Ellen Terry
Encyclopedia
Dame Ellen Terry, GBE
(27 February 1847 – 21 July 1928) was an English stage actress who became the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain. Among the members of her famous family is her great nephew, John Gielgud
.
Born into a family of actors, Terry began acting as a child in Shakespeare plays and continued as a teen, in London and on tour. At sixteen she married the much older artist George Frederick Watts, but they separated within a year. She briefly returned to acting but then began a relationship with the architect Edward William Godwin
and retired from the stage for six years. She returned to acting in 1874 and was immediately acclaimed for her portrayal of roles in Shakespeare and other classics.
In 1878 she joined Henry Irving
's company as his leading lady, and for more than the next two decades she was considered the leading Shakespearean and comic actress in Britain. Two of her most famous roles were Portia in The Merchant of Venice
and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing
. She and Irving also toured with great success in America and Britain.
In 1903 Terry took over management of London's Imperial Theatre, focusing on the plays of George Bernard Shaw
and Henrik Ibsen
. The venture was a financial failure, however, and Terry then toured and later also lectured. She continued to find acting success until 1920, while also appearing in films until 1922. Her career lasted nearly seven decades.
Alice Ellen Terry (she reversed her given name
s by the time of her first marriage) was born in Coventry, England, the third surviving child born into a theatrical family. Her parents, Benjamin (1818–96), of Irish descent, and Sarah (née Ballard, 1819–92), of Scottish ancestry, were comic actors in a touring company based in Portsmouth
, (where Sarah's father was a Wesleyan minister) and had eleven children. At least five of them became actors: Kate
, Ellen, Marion
, Florence and Fred
. Two other children, George and Charles, were connected with theater management. Terry's sister Kate was a very successful actress until her marriage and retirement from the stage in 1867. Marion, over a long career, played leading roles in over 125 plays.
Terry's first appearance on stage came at the age of eight, when she appeared opposite Charles Kean
as Mamillius in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale
at London's Princess's Theatre
in 1856. She also played the roles of Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1856), Prince Arthur in King John (1858) and Fleance in Macbeth
(1859), continuing at the Princess's Theatre until the Keans' retirement in 1859. While the theatre was closed in the summers, Terry's father presented drawing-room entertainments at the Royal Colosseum, Regent's Park, London, and then on tour. In 1859, she appeared in the comedy Nine Points of the Law, by Tom Taylor
, at the Olympic Theatre
. For the next two years, Terry and her sister Kate toured in sketches and plays, accompanied by their parents and a musician.
Between 1861 and 1862, Terry was engaged by the Royalty Theatre
in London, managed by Madame Albina de Rhona, where she acted with W. H. Kendal, Charles Wyndham and other famous actors. In 1862, she joined her sister Kate in J. H. Chute's stock company at the Theatre Royal in Bristol
, where she played a wide variety of parts, including burlesque roles requiring singing and dancing, as well as roles in Much Ado about Nothing
, Othello
and The Merchant of Venice
. In 1863, Chute opened the Theatre Royal in Bath, where Terry, now aged 15, appeared at the opening as Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream
and then returned to London to join J. B. Buckstone's company at the Haymarket Theatre
in Shakespearean roles as well as Sheridan and modern comedies.
_ellen_terry_(choosing)_by_george_frederic_watts.jpg)
Terry married three times and was involved in numerous relationships. In London, during her engagement at the Haymarket Theatre, she and her sister Kate had their portraits painted by the eminent artist George Frederick Watts. His famous portraits of Terry include Choosing, in which she must select between earthly vanities, symbolised by showy but scent-less camellias, and nobler values symbolised by humble-looking but fragrant violets. His other famous portraits of her include Ophelia and Watchman, and, together with her sister Kate, The Sisters. Watts soon proposed marriage to Terry. She was impressed with Watts's art and elegant lifestyle and wished to please her parents by making an advantageous marriage. She left the stage during the run of Our American Cousin
, a hit comedy by Tom Taylor at the Haymarket, in which she played Mary Meredith. She and Watts married on 20 February 1864 at St Barnabas, Kensington
, seven days before her 17th birthday, when Watts was 46. She was uncomfortable in the role of child bride, and Watts's circle of admirers, including Mrs. Prinsep, were not welcoming. Terry and Watts separated after only ten months of marriage. Nevertheless, during the marriage Terry made the acquaintance of a number of cultured and important and talented people, among them Browning
, Tennyson, Gladstone
, Disraeli and the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron
. Because of Watts's paintings of her and her association with him, she "became a cult figure for poets and painters of the later Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic movements, including Oscar Wilde
".
