In 1928 she featured in The Desert Song in Melbourne, before returning to Europe for about six years where she performed and organised theatrical productions, as well as studying modern methods of cosmetic treatments in Paris.

Fanny's father died when she was young and by 1911 she, her mother, and her younger sister, were living in England (at Eastbourne in county Sussex) with her maternal aunt, Flora van Lier, and her husband Simon (both professional violinists).

[2] D'Este eventually relocated to New York "where the English accent was an asset" and found work with the Theatre Guild, appearing in many of their productions including Peer Gynt.

[13] From April to June 1925 D'Este had a prominent role in Aloma of the South Seas, a play by LeRoy Clemens and John B. Hymer, which was performed in the Lyric Theatre on 42nd Street in New York.

[16] One day during 1925 D'Este was attending a matinee of the performance, sitting in the front near the stage, when an usher tapped her on the shoulder and told her Mr. Hammerstein wished to speak to her backstage.

A critic for The Sunday Times described the dancers in the following terms: "So bewilderingly beautiful is it, so dazzling in its kaleidoscopic changes, so startling and breath-catching in the novelty of its evolutions, that one is left gasping".

[20] In August 1926 Stephanie Deste and fellow-actor Arthur Greenaway performed the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet as part of the 'Daffodil Matinee', a charity event for 'Karitane', an Australian mothercraft society, at the St. James Theatre in Elizabeth Street in Sydney.

[24] An article in 1938 recounted the "excitement" caused by Rose-Marie in Sydney during "those comparatively carefree years", when "the totem-pole ballet and Stephanie Deste's fan-dance swept the town".

With her principal song 'Totem Tom-Tom', Deste introduced the Totem Pole Ballet, made up of fifty young women, who did "their work perfectly" and were comparable with "Ziegfeld's far-famed Follies".

[26] Her appearance on 3LO, then owned by the Broadcasting Company of Australia, became a regular feature, performing Bible readings, as well as recitations of poetic, dramatic and literary works.

[27][28] An article in May 1927 of forthcoming highlights on 3LO extolled Deste's "exceptional elocutionary gift", adding that "to hear her recite with a fine succession of pathos, tenderness, and fierce indignation was a revelation of dramatic art".

[30] An article published in 1928 titled 'Microphone Fright', discussing artists comfortable with performing in front of an audience but who suffered from nerves "when they face the microphone", included an example of Deste's early radio experience: "Stephanie Deste, who, in a semi-nude make up as 'Wanda' in 'Rose Marie,' faced huge audiences nightly without a sign of nerves, became 'mike stricken' until the ordeal of speaking into the little 'patch of black infinity' had become familiar".

[33] An Adelaide critic wrote the following description of Deste's costume and "her marvellous acrobatic, contortional dancing" in the role of Wanda: "One can see her now, in skirt of long black silk fringes, straps and brassieres of sparkling silver sequins on her bare, lithe, brown body, her shining treacle-black hair drawn straight and tight to a knot behind her head, her deeply dark, inscrutable eyes gazing out on the audience as she folds her apparently boneless body into strange convolutions and sinks, sinks, out of sight beneath the rust-red tinged with golden feathers of a fan so enormous that it completely covers the folded-up body".

[37] After its tour of the Australian States and New Zealand Rose-Marie made a triumphant return to Sydney, opening a farewell season at Her Majesty's Theatre on 3 April 1928.

The final night was on May 11, playing to a "packed audience" in a "thoroughly responsive mood, and encores were the order of the evening", during which the Totem Chorus "was recalled eight or ten times".

[41] Stephanie Deste was engaged for the role of the sensuous 'Azuri' in J. C. Williamson's Australian production of the operetta The Desert Song, which premiered on 15 September 1928 at His Majesty's Theatre in Melbourne.

[42] While she was performing in Melbourne Deste met Remigio Budica, a Jewish-Italian restaurateur and former opera baritone who had arrived in Australia in 1922 and had become an Australian citizen by 1928.

[50] In about September 1930, Deste organised the staging of a French language version of the musical comedy Chu Chin Chow at the Casino in Brussels.

The actress commented: "Dutch audiences are very prim and proper, and the whole house as one man, wheeled round in their seats to fix the culprit with a reproving look", adding "I myself faltered for a moment in my song".

[54] She studied at the Antoine School and attained a degree "as a practitioner of medical electricity", which involved her attendance at clinics in dermatology and plastic surgery at the Laennec Hospital.

[57] In June 1937, Deste met with Doris Winter (Rourke), a well-known beauty specialist in Melbourne who operated a salon called 'Make-Ups' in Collins Street (under the company Make-Ups Pty.

Mid-way through 1938 Deste told her partner she intended to take the role of Wanda in the Melbourne performances of a revival of Rose-Marie, maintaining "that the publicity she would gain would assist the business".

Rourke "agreed reluctantly", but stipulated that Deste should teach her assistant the electrolysis treatment and also attend the business no later than 10 a.m. each day during the period of the performances.

[8][67] After the Melbourne season finished, Rose-Marie opened in Sydney in mid-August 1938 at the Theatre Royal, with Deste replaced by Gwen Browne in the role of Wanda.

Doris Rourke later claimed that Deste "frequently arrived at the business premises in an exhausted condition" and did not provided adequate supervision of the staff.

Deste countered by claiming that during this period Rourke "attempted to usurp" her position of manager of her clinic "by giving orders to the staff in the presence of customers".

Her business partner, Doris Rourke, consented to the withdrawal on the condition that Deste give "an undertaking that nothing that had occurred in the past would be used by her in support of any future petition".

[71] During the war years, Deste was featured on radio stations 3AW and 3DB in Melbourne, providing beauty advice and utilising these segments to promote her salon.

[2] Stephanie Deste was a woman of striking features well into old age, known as one of Melbourne's "great personalities, an elegantly dressed, immaculately coiffured figure known to several generations for her stage and radio work and for her famous beauty salons".

In a revue called Happy Days at St. James Theatre in October 1930 he "gave an excellent imitation" of the dancer, reproducing her mannerisms "such as her curious style of walking with her toes turned in".