Names on the buses

812 Eva Moore

Connections with Brighton and Hove : Eva Moore, born in Brighton, made more than 20 films and her daughter Jill Esmond was the first wife of Laurence Olivier. She attended Miss Pringle's school in Brighton and then studied gymnastics and dancing in Liverpool. Returning to Brighton, she taught dancing. In 1891 she married actor/playwright Henry V. Esmond, they had three children. Her husband wrote more than a dozen plays in which she appeared, and they appeared together in other plays. She made her first stage appearance at London's Vaudeville Theatre in 1887, asd this launched a successful stage career. Moore was active in the suffrage movement appearing in suffragist plays and films. She was a founder of the Actresses' Franchise League in 1908 but resigned from it over a film she made called Her Vote, in which the heroine prefers kisses to votes. This annoyed some other feminists. She later managed her husband's comedy Eliza Comes to Stay, which opened at the Criterion Theatre in 1913, transferring to the Vaudeville Theatre and then took the play to New York City for an unsuccessful run. After the First World War began, she continued acting at the Vaudeville in the evenings but worked as a volunteer during the day for the Women's Emergency Corps, based at the Little Theatre. She raised money for hospital and wartime causes and was honoured with the order de la Reine Elisabeth for her wartime activities. From 1920 to 1946, Moore made over two dozen films, beginning with The Law Divine (1920). Some of her best-received silent films were Flames of Passion (1922), The Great Well (1924), Chu-Chin-Chow (1925) and Motherland (1927). Her most popular 'talkies' included Almost a Divorce (1931), The Old Dark House (1932), and Leave It to Smith (1933. She taught Sir Winston Churchill when he lived in Hove as a child and described him as a naughty boy. Moore published her reminiscences, Exits and Entrances, in 1923 but continued to act until 1945. In later years, she resided at Bisham, Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, dying of myocardial degeneration at age 85.

812 Mercedes Streetdeck on Route 1 - carried name since December 2016. Route 1 branding removed October 2020. Repainted into new standard livery March 2021.