She returned to acting by 1866. In 1867 Terry performed in several pieces by John Taylor, including A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing at the Adelphi Theatre
, The Antipodes at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
, and Still Waters Run Deep at the Queen's Theatre, Long Acre
. There, later that year, she first played opposite Henry Irving
in the title roles of Katherine and Petruchio, David Garrick
's one-act version of The Taming of the Shrew
. In 1868, over the objection of her parents, Terry began a relationship with the progressive architect-designer and essayist Edward William Godwin
, another man whose taste she admired, whom she had met some years before. With him she retreated to a house, Pigeonwick, in Harpenden
, Hertfordshire
, retiring for six years from acting. They could not marry, as Terry was still married to Watts and did not finalise a divorce until 1877 – then a scandalous situation. With Godwin she had a daughter, Edith Ailsa Geraldine Craig
, in 1869 and a son, Edward Gordon Craig
, in 1872. The surname
Craig was chosen to avoid the stigma of illegitimacy.
The relationship with Godwin cooled in 1874 amid his preoccupation with his architectural practice and financial difficulties, and Terry returned to her acting career, separating from Godwin in 1875. Even after their separation, however, Godwin continued to design costumes for Terry. In 1874, Terry played in a number of Charles Reade
's works, including as Philippa Chester in The Wandering Heir, Susan Merton in It's Never Too Late to Mend, and Helen Rolleston in Our Seamen. The same year, she performed at the Crystal Palace
with Charles Wyndham as Volante in The Honeymoon by John Tobin
and as Kate Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer
by Oliver Goldsmith
.
at the Prince of Wales's Theatre, produced by the Bancrofts
. Oscar Wilde wrote a sonnet
, upon seeing her in this role: "No woman Veronese
looked upon / Was half so fair as thou whom I behold." She recreated this role many times in her career until her last appearance as Portia at London's Old Vic Theatre in 1917. In 1876, she appeared as Lady Teazle in The School for Scandal
, Blanche Haye in a revival of T. W. Robertson's Ours, and the title role in Olivia by William Gorman Wills
at the Court Theatre
(an adaptation of The Vicar of Wakefield
), where she joined the company of John Hare
. Terry married again, in November 1877, to Charles Clavering Wardell Kelly (1839–1885), an actor/journalist whom she had met while appearing in Reade's plays, but Kelly and Terry separated in 1881. After this, Terry was finally reconciled with her parents, whom she had not seen since she began to live out of wedlock with Godwin.
In 1878, the 30 year old Terry joined Henry Irving's company at the Lyceum Theatre as its leading lady, at a generous salary, beginning with Ophelia opposite Irving's Hamlet
. Soon, Terry was regarded as the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain, and in partnership with Irving, reigned as such for over 20 years until they left the Lyceum in 1902. Their 1879 production of The Merchant of Venice ran for an unusual 250 nights, and success followed success in the Shakespeare canon as well as in Tennyson, Bulwer-Lytton
, Reade, Sardou
, and plays by other contemporary playwrights, such as W. G. Wills, and other major plays. In 1879, The Times said of Terry's acting in All is Vanity, or the Cynic's Defeat by Paul Terrier, "Miss Terry's Iris
was a performance of inimitable charm, full of movement, ease, and Laughter... the most exquisite harmony and natural grace... such an Iris might well have turned the head of Diogenes
himself.
