Ouida MacDermott

Ouida MacDermott (24 May 1889 – 29 October 1980) was a British singer and actress whose career was mainly in music hall and as a principal boy in pantomime during the Edwardian era and who appeared on one of the first television broadcasts in 1930.

Ouida MacDermott in the title role in Aladdin at Bristol (1908)

She was born on the Strand in London as Annie Louise Mary MacDermott, the youngest child of G. H. MacDermott,[1] an English lion comique and Annie Milburn. Her father was already married to Mary Ann Stradwick, with whom he had a son, but all four of his illegitimate children with Milburn took their father's name.[2]

Following her father on to the stage, she played Princess Arawanha in the pantomime Robinson Crusoe and His Man Friday at the Lyceum Theatre in London (1907–08);[3] the title role in the pantomime Aladdin at the Prince's Theatre in Bristol (1908–09);[4] at the Argyle Theatre of Varieties in Birkenhead in July, 1910;[5] in 1911 she was at the Palace Theatre of Varieties in Hull;[6] touring in the musical comedy Business As Usual (1915); in the pantomime Dick Whittington and His Cat at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin (1916); in Fiddle-De-Dee at the Theatre Royal, Dublin (1918),[7] and Prince Glorio in the pantomime The Tale of Cinderella at the Scala Theatre (1928–29).[8]

When the diarist and critic James Agate went on a round of pantomime visits ‘with the intention of rediscovering not only my lost youth but a lost young man, the Prince Charming of long ago' it was in MacDermott that Agate found ‘him whom I sought – the fair, the not too refrigerative, the inexpressive he of long ago . . . ruffling it with inimitable grace and swagger. . . . She, in short, was Prince Charming. For all that, I fancied I detected a shade of uneasiness in Miss MacDermott's gesture. Might it not be out of date to slap a thigh? No, dear lady and dear boy! Slap on! Slap ever! One heart, at least, beats for you.'[9]

An early television pioneer, a performance by MacDermott was broadcast by the BBC on 10 April 1930, days after the very first television transmission.[10]

She married at least three times: firstly in 1909 to music hall artiste Sydney Arthur Leon Wood,[11] the brother of Matilda Wood who was better known as the performer Marie Lloyd. The marriage was dissolved in 1911 after her adultery with the music hall performer Jay Laurier.[12] She and Jay a.k.a. James Alexander Chapman married in Glasgow in December 1912. Divorced in 1916 with Jay citing John Charles Harrison. She married Charles Harrison in Edinburgh in May 1917. They divorced in 1922 with Charles citing Thomas Barrett. She deserted her family including her 6-year-old son to return to the stage. In 1939 and listed as 'divorced' she was living with her brother James and his wife at Pound Cottage in Battle in Sussex.[13]

She died at Nevetts Old People's Home in Buntingford in Hertfordshire in 1980 aged 91.[14]