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Mary Anderson (stage actress)
Encyclopedia
Mary Anderson was an American
stage actress.
-educated New Yorker, and his wife, Antonia Leugers; the latter had been disowned by her Philadelphia Catholic
family after the couple had eloped to California.
Shortly after Mary was born, the couple moved to Louisville, Kentucky
, where her father enlisted in the Confederate States Army
in the American Civil War
. He was killed in action at Mobile
when she was three.
Mary was educated at the Ursuline
convent and the all-girl Presentation Academy
in Louisville. She was an unenthusiastic pupil except for an interest in reading Shakespeare. Encouraged by her stepfather, Dr Hamilton Griffin, at 14 she was sent to New York for ten lessons with the actor George Vandenhoff, her only professional training.
in Louisville, Kentucky
in the role of Shakespeare's Juliet. The manager, Barney Macauley, was sufficiently impressed to extend the booking to a week as Juliet and further roles including Julia in Sheridan Knowles
's The Hunchback, Bianca in Henry Hart Milman
's Fazio, and R. L. Sheil's Evadne.
Further engagements at St Louis
, New Orleans
and John McCullough
's theatre in San Francisco led to a contract with John T. Ford
. Starting as Lady Macbeth in his Washington theatre in 1877, she began an extensive US tour, culminating with a six-week engagement in Edward Bulwer Lytton
's The Lady of Lyons at the 5th Avenue Theatre
, New York. Critical review was mixed, but she was immediately popular with the public as "Our Mary"
From this point she enjoyed a twelve-year career of unbroken success, with regular New York performances and US tours. In 1879 she went on a voyage to Europe, meeting Sarah Bernhardt
and Adelaide Ristori
.
In 1883, after starring in an American production of W. S. Gilbert
's Pygmalion and Galatea, she went on the London stage at the Lyceum Theatre, remaining in England for six years to perform to much acclaim including at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-on-Avon. Her first season there, she starred in Gilbert's Comedy and Tragedy.
In 1887 in London she appeared in The Winter's Tale
in the double role of Perdita and Hermione (the first actress to include this innovation). This production ran to 160 performances, and was taken back to the United States. She invited writer William Black to appear in the production, but, even in a non-speaking role, he froze up and interrupted the performance. In 1889, however, she collapsed on stage due to severe nervous exhaustion during a performance at Albaugh's Theatre in Washington. Disbanding her company, she announced her retirement at the age of 30. Some commentators, particularly in the British press, ascribed this turn of events to hostile press reviews on her return to the U.S. The author Willa Cather
went further and blamed a specifically hurtful review from a close friend.
, where she cultivated an interest in music and became a noted hostess with a distinguished circle of musical, literary and ecclesiastical guests. She also gave birth to a son and a daughter in her happy marriage.
A devout Roman Catholic, she had a chapel built in her attic, with stained-glass windows designed by Paul Woodroffe
. She has been cited as a model for characters in the Lucia
novels of E F Benson
, either the operatic soprano Olga Bracely or Lucia herself, as well as the prototype for the heroine of William Black's novel The Strange Adventures of a House-Boat.
She resisted encouragements to return to the theatre, but did a number of fund-raising performances during World War I
in Worcester, Stratford and London. The latter included roles as Galatea
, Juliet and Clarice in W. S. Gilbert
's play Comedy and Tragedy. She published two books of her memories, the 1896 A Few Memories and the 1936 A Few More Memories, and collaborated with Robert Smythe Hichens
on a 1911 New York stage adaptation of his novel, The Garden of Allah.
monks by Anderson is now the Mt. St. Francis Monastery, and home to the Mary Anderson Center, an artist colony. In 1989, the portion of US Route 150
that adjoins the donated property was named The Mary Anderson Memorial Highway. A figure based on Anderson appears in the Louisville Clock
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
stage actress.
Early life
Mary Antoinette Anderson was the daughter of Charles Henry Anderson, an OxfordUniversity of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
-educated New Yorker, and his wife, Antonia Leugers; the latter had been disowned by her Philadelphia Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
family after the couple had eloped to California.
Shortly after Mary was born, the couple moved to Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
, where her father enlisted in the Confederate States Army
Confederate States Army
The Confederate States Army was the army of the Confederate States of America while the Confederacy existed during the American Civil War. On February 8, 1861, delegates from the seven Deep South states which had already declared their secession from the United States of America adopted the...
in the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. He was killed in action at Mobile
Mobile, Alabama, in the Civil War
Mobile, Alabama, during the American Civil War was an important port city on the Gulf of Mexico for the Confederate States of America. Mobile fell to the Union army late in the war following successful attacks on the defenses of Mobile Bay by the Union Navy....
when she was three.
