May Yohé

Who was May Yohé?

Mary Augusta "May" Yohé was an American musical theatre actress. After beginning her career with the McCaull Comic Opera Company in 1886 in New York and Chicago, and after other performing in the United States, she quickly gained success on the London stage beginning in 1893. The following year, in London, she created the title role in the hit show Little Christopher Columbus.

In 1894, she married Lord Francis Hope and possessed the Hope Diamond. She nevertheless continued to perform in musical theatre in the West End and then the U.S. She divorced Hope in 1902 and married a series of adventurous, but financially unsuccessful, men. She performed in music hall and vaudeville on the West Coast and in various other places in the U.S. in the early decades of the 20th century, but she was frequently in financial jeopardy. By 1924, she and her last husband, John Smuts, had settled in Boston, where she died in near poverty.