Among her most celebrated roles with Irving were Ophelia, Pauline in The Lady of Lyons by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1878), Portia (1879), Queen Henrietta Maria in William Gorman Wills's drama Charles I (1879), Desdemona in Othello
(1881), Camma in Tennyson's short tragedy The Cup (1881), Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing
, another of her signature roles (1882 and often thereafter), Juliet in Romeo and Juliet
(1882), Jeanette in The Lyons Mail by Charles Reade (1883), the title part in Reade's romantic comedy Nance Oldfield (1883), Viola in Twelfth Night (1884), Margaret in the long-running adaptation of Faust by Wills (1885), the title role in Olivia (1885, which she had played earlier at the Court Theatre), Lady Macbeth
in Macbeth
(1888, with incidental music
by Arthur Sullivan
), Queen Katharine in Henry VIII
(1892), Cordelia in King Lear
(1892), Rosamund de Clifford in Becket by Alfred Tennyson (1893), Guinevere
in King Arthur by J. Comyns Carr
, with incidental music by Sullivan (1895), Imogen
in Cymbeline
(1896), the title character in Victorien Sardou
and Émile Moreau
's play Madame Sans-Gêne (1897) and Volumnia in Coriolanus (1901).
Terry made her American debut in 1883, playing Queen Henrietta opposite Irving in Charles I. Among the other roles she essayed on this and six subsequent American tours with Irving were Jeanette, Ophelia, Beatrice, Viola, and her most famous role, Portia. Her last role at the Lyceum was Portia, in 1902, after which she toured in the British the provinces with Irving and his company in the autumn of that year. Whether Irving's relationship with Terry was romantic as well as professional has been the subject of much speculation. According to Michael Holroyd's book about Irving and Terry, A Strange Eventful History, after Irving's death, Terry stated that she and Irving had been lovers and that: "We were terribly in love for a while". Irving was separated, but not divorced from his wife. Terry was separated from Wardell in 1881, and Irving was godfather to both her children. The two travelled on holiday together, and Irving wrote tender letters to Terry.
In London, Terry lived in Earl's Court with her children and pets during the 1880s. She first lived in Longridge Road before moving to Barkston Gardens in 1889, but she kept country homes. In 1900, Terry bought her farmhouse in Small Hythe
, Kent
, England, where she lived for the rest of her life. In 1889, her son joined the Lyceum company as an actor, appearing with the company until 1897, when he retired from the stage to study drawing and produce woodblock engravings. Her daughter, Edith, also played at the Lyceum for several years beginning in 1887, but she eventually turned to stage direction and costume design, creating costumes for Terry and for Lillie Langtry
and others early in the twentieth century.
In 1902, Terry played Mistress Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor
, with Herbert Beerbohm Tree
as Falstaff and Madge Kendal
as Mistress Ford. In the 1890s, Terry had struck up a friendship, and conducted a famous correspondence, with Shaw, who wished to begin a theatrical venture with her. In 1903, Terry formed a new theatrical company, taking over management of the Imperial Theatre with her son, after her business partner, Irving, ended his tenure at the Lyceum in 1902. Here she had complete artistic control and could choose the works in which she would appear, as Irving had done at the Lyceum. The new venture focused on the plays of George Bernard Shaw
and Henrik Ibsen
, including the latter's The Vikings
in 1903, with Terry as the warlike Hiordis, a misjudged role for her. Theatre management turned out to be a financial failure for Terry, who had hoped the venture would showcase the set design and directing talents of her son and the costume designs of her daughter. She then toured England, taking engagements in Nottingham
, Liverpool
, and Wolverhampton
, and created the title role in 1905 in J. M. Barrie
's Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire at the Duke of York's Theatre
. Irving died in 1905 and, upset by his death, Terry briefly left the stage.
_ellen_terry_by_john_singer_sargent.jpg)
She returned to the theatre again in April 1906, playing Lady Cecily Wayneflete to acclaim in Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion
at the Court Theatre and then touring successfully in that role in Britain and America. On 12 June 1906, after 50 years on the stage, a star-studded gala performance was held at the Drury Lane Theatre for Terry's benefit and to celebrate her golden jubilee, at which Enrico Caruso sang, W. S. Gilbert
directed a performance of Trial by Jury
, Eleanora Duse, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Lillie Langtry
, Herbert Beerbohm Tree
, Nellie Melba
, and more than twenty members of Terry's family performed in an act of Much Ado about Nothing with her, among other performances. The benefit raised £6000 for Terry. She next appeared at His Majesty's Theatre
as Hermione in Tree's production of The Winter's Tale
. In 1907 she toured America in Captain Brassbound's Conversion under the direction of Charles Frohman
. During that tour, on 22 March 1907, she married co-star, American James Carew
, who had appeared with her at the Court Theatre. She was thirty years older than Carew. Terry's acting career continued strongly, but her marriage broke up after only two years.
