Marie Tempest - Life and Career

Life and Career

Tempest was born Mary Susan Etherington in London. Her parents were Edwin Etherington (1838–1880), a stationer, and Sarah Mary Castle Etherington. Tempest was educated at Midhurst School and an Ursuline convent in Thildonck, Belgium. Later, she studied music in Paris, France and at the Royal Academy of Music in London, as a singing pupil of Manuel García, the tutor of Jenny Lind. She adopted as her stage name part of the name of Lady Susan Vane-Tempest, whom she referred to as her godmother. Tempest had a sister named Florence Etherington who married theatre manager Michael Levenston.

Tempest married Alfred Edward Izard, another student at the Academy, in 1885. That marriage ended in divorce four years later, but the couple had a son in 1888 named Norman, who would later be referred to in the press as "Norman Lennox", taking the surname of Tempest's second husband.