 Born in Brighton in 1882 as Emily Strahan Cager, the illegitimate daughter of domestic servant Emily Cager and raised in London, she arrived as a dancer in one of the first of Tiller Girls troupes to visit Paris at the time of the Exposition Universelle of 1900 and would never leave again.Her lively on-stage character and English accent while speaking French greatly amused audiences at the Folies Bergère.She adopted the stage name Aimée Campton and met the actor Charles Prince (real name Charles Ernest René Petitdemange) whom she married in Paris on 20 December 1900.