In 1908, she was back at His Majesty's, playing Aunt Imogen in W. Graham Robertson's fairy play Pinkie and the Fairies. She played as Nance Oldfield in a A Pageant of Great Women written in 1909 by Cicely Hamilton and directed by Terry's daughter Edith Craig. In 1910 she toured in the provinces and then in the U.S. with much success, acting, giving recitations and lecturing on the Shakespeare heroines. Returning to England, she played roles such as Nell Gwynne in The First Actress by Christopher St. John (Christabel Marshall; 1911). Also in 1911, she recorded scenes from five Shakespeare roles for the Victor Talking Machine Company
, the only known recordings of her voice. In 1914 to 1915, Terry toured Australasia, the U.S. and Britain, again reciting and lecturing on the Shakespeare heroines. While in the U.S., she underwent an operation for the removal of cataracts from both eyes, but the operation was only partly successful. In 1916, she played Darling in Barrie
's The Admirable Crichton
(1916). During World War I
she performed in many war benefits.
In 1916, she appeared in her first film as Julia Lovelace in Her Greatest Performance and continued to act in London and on tour, also making a few more films through 1922, including The Invasion of Britain (1918), Pillars of Society
(1920), Victory and Peace, Potter's Clay (1922), and The Bohemian Girl
as Buda the nursemaid, with Ivor Novello
and Gladys Cooper
(1922). She also continued to lecture on Shakespeare throughout England and North America. She also gave scenes from Shakespeare plays in music halls under the management of Oswald Stoll. Her last fully staged role was as the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet
at the Lyric Theatre
in 1919. In 1920 she retired from the stage and in 1922 from film, although she returned to play Susan Wildersham in Walter de la Mare's fairy play Crossings, in November 1925 at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith.
In 1922, St. Andrews University conferred an honorary LLD upon Terry, and in 1925 she was made a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire
, only the second actress to be so honoured. In her last years, she gradually lost her eyesight and suffered from senility. Stephen Coleridge
anonymously published Terry's second autobiography, The Heart of Ellen Terry in 1928.
Terry died of a cerebral haemorrhage at her home at Smallhythe Place
, near Tenterden
, Kent
, England, at age 81. She was cremated at Golders Green, Middlesex. Her ashes rest in a silver chalice on the right side of the chancel
of the actors' church, St Paul's, Covent Garden
, London, where a memorial tablet was unveiled by Sir John Martin-Harvey.
in 1939. Also following her death, Terry's correspondence with Shaw was published. Over three thousand letters survive.
Terry's daughter Edith Craig
became a theatre director, producer, costume designer and early pioneer of the women's suffrage
movement in England; her son, Edward Gordon Craig
, became an actor, scenery and effects designer, illustrator and director and founded the Gordon Craig School for the Art of the Theatre in Florence
, Italy, in 1913; and her grandnephew was the actor John Gielgud
. The singer Helen Terry
and illustrator Helen Craig
are also her descendants.
Biographies and correspondence:
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(27 February 1847 – 21 July 1928) was an English stage actress who became the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain. Among the members of her famous family is her great nephew, John Gielgud
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
.
Born into a family of actors, Terry began acting as a child in Shakespeare plays and continued as a teen, in London and on tour. At sixteen she married the much older artist George Frederick Watts, but they separated within a year. She briefly returned to acting but then began a relationship with the architect Edward William Godwin
Edward William Godwin
Edward William Godwin was a progressive English architect-designer, who began his career working in the strongly polychromatic "Ruskinian Gothic" style of mid-Victorian Britain, inspired by The Stones of Venice, then moved on to provide designs in the "Anglo-Japanese taste" of the Aesthetic...
and retired from the stage for six years. She returned to acting in 1874 and was immediately acclaimed for her portrayal of roles in Shakespeare and other classics.
In 1878 she joined Henry Irving
Henry Irving
Sir Henry Irving , born John Henry Brodribb, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility for season after season at the Lyceum Theatre, establishing himself and his company as...
's company as his leading lady, and for more than the next two decades she was considered the leading Shakespearean and comic actress in Britain. Two of her most famous roles were Portia in The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic...
and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy written by William Shakespeare about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero....
