Bijou Fernandez
Encyclopedia
Bijou Fernandez was a Broadway actress from New York City
.
Her theatrical career endured for seven decades, from the 1880s until the mid 20th century. She appeared in a few movies in the silent film
era.
Fernandez, at the age of thirteen, was described in a review as bright-eyed, slender, and fragile. Her voice and demeanor on stage were likened to an unaffected child. She was not exceedingly precocious as was Bijou Heron
, who acted the role of Adrienne in Monsieur Alphonse, as a juvenile player.
She was a photographer's model known as the photograph queen in 1884. At the time she was under contract to Sarony to be photographed every day. For a May Blossom Picnic she wore a red check dress and danced in Central Park
.
In August 1884 she acted nightly in May Blossom, with fellow youth actress, Gracie Levard. The venue of the production was the Madison Square Theatre, located near Broadway (Manhattan), on 24th Street, behind the Fifth Avenue (Manhattan)
Hotel. New scenery was painted when May Blossom moved to Niblo's Garden
in February 1885. Fernandez played the part of Little May.
She depicted Adriana, wife to Antipholus of Ephesus
when A Comedy of Errors was staged at the Star Theatre, Broadway & 13th Street, in September 1885. The work of William Shakespeare
was directed by Joseph Brooks. The following November Uncle Tom's Cabin
was presented by
the Third Avenue (Manhattan)
Theatre. Fernandez performed the role of Eva. Mr. and Mrs. G.C. Howard whose daughter had been the original
Eva, acted the characters of Topsy and St. Clair. The couple had been identified with the production of the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe
for
over thirty years.
She proved popular as a page to Falstaff
in The Merry Wives, a January 1886 production of Augustin Daly
and Daly's Theatre, 1221 Broadway (30th Street).
Fernandez was the recipient of a play, Peggy, The Fisherman's Child, written especially for her in 1887. She played in a production of it for the
first time on June 7, at the Lyceum Theatre (New York)
.
She accepted a contract with the Daly company in July 1887, which bound her to the firm for a period of seven years. The terms allowed Fernandez a
liberal salary, furnished her stage costumes and all her clothing, and supervised her education. She was Puck (Shakespeare)
in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream
at Daly's Theatre in February 1888.
making high balls. She performed the role at the Garrick Theatre
during the 1901 season before her mother's objections almost caused her to withdraw the following year.
In the fall of 1902 Fernandez teamed with C.D. Waldron to lead the Herbert Stock Company in presenting Aristocracy by Bronson Howard
. It was staged at the Circle Theatre, Broadway and Sixtieth Street. Adapted by
David Belasco
and Henry C. De Mille, the play was eventually called The Charity Ball. Fernandez portrayed Ann Cruger, the daughter of a Wall Street
tycoon and an enemy of her sinful brother.
She played roles in The Girl I Left Behind Me as a member of the Empire Theatre Company, The Climbers with the Amelia Bingham Company,
Arms and Man with Arnold Daly, and Man and Superman with Robert Lorraine. In 1937 Fernandez was in the cast of I'd Rather Be Right at the
Alvin Theatre. The musical comedy was written by George S. Kaufman
, Moss Hart
, Richard Rodgers
, and Lorenz Hart
. George M. Cohan
acted the part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Fernandez was among the honored actors at a tea given by the Drama League of New York at The Pierre Hotel
, in November 1937. Her final stage role came in Prescott Proposals with Katharine Cornell
in 1956.
talent scout and later in the same capacity with both Metro Goldwyn Mayer and Warner Bros.
. She signed Patricia Collinge
at the age of 16
and found her a role in The Queen of the Moulin Rouge
She appeared in New Toys (1925), a silent feature which stars Richard Barthelmess
, Mary Hay, and Clifton Webb
. In Just Suppose (1926), a story of the Prince of Wales
who falls in love with an American woman, she played Mrs. Stafford, mother to leading lady
Lois Moran
.
She was a life member of the Episcopal Actors Guild and the Actors' Fund of America. She was elected as
an Actors' Fund trustee for a three year term on May 23, 1919.
She participated in the Stage Women's War Relief during World War I
. For a number of years Fernandez managed the program distribution for several benefits conducted by The Players and The Lambs.
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...
.
Her theatrical career endured for seven decades, from the 1880s until the mid 20th century. She appeared in a few movies in the silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
era.
