Mary Augusta "May" Yohé (April 6, 1866 – August 29, 1938) was an American musical theatre actress. She began her career in 1886 with the McCaull Comic Opera Company in New York and Chicago. After other performances in the United States, she quickly gained success on the London stage, beginning in 1893. There she created the title role in the hit show Little Christopher Columbus in 1894.
The same year, she married Lord Francis Hope, the owner of the Hope Diamond. After the wedding, she continued to perform in musical theatre in London's West End and then the U.S. After squandering their wealth, the two divorced in 1902, and she later married a series of other financially unsuccessful, but often adventurous, men. In the early 20th century, she performed in music hall and vaudeville on the West Coast and elsewhere in the U.S., 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.
Early years
Yohé was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the daughter of William W. and Elizabeth (nee Batcheller) Yohé. Her father, an American Civil War veteran, was either the son or nephew of Caleb Yohé, proprietor of the Eagle Hotel, where she was born. William Yohé inherited the hotel and was locally famous for the elaborate miniature village scenes he constructed on the hotel grounds, especially for his annual Christmas putz.Martin, John Hill. Historical sketch of Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, Orrin Rogers (1872) Yohé's mother, a descendant of the Narragansett people, was a talented dressmaker. According to Yohé, her mother had a clientele in Philadelphia that included many famous theater people.Gates, p. 75"The Strange Case of WPA Clerk Who Owned the Hope Diamond", Life magazine, May 23, 1938, p. 39 As a young girl, Yohé entertained the hotel's guests by dancing and singing in the lobby and recounting childhood stories. What became of her father is unclear: in 1878, he applied for a U.S. passport, planning to travel to Brazil. According to family lore, he died in Colorado or Montana around 1885.William W. Yohe, U.S. Passport Applications, April 25, 1878 At around the age of ten, Yohé was sent to Europe for a refined education, studying in Dresden and later at the Convent of the Sacré Coeur in Paris.Newnes, George. The Strand Magazine, Vol. 10, July–December 1895Gänzl, Kurt. The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre, Schirmer, 2001Crain, Mary Beth. Haunted Christmas: Yuletide Ghosts and Other Spooky Holiday Happenings, p. 12, Morris Books, 2010
Career Yohé began her career as a soprano, but within a short while her voice lowered into a contralto that was described as peculiar. She debuted as May Yohé (May derived from her initials)Metcalfe, Cranstoun. Peeresses of the Stage, A. Melrose, 1913 in January 1886 with the McCaull Comic Opera Company as Dilly Dimple in The Little Tycoon, a comic opera by Willard Spencer, presented at Temple Theatre in PhiladelphiaThe Daily Democratic Times, Lima, Ohio, January 8, 1886, p. 7 and in March of that year at the Standard Theatre in New York. In March 1887, she appeared in McCaull's Broadway production of Lorraine, composed by Rudolph Dellinger to a libretto by Oscar Walther, which was adapted in English by William J. Henderson.May Yohe at the IBDB Broadway database, accessed September 22, 2011 She then played in the same production at the Chicago Opera House. In that production, she sang the following song with much success:Hyde Park Herald, Vol. VII, April 8, 1887, p. 8Who's Who on the Stage, Vol. 1, edited by Walter Browne and Frederick Arnold, Austin 1908, p. 127
The song remained popular in the Chicago area for several years. Later in 1887, with McCaull at the Chicago Opera House, she sang "Bid Me Good-By and Go" in the musical comedy Natural Gas by Henry Grattan Donnelly. Yohé's unique vocal quality attracted the attention of the manager of the Chicago Opera House, and she was engaged to play princess Zal-Am-Boo in Alfred Thompson's extravaganza Arabian Nights, which premiered on June 2, 1887.Otago Witness, October 12, 1894, p. 37 The following year, she appeared in The Crystal Slipper: or Prince Pretliwittz and Little Cinderella, also at the Chicago Opera House.Folio, vol. 34, p. 87 In 1888, on the weekend that preceded the Fourth of July, Yohé travelled to Cleveland, Ohio in the company of Edward Shaw, the son of W. W. Shaw, a major stockholder in the Chicago Opera House. She missed at least two performances before returning. Shaw's young wife filed for divorce a week later. She subsequently toured in America and abroad with George Lederer's Players in the farce comedy U & I and as Celia Cliquot in Hoss and Hoss, both in 1891.Gänzl, Kurt. The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre, Schirmer, 2001, p. 2241
In 1893, Yohé made her London debut as Martina in The Magic Opal by Isaac Albéniz, and the following year she played the title character in the musical The Lady Slavey, composed by Gustave Adolph Kerker, with a book by Sir George Dance, in which she sang "What's a Poor Girl to Do".Johnson, Colin. The Lady Slavey, The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, 2005, accessed March 31, 2018 She starred as the title character in the 1894 hit burlesque Little Christopher Columbus, "a great personal success" for her.Sims, George Robert. , My Life: Sixty years' recollections of Bohemian London, Eveleigh Nash Company Limited: London, 1917, p. 324 In an interview, Yohé said the music, "had to be specially written for me – crammed so to speak, into my voice's shrunken circumference.""35 Actresses", Interviewed by "The Call Boy", On and off, 1894, p. 44 While in London, she became a favorite of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII). The next year she played the title role in the comic opera Dandy Dick Whittington, at the Avenue Theatre, written by George Robert Sims and composed by Ivan Caryll.Adams, pp. 374–75 Sims noted that Yohé "could be rude [to writers, composers and conductors] if she didn't get just what she wanted."
