Connie Gilchrist, Countess of Orkney.

About Connie Gilchrist, Countess of Orkney

Constance FitzMaurice, Countess of Orkney, also known as Connie Gilchrist, was a British child artist's model, actress, dancer and singer who, at a very early age, attracted the attention of the painters Frederic Leighton, Frank Holl, William Powell Frith and James McNeill Whistler, the writer and photographer Lewis Carroll and aristocrats, Lord Lonsdale and the Duke of Beaufort. She became a popular attraction on stage at the age of 12 in a skipping rope dance routine at London's Gaiety Theatre, where she was then engaged in Victorian burlesque and vaudeville throughout her formative years. Gilchrist, who became known as the "original Gaiety Girl", had abandoned the stage by the time of her marriage in 1892 to Edmond Walter FitzMaurice, 7th Earl of Orkney.