. She and Irving also toured with great success in America and Britain.
In 1903 Terry took over management of London's Imperial Theatre, focusing on the plays of George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
and 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 venture was a financial failure, however, and Terry then toured and later also lectured. She continued to find acting success until 1920, while also appearing in films until 1922. Her career lasted nearly seven decades.
Early life and career
Given name
A given name, in Western contexts often referred to as a first name, is a personal name that specifies and differentiates between members of a group of individuals, especially in a family, all of whose members usually share the same family name...
s by the time of her first marriage) was born in Coventry, England, the third surviving child born into a theatrical family. Her parents, Benjamin (1818–96), of Irish descent, and Sarah (née Ballard, 1819–92), of Scottish ancestry, were comic actors in a touring company based in Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
, (where Sarah's father was a Wesleyan minister) and had eleven children. At least five of them became actors: Kate
Kate Terry
Kate Terry was an English actress. Elder sister of the famous Ellen Terry, she was born into a theatrical family, made her debut when still a child, became a leading lady in her own right, and left the stage in 1867 to marry. In retirement she commented that she was 20 years on the stage, yet...
, Ellen, Marion
Marion Terry
Marion Bessie Terry was an English actress. In a career spanning half a century, she played leading roles in more than 125 plays. Always in the shadow of her more famous sister Ellen, Terry nevertheless achieved considerable success in the plays of W. S...
, Florence and Fred
Fred Terry
Fred Terry was an English actor and theatrical manager. After establishing his reputation in London and in the provinces for a decade, he joined the company of Herbert Beerbohm Tree where he remained for four years, meeting his future wife, Julia Neilson...
. Two other children, George and Charles, were connected with theater management. Terry's sister Kate was a very successful actress until her marriage and retirement from the stage in 1867. Marion, over a long career, played leading roles in over 125 plays.
Terry's first appearance on stage came at the age of eight, when she appeared opposite Charles Kean
Charles Kean
Charles John Kean , was born at Waterford, Ireland, the son of the actor Edmund Kean.After preparatory education at Worplesdon and at Greenford, near Harrow, he was sent to Eton College, where he remained three years...
as Mamillius in Shakespeare's 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...
at London's Princess's Theatre
Princess's Theatre, London
The Princess's Theatre or Princess Theatre was a theatre in Oxford Street, London. The building opened in 1828 as the "Queen's Bazaar" and housed a diorama by Clarkson Stanfield and David Roberts. It was converted into a theatre and opened in 1836 as the Princess's Theatre, named for then Princess...
in 1856. She also played the roles of Puck in 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...
(1856), Prince Arthur in King John (1858) and Fleance in Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
(1859), continuing at the Princess's Theatre until the Keans' retirement in 1859. While the theatre was closed in the summers, Terry's father presented drawing-room entertainments at the Royal Colosseum, Regent's Park, London, and then on tour. In 1859, she appeared in the comedy Nine Points of the Law, by Tom Taylor
Tom Taylor
Tom Taylor was an English dramatist, critic, biographer, public servant, and editor of Punch magazine...
, at the Olympic Theatre
Olympic Theatre
The Olympic Theatre, sometimes known as the Royal Olympic Theatre, was a 19th-century London theatre, opened in 1806 and located at the junction of Drury Lane, Wych Street, and Newcastle Street. The theatre specialised in comedies throughout much of its existence...
. For the next two years, Terry and her sister Kate toured in sketches and plays, accompanied by their parents and a musician.
Between 1861 and 1862, Terry was engaged by the Royalty Theatre
Royalty Theatre
The Royalty Theatre was a small London theatre situated at 73 Dean Street, Soho and opened on 25 May 1840 as Miss Kelly's Theatre and Dramatic School and finally closed to the public in 1938. The architect was Samuel Beazley, a resident in Soho Square, who also designed St James's Theatre, among...
in London, managed by Madame Albina de Rhona, where she acted with W. H. Kendal, Charles Wyndham and other famous actors. In 1862, she joined her sister Kate in J. H. Chute's stock company at the Theatre Royal in Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
, where she played a wide variety of parts, including burlesque roles requiring singing and dancing, as well as roles in Much Ado about Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy written by William Shakespeare about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero....
, Othello
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
and The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic...
