Denise Orme
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Denise Orme (real name: Jessie/Jesse Smither, 25 August 1885 – 20 October 1960) was an English music hall singer, actress and musician who appeared regularly at the Alhambra and Gaiety Theatres in London in the early years of the 20th century.
The only daughter of Alfred John Smither and Jessicah Henrietta Pococke, she studied at the Royal Academy of Music (where she won the Wessely Violin Exhibition in 1899) and later the Royal College of Music where she was 'discovered' as a singer by George Edwardes.
Her first stage appearance was in 1906 in the chorus of The Little Michus, after which she took on the role of Blanche Marie. Later the same year, she then appeared in the title role of See See at the Prince of Wales Theatre, then The Merveilleuses into early 1907.
Around the same time (1906), she also participated in gramophone recordings of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado.
She married three times. In Kensington Register Office, on 24 April 1907, she secretly married Lord Churston (1873-1930). After the birth of their first daughter, she returned to the stage in The Hon'ble Phil in October 1908, and as Lady Elizabeth Thanet in Our Miss Gibbs at the Gaiety Theatre.
With Churston, she had four daughters and two sons:
- Joan Barbara Yarde-Buller (22 April 1908). In 1936, Joan married Prince Aly Khan, son of the third Aga Khan (as a result, Orme's grandson became Aga Khan IV in 1957).
- John Francis Roger Yarde-Buller, 4th Baron Churston (12 February 1910)
- John Reginald Henry Yarde-Buller (13 June 1915)
- Denise Margaret Yarde-Buller (24 October 1916). Married the 5th Lord Ebury.
- Lydia Yarde-Buller (17 October 1917-25 July 2006). Married John Robert Russell, 13th Duke of Bedford
- Primrose Yarde-Buller (24 December 1918). Married William Gerald Charles Cadogan, 7th Earl Cadogan.
In 1928, Orme and Lord Churston divorced. Orme married Theodore Wessell later the same year on 30 October, bearing one son, and, on 11 March 1946, she married Edward FitzGerald, 7th Duke of Leinster.
