Ida Conquest
Encyclopedia
Ida Conquest was a leading lady
of Broadway in the late 19th century and early 20th century.
. Her father was a partner in a successful fish wholesale business.
She was the leading woman for John Drew
, Richard Mansfield
, and William Gillette
. Conquest appeared in many roles in New York City
and London, England before retiring from the stage in 1911.
She made her stage debut at Miner's Theater on Fifth Avenue
on January 25, 1893. She played the role of First Girl Friend in The Harvest. In 1894 she acted in support of Olga Nethersole
in The Transgressor at Palmer's Theater, 485 Broadway near Broome Street. Conquest also worked with Nethersole in Camille
, portraying Nanine.
She traveled to London's Garrick Theatre
in 1898 with Gillette, in Too Much Johnson. At the Empire Theatre
in New York City
Conquest was successful in The Second In Command (1901) with Drew. Together with Drew she starred in Richard Carvel, a play based on a best-selling novel written by the American novelist Winston Churchill
. Drew and Conquest again teamed to make The Tyranny of Tears. Conquest succeeded Isabel Irving
as the leading lady of the John Drew Company.
She played numerous parts at the Empire Theatre. She depicted characters in Under The Red Robe, Bohemia, A Man And His Wife, and The Conquerors. In 1895 Conquest became leading lady of the Empire Theatre Company of Charles Frohman
.
Conquest became associated with the English actor Mansfield at the New Amsterdam Theatre
in 1904. In Ivan the Terrible she acted the character of the Empress. Paired with Mansfield she appeared in Old Heidelberg, Beau Brummel, A Parisian Romance and Beaucaire. According to friends of Conquest, the
actor never demonstrated his characteristic irascibility while working with her.
Additional theatrical productions in which Conquest participated are The Girl With The Green Eyes, written by Clyde Fitch
, The Money Makers, Man and Superman, Little Brother of the Rich, Wolf, and The Talker.
Her final New York appearance was with Alla Nazimova
in Little Eyolf (1910). Written by Henrik Ibsen
,
the play was staged at the Nazimova 39th Street Theatre.
. She married the head of the company, Riccardo Bertelli, at Trinity Church, Boston
, in October 1911. Bertelli, a graduate of the University of Turin
, established himself in New York in the decade before he married Conquest. He was the oldest son of Admiral Luigi Bertelli of Genoa
. Conquest left the stage after she wed Bertelli.
She wore a coronet
which she crafted herself in the role of Sylvia in The Little Brother of the Rich. It was copied from a spray of mistletoe
. She designed jewelry while she traveled, using a sketch pad and pencil as she became inspired. Conquest worked with rings, cameos, and lapis lazuli
. She became skilled in setting stones and employing California abalone
shells to make headpieces.
Her funeral was conducted from St. James Episcopal Church, Madison Avenue
and 71st Street. Her husband was in Europe
and did not attend the service. A daughter, Gigiotta Bertelli, was the only member of the immediate family present.
Conquest was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx
.
Leading lady
Leading lady is an informal term for the actress who plays a secondary lead or supporting role, usually a love interest, to the leading actor in a film or play. It is not usually applied to the leading actress in the performance if her character is the protagonist.A leading lady can also be an...
of Broadway in the late 19th century and early 20th century.
Appearance & family
Conquest was blonde, with big blue eyes, and a creamy complexion. Her height was medium. She was from Boston, Massachusetts. Her parents were John Alfred Stokes Conquest and the former Elizabeth "Eliza" Harriet Mortimer of Centre Street in Brookline, MassachusettsBrookline, Massachusetts
Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States, which borders on the cities of Boston and Newton. As of the 2010 census, the population of the town was 58,732.-Etymology:...
. Her father was a partner in a successful fish wholesale business.