Mary was educated at the Ursuline
Ursulines
The Ursulines are a Roman Catholic religious order for women founded at Brescia, Italy, by Saint Angela de Merici in November 1535, primarily for the education of girls and the care of the sick and needy. Their patron saint is Saint Ursula.-History:St Angela de Merici spent 17 years leading a...
convent and the all-girl Presentation Academy
Presentation Academy
Presentation Academy, a college-preparatory high school for young women, is located just south of Downtown Louisville, Kentucky in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville...
in Louisville. She was an unenthusiastic pupil except for an interest in reading Shakespeare. Encouraged by her stepfather, Dr Hamilton Griffin, at 14 she was sent to New York for ten lessons with the actor George Vandenhoff, her only professional training.
Stage career
In 1875, she made her first stage appearance at a benefit performance at Macauley's TheatreMacauley's Theatre
Macauley's Theatre was the premier theatre in Louisville, Kentucky during the late 19th and early 20th century. It opened on October 18, 1873 on the north side of Walnut Street between Third and Fourth Streets, and was founded by Bernard "Barney" Macauley, a prominent Louisville actor since the...
in Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
in the role of Shakespeare's Juliet. The manager, Barney Macauley, was sufficiently impressed to extend the booking to a week as Juliet and further roles including Julia in Sheridan Knowles
James Sheridan Knowles
James Sheridan Knowles , Irish dramatist and actor, was born in Cork.-Biography:His father was the lexicographer James Knowles , cousin of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The family removed to London in 1793, and at the age of fourteen Knowles published a ballad entitled The Welsh Harper, which, set to...
's The Hunchback, Bianca in Henry Hart Milman
Henry Hart Milman
The Very Reverend Henry Hart Milman was an English historian and ecclesiastic.He was born in London, the third son of Sir Francis Milman, 1st Baronet, physician to King George III . Educated at Eton and at Brasenose College, Oxford, his university career was brilliant...
's Fazio, and R. L. Sheil's Evadne.
Further engagements at St Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
, New Orleans
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...
and John McCullough
John Edward McCullough
John Edward McCullough was an American actor.He was born in Coleraine, Ireland. He went to America at the age of sixteen, and made his first appearance on the stage at the Arch Street Theatre, Philadelphia, in 1857...
's theatre in San Francisco led to a contract with John T. Ford
John T. Ford
John Thomson Ford was an American theater manager in the nineteenth century. He is most notable for operating Ford's Theatre at the time of the Abraham Lincoln assassination.-Early life:...
. Starting as Lady Macbeth in his Washington theatre in 1877, she began an extensive US tour, culminating with a six-week engagement in Edward Bulwer Lytton
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton PC , was an English politician, poet, playwright, and novelist. He was immensely popular with the reading public and wrote a stream of bestselling dime-novels which earned him a considerable fortune...
's The Lady of Lyons at the 5th Avenue Theatre
5th Avenue Theatre
The 5th Avenue Theatre is a landmark theater building located in Seattle, Washington, USA. It has hosted a variety of theatre productions and motion pictures since it opened in 1926. The building and land is owned by the University of Washington and was once part of the original campus...
, New York. Critical review was mixed, but she was immediately popular with the public as "Our Mary"
From this point she enjoyed a twelve-year career of unbroken success, with regular New York performances and US tours. In 1879 she went on a voyage to Europe, meeting Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...
and Adelaide Ristori
Adelaide Ristori
Adelaide Ristori was a distinguished Italian tragedienne, who was often referred to as the Marquise.-Biography:...
.
In 1883, after starring in an American production of W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
's Pygmalion and Galatea, she went on the London stage at the Lyceum Theatre, remaining in England for six years to perform to much acclaim including at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-on-Avon. Her first season there, she starred in Gilbert's Comedy and Tragedy.
In 1887 in London she appeared in The Winter's Tale
The Winter's Tale
The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, some modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some critics, among them W. W...
in the double role of Perdita and Hermione (the first actress to include this innovation). This production ran to 160 performances, and was taken back to the United States. She invited writer William Black to appear in the production, but, even in a non-speaking role, he froze up and interrupted the performance. In 1889, however, she collapsed on stage due to severe nervous exhaustion during a performance at Albaugh's Theatre in Washington. Disbanding her company, she announced her retirement at the age of 30. Some commentators, particularly in the British press, ascribed this turn of events to hostile press reviews on her return to the U.S. The author Willa Cather
Willa Cather
Willa Seibert Cather was an American author who achieved recognition for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, in works such as O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the Lark. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours , a novel set during World War I...
went further and blamed a specifically hurtful review from a close friend.