In 1896, Yohé played the title role in the musical The Belle of Cairo at the Royal Court Theatre in London.Adams, p. 624 She later returned twice to Broadway. There she was Lady Muriel Despair in the musical The Giddy Throng (1900–01) and appeared in the brief revival of the revue Mamzelle Champagne in 1906. That same year at the Knickerbocker Theatre in New York, Yohé appeared in Mlle. Nitouche, a piece that she had produced a decade or so earlier at the Royal Court Theatre and at the Duke of York's Theatre (then the Trafalgar Square Theatre) in London.Baker, Henry Barton. History of the London Stage and its Famous Players (1576–1903) (1904), p. 557Bernard Shaw, George. "Some Other Critics", The Saturday Review, June 20, 1896, p. 623, accessed September 28, 2011
Marriages: 1893–1908
Yohé had three marriages, beginning in 1893.Yohé's obituary notice, Milestones, Time Magazine, September 5, 1938, accessed September 21, 2011Fowler, Marian. Hope Adventures of a Diamond, Pocket, 2004 The following is transcribed from a 1908 article in Bystander magazine:
Contemporaneous New York Times articles, while presenting facts that vary in some details from this account, confirm most of the facts in this article.See, e.g., "Major Strong Accused of Grand Larceny", The New York Times, July 22, 1902, accessed August 23, 2023; "Strong Marries May Yohe", The New York Times, October 5, 1902, accessed August 23, 2023; and "P. B. Strong a Bankrupt", The New York Times, June 13, 1905, accessed August 23, 2023 One notes that Hope settled claims against him by Yohé for $5,000."May Yohe Gets $5,000", The New York Times, January 16, 1903, accessed August 23, 2023
Hope and Strong
According to Yohé, she was introduced to Francis Hope at Delmonico's Restaurant in New York before she came to England in the early 1890s.Gates, p. 83 The couple was often seen together at fashionable night spots around London.The Milwaukee Sentinel, January 13, 1895; p. 4 On March 30, 1894, Burke's Peerage announced their wedding. The wedding took place on November 27, 1893, at Hampstead Parrish in London. Press reports at the time claimed Hope's family offered him around £200,000 to call off the engagement. In June 1894, The New York Times reported that Hope had filed for bankruptcy with liabilities amounting to £405,277 and assets of £194,042. At the time of her marriage to Hope, there had been reports in the press implying she had been married twice before: first, in San Francisco to the son of a General Williams, and next in Massachusetts to a local politician.
Yohé met Strong early in 1901 on the last leg of her world trip with Hope. In July of that year, Strong, who had served as Assistant Adjutant General in the Philippines, resigned his commission once it was reported in the press that he had been asked to leave by the manager of the California Hotel in San Francisco where the couple registered as H. L. Hastings and wife. Later the two sailed to Japan, where they lived for several months in Yokohama."Says He Will Wed Lady Hope", The Philadelphia Record, August 29, 1901, p. 1 The following year, Hope lost a foot to a hunting accident, divorced his wife and again declared bankruptcy. Even though Major Strong had resigned his commission some months earlier, the War Department in Washington D.C. announced on March 22, 1902, the same day of Yohé's divorce, his nomination for promotion to lieutenant colonel by brevet for his service in the Philippines.
In April 1902, they returned to America to live with Yohé's mother at her residence in Hastings-on-Hudson. Three months later, Yohé accused Strong of running off with her jewelry worth many thousands of dollars. With the financial assistance of Strong's family, Yohé later reconciled with "Putty" while both were in Europe. A few months later, once her divorce decree from Hope was made absolute, they married in Buenos Ayres on October 3, 1902."Strong and May Yohe Wedded", The New York Times, October 12, 1902, p. 4 Strong later joined his wife on the vaudeville stage. In 1905 he declared bankruptcy, even though he and his wife were making $750 a week as entertainers. That December, Yohé filed for divorce, claiming desertion. Strong, who reportedly was living in Macau after their divorce, died in New York in 1945 at the age of 70."Putnam B. Strong Son of Ex-Mayor 70", The New York Times, November 17, 1945, p. 17 In 1913 the press reported that Yohé and Francis Hope were reconciling. Hope declared the story to be preposterous."Will Not Rewed May Yohe", The New York Times, August 16, 1913, p. 4, accessed August 23, 2023
Brief relationships