. In 1863, Chute opened the Theatre Royal in Bath, where Terry, now aged 15, appeared at the opening as Titania in 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...
and then returned to London to join J. B. Buckstone's company at the Haymarket Theatre
Haymarket Theatre
The Theatre Royal Haymarket is a West End theatre in the Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use...
in Shakespearean roles as well as Sheridan and modern comedies.
Watts, Godwin, Portia
Our American Cousin
Our American Cousin is an 1858 play in three acts by English playwright Tom Taylor. The play is a farce whose plot is based on the introduction of an awkward, boorish but honest American, Asa Trenchard, to his aristocratic English relatives when he goes to England to claim the family estate...
, a hit comedy by Tom Taylor at the Haymarket, in which she played Mary Meredith. She and Watts married on 20 February 1864 at St Barnabas, Kensington
Kensington
Kensington is a district of west and central London, England within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.To the north, Kensington is...
, seven days before her 17th birthday, when Watts was 46. She was uncomfortable in the role of child bride, and Watts's circle of admirers, including Mrs. Prinsep, were not welcoming. Terry and Watts separated after only ten months of marriage. Nevertheless, during the marriage Terry made the acquaintance of a number of cultured and important and talented people, among them Browning
Robert Browning
Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...
, Tennyson, Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...
, Disraeli and the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron
Julia Margaret Cameron
Julia Margaret Cameron was a British photographer. She became known for her portraits of celebrities of the time, and for photographs with Arthurian and other legendary themes....
. Because of Watts's paintings of her and her association with him, she "became a cult figure for poets and painters of the later Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic movements, including Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
".
Adelphi Theatre
The Adelphi Theatre is a 1500-seat West End theatre, located on the Strand in the City of Westminster. The present building is the fourth on the site. The theatre has specialised in comedy and musical theatre, and today it is a receiving house for a variety of productions, including many musicals...
, The Antipodes at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
, and Still Waters Run Deep at the Queen's Theatre, Long Acre
Queen's Theatre, Long Acre
The Queen's Theatre was established in 1867, as a theatre on the site of St Martin's Hall, a large concert room that opened in 1850. It stood on the corner of Long Acre and Endell Street, with entrances in Wilson Street and Long Acre...
. There, later that year, she first played opposite Henry Irving
Henry Irving
Sir Henry Irving , born John Henry Brodribb, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility for season after season at the Lyceum Theatre, establishing himself and his company as...
in the title roles of Katherine and Petruchio, David Garrick
David Garrick
David Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson...
's one-act version of The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1591.The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the Induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Sly into believing he is actually a nobleman himself...
. In 1868, over the objection of her parents, Terry began a relationship with the progressive architect-designer and essayist Edward William Godwin
Edward William Godwin
Edward William Godwin was a progressive English architect-designer, who began his career working in the strongly polychromatic "Ruskinian Gothic" style of mid-Victorian Britain, inspired by The Stones of Venice, then moved on to provide designs in the "Anglo-Japanese taste" of the Aesthetic...
, another man whose taste she admired, whom she had met some years before. With him she retreated to a house, Pigeonwick, in Harpenden
Harpenden
Harpenden is a town in Hertfordshire, England.The town's total population is just under 30,000.-Geography and administration:There are two civil parishes: Harpenden and Harpenden Rural....
, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
, retiring for six years from acting. They could not marry, as Terry was still married to Watts and did not finalise a divorce until 1877 – then a scandalous situation. With Godwin she had a daughter, Edith Ailsa Geraldine Craig
Edith Craig
Edith Ailsa Geraldine Craig was a prolific theatre director, producer, costume designer and early pioneer of the women's suffrage movement in England...
, in 1869 and a son, Edward Gordon Craig
Edward Gordon Craig
Edward Henry Gordon Craig , sometimes known as Gordon Craig, was an English modernist theatre practitioner; he worked as an actor, director and scenic designer, as well as developing an influential body of theoretical writings...
, in 1872. The surname
Surname
A surname is a name added to a given name and is part of a personal name. In many cases, a surname is a family name. Many dictionaries define "surname" as a synonym of "family name"...
Craig was chosen to avoid the stigma of illegitimacy.
