Doris Mary Stocker (Lady Segrave) (1886 – 16 December 1968) was a British actress and singer, especially in Edwardian musical comedy.
Early life and career She was born in Bombay in India in 1886, the second of three children of George Stocker (1857–1929), an engineer, and Mary Dunn née Johnston (1862–1946). While her father remained in India for work her mother returned to England with the children where they lived in London from at least 1891 to 1911.1911 England Census for Blanche Stocker: London, St Andrew Holborn above the Bars and St George the Martyr, Ancestry.com Her older sister Blanche Stocker was also a stage actress and singer.
Stocker began her career as a chorus girl under George Edwardes at the Gaiety Theatre in London and soon played roles in West End theatres: Grace Hufnagle in Captain Kidd at Wyndham's Theatre (1904);J. P. Wearing, The London Stage 1910–1919: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel, Rowman & Littlefield (2014), Google Books Angy Loftus in The Cingalee at Daly's Theatre (1904); Pepzi in A Waltz Dream at Daly's (1911); Lady Diana Camden in Theodore & Co at the Gaiety (1912); Gipsy Dancer in Gipsy Love at Daly's (1912);"A Gypsy in Mufti", The Bystander, 18 September 1912 and the Honorable Baby Vereker in To-Night's the Night at the Shubert Theatre in New York (1914),Gypsy O'Brien as Alice, Doris Stocker as Honorable Baby Vereker and Adrah Fair as Yvette la Plage in To-Night's the Night, Collection of the Museum of the City of New York repeating the role in London at the Gaiety (1915).Doris Stocker in To-Night's the Night (1914), Internet Broadway Database
War, marriage and death In 1915 at the height of World War I she accompanied Sylvia Brett and Charles Vyner Brooke, whom she hardly knew, on a Japanese steamer to Sarawak, Malaysia, to visit Charles Brooke, the Rajah of Sarawak.Philip Eade, Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters: An Outrageous Englishwoman and Her Lost Kingdom, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (2007), Google Books
At Marylebone, London, on 4 October 1917 she married Sir Henry O'Neal De Hane Segrave (1896–1930), then serving in the war as a Captain in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and the Royal Flying Corps.London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754–1932 for Doris Mary Stocker: Westminster, Saint Cyprian, Saint Marylebone, 1903-1923, Ancestry.com After her marriage she retired from the stage.
Stocker died in Kensington, London, in 1968, leaving £76,135 in her will.England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858–1995 for Doris Mary Segrave: 1969, Ancestry.com
References
External links Photographic portraits of Doris Stocker – National Portrait Gallery, London Collection