Gaiety Girls

The popularity of this genre of musical theatre depended, in part, on the beautiful dancing corps of "Gaiety Girls" appearing onstage in bathing attire and in the latest fashions.

The 1890s Gaiety Girls were respectable, elegant young ladies, unlike the actresses from London's earlier musical burlesques.

[5] Many of the Gaiety Girls, such as Marie Studholme, Ellaline Terriss, Lily Elsie, Florence Collingbourne, Cicely Courtneidge, Gladys Cooper, Phyllis Dare, Zena Dare, Mabel Love, Evelyn Laye, Jennie McNulty, Gaby Deslys, Camille Clifford, Gabrielle Ray, Sylvia Grey and Constance Collier, later enjoyed substantial acting careers.

For example, May Gates, a chorus girl in The Beauty of Bath, married a nobleman, Baron Von Ditton, of Norway.

After Connie Gilchrist and Rosie Boote had started the fashion a score of the Guv'nor's budding stars left him to marry peers or men of title while other Gaiety Girls settled for a banker or a stockbroker.