Child Actress
As a youth she was tutored in acting by Mrs. E.L. Fernandez, her mother, a noted dramatic agent.Fernandez, at the age of thirteen, was described in a review as bright-eyed, slender, and fragile. Her voice and demeanor on stage were likened to an unaffected child. She was not exceedingly precocious as was Bijou Heron
Bijou Heron
Bijou Heron was an American stage actress.Born Helen Wallace Stoepel in New York City, New York, the daughter of composer Robert Stoepel and tragedienne Matilda Heron, she was a child actress in the theatre...
, who acted the role of Adrienne in Monsieur Alphonse, as a juvenile player.
She was a photographer's model known as the photograph queen in 1884. At the time she was under contract to Sarony to be photographed every day. For a May Blossom Picnic she wore a red check dress and danced in Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
.
In August 1884 she acted nightly in May Blossom, with fellow youth actress, Gracie Levard. The venue of the production was the Madison Square Theatre, located near Broadway (Manhattan), on 24th Street, behind the Fifth Avenue (Manhattan)
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...
Hotel. New scenery was painted when May Blossom moved to Niblo's Garden
Niblo's Garden
Niblo's Garden was a New York theatre on Broadway, near Prince Street. It was established in 1823 as "Columbia Garden" which in 1828 gained the name of the Sans Souci and was later the property of the coffeehouse proprietor and caterer William Niblo. The large theatre that evolved in several...
in February 1885. Fernandez played the part of Little May.
She depicted Adriana, wife to Antipholus of Ephesus
Ephesus
Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...
when A Comedy of Errors was staged at the Star Theatre, Broadway & 13th Street, in September 1885. The work of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
was directed by Joseph Brooks. The following November Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman....
was presented by
the Third Avenue (Manhattan)
Third Avenue (Manhattan)
Third Avenue is a north-south thoroughfare on the East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan, running from Cooper Square north for over 120 blocks. Third Avenue continues into The Bronx across the Harlem River over the Third Avenue Bridge north of East 129th Street to East Fordham Road at...
Theatre. Fernandez performed the role of Eva. Mr. and Mrs. G.C. Howard whose daughter had been the original
Eva, acted the characters of Topsy and St. Clair. The couple had been identified with the production of the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom...
for
over thirty years.
She proved popular as a page to Falstaff
Falstaff
Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare. In the two Henry IV plays, he is a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V. A fat, vain, boastful, and cowardly knight, Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and is...
in The Merry Wives, a January 1886 production of Augustin Daly
Augustin Daly
John Augustin Daly was an American theatrical manager and playwright active in both the US and UK.-Biography:Daly was born in Plymouth, North Carolina and educated at Norfolk, Va...
and Daly's Theatre, 1221 Broadway (30th Street).
Fernandez was the recipient of a play, Peggy, The Fisherman's Child, written especially for her in 1887. She played in a production of it for the
first time on June 7, at the Lyceum Theatre (New York)
Lyceum Theatre (New York)
The Lyceum Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 149 West 45th Street in midtown-Manhattan.It has the distinction of being the oldest surviving Broadway venue , the oldest continuously operating legitimate theatre in New York City, and the first Broadway theatre ever to be granted landmark status...
.
She accepted a contract with the Daly company in July 1887, which bound her to the firm for a period of seven years. The terms allowed Fernandez a
liberal salary, furnished her stage costumes and all her clothing, and supervised her education. She was Puck (Shakespeare)
Puck (Shakespeare)
Puck, also known as Robin Goodfellow, is a character in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream that was based on the ancient figure in English mythology, also called Puck. Puck is a clever and mischievous elf and personifies the trickster or the wise knave...
in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
at Daly's Theatre in February 1888.
Mature Stage Performer
In preparing for her characterization of Allison Deyo in Hearts Aflame, in 1902, her mother felt she became too much like the character she was playing. The elder Fernandez remarked to a friend that her daughter had become preoccupied with riding horseback in divided skirts, smoking cigarettes, andmaking high balls. She performed the role at the 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...
during the 1901 season before her mother's objections almost caused her to withdraw the following year.
In the fall of 1902 Fernandez teamed with C.D. Waldron to lead the Herbert Stock Company in presenting Aristocracy by Bronson Howard
Bronson Howard
Bronson Howard was a well-known American dramatist and son of Detroit mayor Charles Howard. He prepared for college at New Haven, Conn., but instead of entering Yale he turned to Journalism in New York. From 1867 to 1872 he worked on several newspapers, among them the Evening Mail and the Tribune...