The relationship with Godwin cooled in 1874 amid his preoccupation with his architectural practice and financial difficulties, and Terry returned to her acting career, separating from Godwin in 1875. Even after their separation, however, Godwin continued to design costumes for Terry. In 1874, Terry played in a number of Charles Reade
Charles Reade
Charles Reade was an English novelist and dramatist, best known for The Cloister and the Hearth.-Life:Charles Reade was born at Ipsden, Oxfordshire to John Reade and Anne Marie Scott-Waring; William Winwood Reade the influential historian , was his nephew. He studied at Magdalen College, Oxford,...
's works, including as Philippa Chester in The Wandering Heir, Susan Merton in It's Never Too Late to Mend, and Helen Rolleston in Our Seamen. The same year, she performed at the Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and glass building originally erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace's of exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in...
with Charles Wyndham as Volante in The Honeymoon by John Tobin
John Tobin (dramatist)
John Tobin was a British playwright, who was for most of his life unsuccessful, but in the year of his death made a hit with The Honey Moon...
and as Kate Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer
She Stoops to Conquer
She Stoops to Conquer is a comedy by the Irish author Oliver Goldsmith, son of an Anglo-Irish vicar, first performed in London in 1773. The play is a great favourite for study by English literature and theatre classes in Britain and the United States. It is one of the few plays from the 18th...
by Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith was an Irish writer, poet and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield , his pastoral poem The Deserted Village , and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer...
.
Shakespeare, Irving, Lyceum
In 1875, Terry gave an acclaimed performance as Portia in The Merchant of VeniceThe Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic...
at the Prince of Wales's Theatre, produced by the Bancrofts
Squire Bancroft
Sir Squire Bancroft , born Squire White Butterfield, was an English actor-manager. He and his wife Effie Bancroft are considered to have instigated a new form of drama known as 'drawing-room comedy' or 'cup and saucer drama', owing to the realism of their stage sets.-Early life and career:Bancroft...
. Oscar Wilde wrote a sonnet
Sonnet
A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...
, upon seeing her in this role: "No woman Veronese
Paolo Veronese
Paolo Veronese was an Italian painter of the Renaissance in Venice, famous for paintings such as The Wedding at Cana and The Feast in the House of Levi...
looked upon / Was half so fair as thou whom I behold." She recreated this role many times in her career until her last appearance as Portia at London's Old Vic Theatre in 1917. In 1876, she appeared as Lady Teazle in The School for Scandal
The School for Scandal
The School for Scandal is a play written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It was first performed in London at Drury Lane Theatre on May 8, 1777.The prologue, written by David Garrick, commends the play, its subject, and its author to the audience...
, Blanche Haye in a revival of T. W. Robertson's Ours, and the title role in Olivia by William Gorman Wills
William Gorman Wills
William Gorman Wills , was an Irish dramatist and painter.-Biography:The son of James Wills , author of Lives of Illustrious and Distinguished Irishmen, William was born in Dublin and educated at Waterford Grammar School and Trinity College, Dublin.After publishing his novel Old Times in an Irish...
at the Court Theatre
Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...
(an adaptation of The Vicar of Wakefield
The Vicar of Wakefield
The Vicar of Wakefield is a novel by Irish author Oliver Goldsmith. It was written in 1761 and 1762, and published in 1766, and was one of the most popular and widely read 18th-century novels among Victorians...
), where she joined the company of John Hare
John Hare (actor)
Sir John Hare , born John Fairs, was an English actor and manager of the Garrick Theatre in London from 1889 to 1895.-Biography:Hare was born in Giggleswick in Yorkshire and was educated at Giggleswick school...
. Terry married again, in November 1877, to Charles Clavering Wardell Kelly (1839–1885), an actor/journalist whom she had met while appearing in Reade's plays, but Kelly and Terry separated in 1881. After this, Terry was finally reconciled with her parents, whom she had not seen since she began to live out of wedlock with Godwin.
In 1878, the 30 year old Terry joined Henry Irving's company at the Lyceum Theatre as its leading lady, at a generous salary, beginning with Ophelia opposite Irving's Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
. Soon, Terry was regarded as the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain, and in partnership with Irving, reigned as such for over 20 years until they left the Lyceum in 1902. Their 1879 production of The Merchant of Venice ran for an unusual 250 nights, and success followed success in the Shakespeare canon as well as in Tennyson, Bulwer-Lytton
Bulwer-Lytton
Bulwer-Lytton is a surname, and may refer to:* Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton , novelist and politician* Rosina Bulwer Lytton , feminist writer and wife of Edward Bulwer-Lytton...