Theater actress
Conquest's enthusiasm for theater dated from her childhood when she was in a production of Pinafore at the Boston Museum. She made her first appearance in New York at the Fifth Avenue Theatre on January 28, 1893, as the First Girl Friend in The Harvest. She began at the bottom of the ladder and according to a writer in 1900, "her advancement was thoroughly legitimate, meaning good hard work with every rung." The same reporter noted her charm, intelligence, and fine education.She was the leading woman for John Drew
John Drew
John Drew was an Irish-American stage actor and theatre manager.-Early life:Born Jonathan Henry Drewland in Dublin, Ireland, to Thomas L. Drew and Louise Kanten, he was the fifth of six children. He lived in Templeogue, a poor Irish village in County Dublin during the 19th century...
, Richard Mansfield
Richard Mansfield
Richard Mansfield was an English actor-manager best known for his performances in Shakespeare plays, Gilbert and Sullivan operas and for his portrayal of the dual title roles in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
, and William Gillette
William Gillette
William Hooker Gillette was an American actor, playwright and stage-manager in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who is best remembered today for portraying Sherlock Holmes....
. Conquest appeared in many roles in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and London, England before retiring from the stage in 1911.
She made her stage debut at Miner's Theater on Fifth Avenue
Fifth Avenue (Manhattan)
Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the center of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. The section of Fifth Avenue that crosses Midtown Manhattan, especially that between 49th Street and 60th Street, is lined with prestigious shops and is consistently ranked among...
on January 25, 1893. She played the role of First Girl Friend in The Harvest. In 1894 she acted in support of Olga Nethersole
Olga Nethersole
Olga Isabella Nethersole, CBE, RRC was an English actress, theatre producer, and wartime nurse/health educator.-Biography:...
in The Transgressor at Palmer's Theater, 485 Broadway near Broome Street. Conquest also worked with Nethersole in Camille
The Lady of the Camellias
The Lady of the Camellias is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils, first published in 1848, and subsequently adapted for the stage. The Lady of the Camellias premiered at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris, France on February 2, 1852. The play was an instant success, and Giuseppe Verdi immediately set...
, portraying Nanine.
She traveled to London's Garrick Theatre
Garrick Theatre
The Garrick Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Charing Cross Road, in the City of Westminster. It opened on 24 April 1889 with The Profligate, a play by Arthur Wing Pinero. In its early years, it appears to have specialised in the performance of melodrama, and today the theatre is a...
in 1898 with Gillette, in Too Much Johnson. At the Empire Theatre
Empire Theatre (New York City)
The Empire Theatre in New York City was a prominent Broadway theatre in the first half of the twentieth century. It opened in 1893 with a performance of The Girl I Left Behind Me by David Belasco. The Empire continued to present both original plays and revivals until 1953. Its final show, in May...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
Conquest was successful in The Second In Command (1901) with Drew. Together with Drew she starred in Richard Carvel, a play based on a best-selling novel written by the American novelist Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill (novelist)
Winston Churchill was an American novelist.-Biography:Churchill was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Edward Spalding and Emma Bell Churchill. He attended Smith Academy in Missouri and the United States Naval Academy, where he graduated in 1894...
. Drew and Conquest again teamed to make The Tyranny of Tears. Conquest succeeded Isabel Irving
Isabel Irving
Isabel Irving was an American actress. She was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and made her New York stage debut in 1886 at the Standard Theatre in The Schoolmistress under Rosina Vokes. She retired from the theater in 1936. She was married to William H. Thompson until his death in 1923...
as the leading lady of the John Drew Company.
She played numerous parts at the Empire Theatre. She depicted characters in Under The Red Robe, Bohemia, A Man And His Wife, and The Conquerors. In 1895 Conquest became leading lady of the Empire Theatre Company of Charles Frohman
Charles Frohman
Charles Frohman was an American theatrical producer. Frohman was producing plays by 1889 and acquired his first Broadway theatre by 1892. He discovered and promoted many stars of the American theatre....
.
Conquest became associated with the English actor Mansfield at the New Amsterdam Theatre
New Amsterdam Theatre
The New Amsterdam Theatre is a Broadway theater located at 214 West 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues in the Theatre District of Manhattan, New York City, off of Times Square...
in 1904. In Ivan the Terrible she acted the character of the Empress. Paired with Mansfield she appeared in Old Heidelberg, Beau Brummel, A Parisian Romance and Beaucaire. According to friends of Conquest, the
actor never demonstrated his characteristic irascibility while working with her.
