl (1893-94). In 1894 in Richmond, New York, while touring in A Gaiety Girl, Moore married a fellow cast member, Cecil Ainslie Walker-Leigh. Walker-Leigh was an Irish career officer in the British Army, who served in the Boer and Great War, retiring with the rank of Colonel. They had a son in 1898, William Esmond Ormond Walker-Leigh (he eventually had a Navy career), but Moore subsequently divorced her husband in 1902.
[edit] Later career and adventures
She continued to appear at various London theatres, in shows such as The White Silk Dress and Lost, Stolen and Strayed. She also made a world tour before returning to the D'Oyly Carte, for a third and final time from in 1900, to play "Scent of Lilies" in The Rose of Persia. In 1901, Moore was playing in both A Diplomatic Theft at the Garrick Theatre and The Swineherd and the Princess at the Royalty Theatre. In 1903, she starred in My Lady Molly.
In 1905, Moore remarried and accompanied her second husband, Major (later Brigadier General Sir) Frederick Gordon Guggisberg, to West Africa, where he was appointed governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Gold Coast and then British Guiana. She returned the following year, appearing in the chorus of Trial by Jury in the Ellen Terry Jubilee Celebration matinee. During her frequent trips to England, she would continue to appear on stage in musicals, legitimate theatre (e.g., W. Somerset Maugham's comedy, Mrs. Dot, in 1908 with Marie Tempest), and concerts until 1914. She also toured America and Australia, as well as appearing throughout the British Isles.
At the outbreak of World War I, Moore was engaged on war work in France. She founded the Women's Emergency Corps and also established a number of leave clubs in France, most notably the British Navy, Army and Air Force Leave Club in Paris of which she was the honorary organiser and director general. In 1918 she was honored with the C.B.E. (Commander of the British Empire) for her services. While her husband was a colonial governor, she served her country as Honorary Exhibition Commissioner for the Gold Coast at the British Empire Exhibition (1923-26), was Chairman of The Play Actors (1927-29), and Chairman of the Overseas Section of the Forum Club (1928-32). In World War II she reestablished the British Leave Club in Paris in 1939 and left the city in June 1940, only a few hours before the entry of the Germans, leaving on the doors of the club a notice "Temporarily Closed".
Moore also appeared in the film Nine Till Six (1932).
Lady Moore-Guggisberg lived a long and full life, doing a considerable amount of charity work. Her husband died in 1930. She was elected vice-president of the Gilbert & Sullivan Society in 1960 when she was the last surviving creator of a Gilbert and Sullivan role.
Moore died in Kensington, London, at the age of 93.
[edit] References
- Ayre, Leslie (1972). The Gilbert & Sullivan Companion. London: W.H. Allen & Co Ltd. Introduction by Martyn Green.
- Guggisberg, F. G. and Decima (1909). We Two in West Africa. London: William Heinemann.