. It was staged at the Circle Theatre, Broadway and Sixtieth Street. Adapted by
David Belasco
David Belasco
David Belasco was an American theatrical producer, impresario, director and playwright.-Biography:Born in San Francisco, California, where his Sephardic Jewish parents had moved from London, England, during the Gold Rush, he began working in a San Francisco theatre doing a variety of routine jobs,...
and Henry C. De Mille, the play was eventually called The Charity Ball. Fernandez portrayed Ann Cruger, the daughter of a Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
tycoon and an enemy of her sinful brother.
She played roles in The Girl I Left Behind Me as a member of the Empire Theatre Company, The Climbers with the Amelia Bingham Company,
Arms and Man with Arnold Daly, and Man and Superman with Robert Lorraine. In 1937 Fernandez was in the cast of I'd Rather Be Right at the
Alvin Theatre. The musical comedy was written by George S. Kaufman
George S. Kaufman
George Simon Kaufman was an American playwright, theatre director and producer, humorist, and drama critic. In addition to comedies and political satire, he wrote several musicals, notably for the Marx Brothers...
, Moss Hart
Moss Hart
Moss Hart was an American playwright and theatre director, best known for his interpretations of musical theater on Broadway.-Early years:...
, Richard Rodgers
Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II...
, and Lorenz Hart
Lorenz Hart
Lorenz "Larry" Milton Hart was the lyricist half of the famed Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart...
. George M. Cohan
George M. Cohan
George Michael Cohan , known professionally as George M. Cohan, was a major American entertainer, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer, and producer....
acted the part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Fernandez was among the honored actors at a tea given by the Drama League of New York at The Pierre Hotel
The Pierre Hotel
The Pierre is a luxury hotel located at 2 East 61st Street at the intersection of Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City, facing Central Park. The hotel opened in 1930, and is currently owned by Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces of India...
, in November 1937. Her final stage role came in Prescott Proposals with Katharine Cornell
Katharine Cornell
Katharine Cornell was an American stage actress, writer, theater owner and producer. She was born to American parents and raised in Buffalo, New York.Cornell is known as the greatest American stage actress of the 20th century...
in 1956.
Hollywood career
Fernandez joined the Samuel Goldwyn Company after the deaths of her mother and husband, the English actor William L. Abingdon. Abingdon committed suicide in May 1918, in his home at 235 West Seventy-Sixth Street, New York City. Fernandez worked as atalent scout and later in the same capacity with both Metro Goldwyn Mayer and Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
. She signed Patricia Collinge
Patricia Collinge
Patricia Collinge was an Irish American actress. She was born in Dublin, Ireland.-Early life:She was born to F. Channon Collinge and Emmie Russell. Her birth name was Eileen Cecilia Collinge. Collinge was educated first by a visiting governess and then at a girls' school. She took dancing and...
at the age of 16
and found her a role in The Queen of the Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge is a cabaret built in 1889 by Joseph Oller, who also owned the Paris Olympia. Close to Montmartre in the Paris district of Pigalle on Boulevard de Clichy in the 18th arrondissement, it is marked by the red windmill on its roof. The closest métro station is Blanche.The Moulin Rouge is...
She appeared in New Toys (1925), a silent feature which stars Richard Barthelmess
Richard Barthelmess
Richard Semler "Dick" Barthelmess was an Oscar-nominated silent film star.-Early life:Barthelmess was educated at Hudson River Military Academy at Nyack and Trinity College at Hartford, Connecticut...
, Mary Hay, and Clifton Webb
Clifton Webb
Clifton Webb was an American actor, dancer, and singer known for his Oscar-nominated roles in such films as Laura, The Razor's Edge, and Sitting Pretty...
. In Just Suppose (1926), a story of the Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales is a title traditionally granted to the heir apparent to the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the 15 other independent Commonwealth realms...
who falls in love with an American woman, she played Mrs. Stafford, mother to leading lady
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...
Lois Moran
Lois Moran
Lois Moran was an American film actress.She was born Lois Darlington Dowlin in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and died in Sedona, Arizona.-Short career:...
.
Death
Fernandez died following a short illness at University Hopital in New York City in 1961. She lived at the Lancaster Hotel, 22 East 38th Street.She was a life member of the Episcopal Actors Guild and the Actors' Fund of America. She was elected as
an Actors' Fund trustee for a three year term on May 23, 1919.
She participated in the Stage Women's War Relief 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...
. For a number of years Fernandez managed the program distribution for several benefits conducted by The Players and The Lambs.
External links
- Bijou Fernandez postcard
- Bijou Fernandez photo gallery NYP Library
- Bijou Fernandez portrait at the Univ. of Louisville Macauley's Theatre collection