Additional theatrical productions in which Conquest participated are The Girl With The Green Eyes, written by Clyde Fitch
Clyde Fitch
Clyde Fitch was an American dramatist.-Biography:Born William Clyde Fitch at Elmira, New York, he wrote over 60 plays, 36 of them original, which varied from social comedies and farces to melodrama and historical dramas.As the only child to live to adulthood, his father, Captain William G...
, The Money Makers, Man and Superman, Little Brother of the Rich, Wolf, and The Talker.
Her final New York appearance was with Alla Nazimova
Alla Nazimova
Alla Nazimova , was a Russian American film and theatre actress, a screenwriter and film producer. She is perhaps best known as simply Nazimova, but also went under the name Alia Nasimoff.-Early life:...
in Little Eyolf (1910). Written by Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
,
the play was staged at the Nazimova 39th Street Theatre.
Jeweler
Conquest made jewelry as a hobby. To acquire proficiency she spent a number of weeks in the factory of Roman Bronze Works in Greenpoint, BrooklynGreenpoint, Brooklyn
Greenpoint is the northernmost neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is bordered on the southwest by Williamsburg at the Bushwick inlet, on the southeast by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and East Williamsburg, on the north by Newtown Creek and Long Island City, Queens at the...
. She married the head of the company, Riccardo Bertelli, at Trinity Church, Boston
Trinity Church, Boston
Trinity Church in the City of Boston, located in the Back Bay of Boston, Massachusetts, is a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. The congregation, currently standing at approximately 3,000 households, was founded in 1733. The current rector is The Reverend Anne Bonnyman...
, in October 1911. Bertelli, a graduate of the University of Turin
University of Turin
The University of Turin is a university in the city of Turin in the Piedmont region of north-western Italy...
, established himself in New York in the decade before he married Conquest. He was the oldest son of Admiral Luigi Bertelli of Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
. Conquest left the stage after she wed Bertelli.
She wore a coronet
Coronet
A coronet is a small crown consisting of ornaments fixed on a metal ring. Unlike a crown, a coronet never has arches.The word stems from the Old French coronete, a diminutive of coronne , itself from the Latin corona .Traditionally, such headgear is – as indicated by the German equivalent...
which she crafted herself in the role of Sylvia in The Little Brother of the Rich. It was copied from a spray of mistletoe
Mistletoe
Mistletoe is the common name for obligate hemi-parasitic plants in several families in the order Santalales. The plants in question grow attached to and within the branches of a tree or shrub.-Mistletoe in the genus Viscum:...
. She designed jewelry while she traveled, using a sketch pad and pencil as she became inspired. Conquest worked with rings, cameos, and lapis lazuli
Lapis lazuli
Lapis lazuli is a relatively rare semi-precious stone that has been prized since antiquity for its intense blue color....
. She became skilled in setting stones and employing California abalone
Abalone
Abalone , from aulón, are small to very large-sized edible sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the family Haliotidae and the genus Haliotis...
shells to make headpieces.
Death
In 1937 Ida Conquest died at her home, 320 East 72nd Street, Manhattan (New York). She was 61 years old.Her funeral was conducted from St. James Episcopal Church, Madison Avenue
Madison Avenue (Manhattan)
Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square to the Madison Avenue Bridge at 138th Street. In doing so, it passes through Midtown, the Upper East Side , Spanish Harlem, and...
and 71st Street. Her husband was in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and did not attend the service. A daughter, Gigiotta Bertelli, was the only member of the immediate family present.
Conquest was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx
Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx
Woodlawn Cemetery is one of the largest cemeteries in New York City and is a designated National Historic Landmark.A rural cemetery located in the Bronx, it opened in 1863, in what was then southern Westchester County, in an area that was annexed to New York City in 1874.The cemetery covers more...
.