Later life
Ordered to rest after her breakdown, Mary Anderson visited England. In 1890 she married Antonio Fernando de Navarro, an American sportsman and barrister of Basque extraction, who was a Papal Privy Chamberlain of the Sword and Cape. She became known as Mary Anderson de Navarro. They settled at Court Farm, Broadway, WorcestershireBroadway, Worcestershire
Broadway is a village and civil parish in the Worcestershire part of the Cotswolds in England.Often referred to as the "Jewel of the Cotswolds", Broadway village lies beneath Fish Hill on the western Cotswold escarpment...
, where she cultivated an interest in music and became a noted hostess with a distinguished circle of musical, literary and ecclesiastical guests. She also gave birth to a son and a daughter in her happy marriage.
A devout Roman Catholic, she had a chapel built in her attic, with stained-glass windows designed by Paul Woodroffe
Paul Woodroffe
Paul Vincent Woodroffe was a British book illustrator and stained-glass artist.Paul Woodroffe was born in Madras and as a young man in London in the 1890s he took up book illustration and then stained glass, and worked with books and windows for the rest of his life...
. She has been cited as a model for characters in the Lucia
Mapp and Lucia
Mapp and Lucia is a collective name for a series of novels by E. F. Benson, and is also the name of a television series based on those novels.-The novels:...
novels of E F Benson
Edward Frederic Benson
Edward Frederic Benson was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist and short story writer, known professionally as E.F. Benson. His friends called him Fred.-Life:E.F...
, either the operatic soprano Olga Bracely or Lucia herself, as well as the prototype for the heroine of William Black's novel The Strange Adventures of a House-Boat.
She resisted encouragements to return to the theatre, but did a number of fund-raising performances during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
in Worcester, Stratford and London. The latter included roles as Galatea
Galatea
Galatea is an ancient Greek name meaning "she who is milk-white".Galatea or Galathea may refer to:-In mythology:* Galatea :**Galatea, a woman who prayed for her daughter to be turned into a son, Leucippus...
, Juliet and Clarice in W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
's play Comedy and Tragedy. She published two books of her memories, the 1896 A Few Memories and the 1936 A Few More Memories, and collaborated with Robert Smythe Hichens
Robert Smythe Hichens
Robert Smythe Hichens was an English journalist, novelist, music lyricist, short story writer, music critic and collaborated on successful plays. He is best remembered as a satirist of the "Naughty Nineties".-Biography:...
on a 1911 New York stage adaptation of his novel, The Garden of Allah.
Legacy
Land donated to the FranciscanFranciscan
Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
monks by Anderson is now the Mt. St. Francis Monastery, and home to the Mary Anderson Center, an artist colony. In 1989, the portion of US Route 150
U.S. Route 150
U.S. Route 150 is a 571 mile long northwest-southeast United States highway, signed as east–west. It runs from U.S. Route 6 outside of Moline, Illinois to U.S. Route 25 in Mount Vernon, Kentucky .-Illinois:In the state of Illinois, U.S. 150 runs from the Quad City International Airport at U.S...
that adjoins the donated property was named The Mary Anderson Memorial Highway. A figure based on Anderson appears in the Louisville Clock
Louisville Clock
The Louisville Clock is a high ornamental clock once located on Fourth Street in Louisville, Kentucky. It was designed in the appearance like a gigantic wind-up toy, incorporating themes of Kentucky culture, especially the Kentucky Derby horse race. Eight ornamental columns support an elevated...
.
Sources
- Donald Roy, ‘Anderson, Mary (1859–1940)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
- WinterWilliam Winter (author)William Winter was an American dramatic critic and author.-Biography:Born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Winter graduated from Harvard Law School in 1857...
Stage Life of Mary Anderson (1886)
External links
- Project Gutenberg etext: Mary Anderson by J. M. Farrar (1885)
- Mary Anderson photograph at the Nineteenth Century Notables Digital Collection at Gettysburg CollegeGettysburg CollegeGettysburg College is a private four-year liberal arts college founded in 1832, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, United States, adjacent to the famous battlefield. Its athletic teams are nicknamed the Bullets. Gettysburg College has about 2,700 students, with roughly equal numbers of men and women...
- Mary Anderson carte de visite at the Nineteenth Century Notables Digital Collection at Gettysburg College
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography