Denise Orme

Jessie Smither (25 August 1885 – 20 October 1960),^[1] known by her stage name Denise Orme, 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. Married, successively, to an English baron, a Danish millionaire, and an Irish duke, she was the maternal grandmother of Aga Khan IV.

In the 1940s, Orme owned and operated the Beech Hill hotel at Rushlake Green in Sussex, England.^[2]

Life and career

The daughter of Alfred John Smither and Jessicah Henrietta Pococke,^[3] 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.^[4]

Orme's first stage appearance was in 1906 in the chorus of The Little Michus at Daly's Theatre in London,^[5] later taking the role of Blanche Marie in that production. Later the same year, she appeared in the title role of See See at the Prince of Wales Theatre then appeared in The Merveilleuses into early 1907. In 1906, she also participated in gramophone recordings of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. After the birth of her 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, London.^[6]

Personal life

Orme was married three times, her husbands being:

• John Reginald Lopes Yarde-Buller, 3rd Baron Churston (1873–1930), whom she married on 24 April 1907^[7][8] and divorced in 1928, due to her affair with Theodore W. Wessel.^[9] They had six children:
  • Joan Barbara Yarde-Buller (22 April 1908 – 25 April 1997), who married: (1) Thomas Loel Guinness, divorced 1936 (2) Prince Aly Khan, divorced 1949 (3) Seymour Berry, 2nd Viscount Camrose. One of her children is Aga Khan IV.
  • Richard Francis Roger Yarde-Buller, 4th Baron Churston (12 February 1910 – 1991)
  • Hon. John Reginald Henry Yarde-Buller (13 June 1915 – 1962)^[10]
  • Denise Margaret Yarde-Buller Grosvenor, Baroness Ebury (24 October 1916 - 2005), divorced 1954.
  • Lydia Russell, Duchess of Bedford (17 October 1917 – 25 July 2006)
  • Primrose Cadogan, Countess Cadogan (24 December 1918 – 1970), divorced 1960
• Theodore W. "Tito" Wessel (died 1948), a Danish millionaire and one-time Danish chargé d'affaires in Chile. They married in London on 31 October 1928 and divorced in Tahiti in 1934.^[11] By this marriage she had three stepchildren (Barbara, Frederika, and Nina) and one son:
  • Hugo Wessel (18 March 1930 – 22 February 2012), was a singer and actor and the first husband of Nina Van Pallandt. Hugo Wessel's son, Mark Wessel (born 1963), is a fashion photographer and former model.
• Edward FitzGerald, 7th Duke of Leinster, whom she married on 11 March 1946.^[12]

In the late 1930s, Orme had an affair with Esmé Ivo Bligh, 9th Earl of Darnley. Her cousin Ethel Rose Kendall, who acted under the name Eileen Orme, married, in 1908, the Hon. Maurice Nelson Hood, son and heir of the second Viscount Bridport (who was also the 5th Duke of Bronte).^[13]

References