Maudi Darrell

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Maudi Darrell, born Maud Rhoda Didcott on 10 February 1882 in London, was an English actress who performed on the London and New York stages and in vaudeville. She was one of the fashionable Gaiety Girls. Her father, Hugh Jay Didcott, was a theatrical agent, and her mother, Rose Fox, was a dancer who did a skipping-rope act. Her father was Jewish, and Maudi was educated at the Sion House Convent in Bayswater. Her sister Violet Raye was also an actress.

Maudi appeared in popular musicals and comedies, including The Beauty of Bath (1906), Mrs. Ponderbury's Past (1907), The Cassilis Engagement (1907), The Gay Gordons (1908), and The Belle of Brittany (1908). Her signature song was "By the Side of the Zuyder Zee" from The Beauty of Bath. She was a popular postcard actress, with portraits sold as postcards, and critics noted her exotic, Beardsley-like beauty.

She owned a valuable collection of diamonds, and the Maharaja of Kuch Behar, Sir Nripendra Narayan, gave her the finest emerald in England in admiration of her beauty.

Maudi married Ian Bullough, a Scottish mill owner, in 1909. She died in 1910 at age 28 from complications of a paralysis of unknown origin and acute appendicitis. Her widower remarried in 1911 to actress Lily Elsie, who reportedly fell ill from the same illness shortly after the marriage.