b. Florence Hariette Zena Dones, 4 February 1887, London, England, d. 11 March 1975, London, England. Together with her sister, Phyllis Dare, she formed a double act. Dare played pantomime and minor roles in musical comedies, including An English Daisy (1902), before joining Seymour Hicks’ The Catch Of The Season (1905), as replacement for Ellaline Terriss, who was pregnant. Dare was in George Edwardes’ Lady Madcap, The Little Cherub and The Girl On Stage (all 1905), and in 1906 played in Hicks’ The Beauty Of Bath and on tour with The Catch Of The Season. Between 1907 and 1909 she was in The Gay Gordons, Sweet And Twenty, Papa’s Wife, Mitislaw Or The Love Match and other plays, often with Hicks, then The Dashing Little Duke and The Model And The Man (both 1910). Despite her success, she abandoned her career for marriage to the Hon. Maurice Brett, son of Viscount Esher.

Dare returned to the stage in the mid-20s touring the UK and South Africa in plays such as The Last Of Mrs Cheyney (1926), The Second Man (1928, with Noël Coward), The Trial Of Mary Dugan, Other Men’s Wives, The High Road and The Squeaker (all 1928/9). She returned to London’s West End in The First Mrs Fraser (1929), and during the next three years was in touring companies, also playing in productions of Peter Pan. In 1933 she was with Ivor Novello in Proscenium and appeared, mainly in dramatic productions, through the mid-30s. Her husband died in 1934 and thereafter she concentrated on her career, playing in Novello’s Careless Rapture (1936). A Novello production, Full House (1940), brought the Dare sisters together again, and during the remaining war years she was in many productions including Dear Brutus and Peter Pan (both 1941), The Watch On The Rhine, Alice Through The Looking Glass (1943) and Another Love Story (1944). In 1945 she was in Novello’s Perchance To Dream, and in 1949 she and her sister were in his King’s Rhapsody. In the mid-50s, she played in Sabrina Fair (1954), Double Image and Coward’s Nude With Violin (1956). Dare’s final stage appearance was as Mrs. Higgins in the 1958 West End production of My Fair Lady, a role she played into the mid-60s, after which she retired. ~ Rovi

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