, Reade, Sardou
Sardou
Sardou is a surname, and may refer to:* Saint Sacerdos of Limoges, also known as Saint Sardou* Victorien Sardou, French dramatist* Victorien Sardou was also the basis for naming Eggs Sardou, which is a part of Creole cuisine....
, and plays by other contemporary playwrights, such as W. G. Wills, and other major plays. In 1879, The Times said of Terry's acting in All is Vanity, or the Cynic's Defeat by Paul Terrier, "Miss Terry's Iris
Iris (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Iris is the personification of the rainbow and messenger of the gods. As the sun unites Earth and heaven, Iris links the gods to humanity...
was a performance of inimitable charm, full of movement, ease, and Laughter... the most exquisite harmony and natural grace... such an Iris might well have turned the head of Diogenes
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes the Cynic was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynic philosophy. Also known as Diogenes of Sinope , he was born in Sinope , an Ionian colony on the Black Sea , in 412 or 404 BCE and died at Corinth in 323 BCE.Diogenes of Sinope was a controversial figure...
himself.
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
(1881), Camma in Tennyson's short tragedy The Cup (1881), Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy written by William Shakespeare about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero....
, another of her signature roles (1882 and often thereafter), Juliet in Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
(1882), Jeanette in The Lyons Mail by Charles Reade (1883), the title part in Reade's romantic comedy Nance Oldfield (1883), Viola in Twelfth Night (1884), Margaret in the long-running adaptation of Faust by Wills (1885), the title role in Olivia (1885, which she had played earlier at the Court Theatre), Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth may refer to:*Lady Macbeth, from William Shakespeare's play Macbeth**Queen Gruoch of Scotland, the real-life Queen on whom Shakespeare based the character...
in Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
(1888, with incidental music
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
by Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
), Queen Katharine in Henry VIII
Henry VIII (play)
The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight is a history play by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, based on the life of Henry VIII of England. An alternative title, All is True, is recorded in contemporary documents, the title Henry VIII not appearing until the play's publication...
(1892), Cordelia in King Lear
King Lear
King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...
(1892), Rosamund de Clifford in Becket by Alfred Tennyson (1893), Guinevere
Guinevere
Guinevere was the legendary queen consort of King Arthur. In tales and folklore, she was said to have had a love affair with Arthur's chief knight Sir Lancelot...
in King Arthur by J. Comyns Carr
J. Comyns Carr
Joseph William Comyns Carr was an English drama and art critic, gallery director, author, poet, playwright and theatre manager....
, with incidental music by Sullivan (1895), Imogen
Imogen (Shakespeare)
Imogen was the daughter of King Cymbeline, in Shakespeare's play, Cymbeline. She was described by William Hazlitt as "perhaps the most tender and the most artless" of all Shakespeare's women.-Name:...
in Cymbeline
Cymbeline
Cymbeline , also known as Cymbeline, King of Britain or The Tragedy of Cymbeline, is a play by William Shakespeare, based on legends concerning the early Celtic British King Cunobelinus. Although listed as a tragedy in the First Folio, modern critics often classify Cymbeline as a romance...
(1896), the title character in Victorien Sardou
Victorien Sardou
Victorien Sardou was a French dramatist. He is best remembered today for his development, along with Eugène Scribe, of the well-made play...
and Émile Moreau
Émile Moreau
Émile Moreau was a French playwright and screenwriter. In co-operation with Victorien Sardou, he wrote the plays Madame Sans-Gêne and Cleopatre . He also wrote the play Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth, and the script for its film adaptation, and was one of the co-founders of the Indian...
's play Madame Sans-Gêne (1897) and Volumnia in Coriolanus (1901).
Terry made her American debut in 1883, playing Queen Henrietta opposite Irving in Charles I. Among the other roles she essayed on this and six subsequent American tours with Irving were Jeanette, Ophelia, Beatrice, Viola, and her most famous role, Portia. Her last role at the Lyceum was Portia, in 1902, after which she toured in the British the provinces with Irving and his company in the autumn of that year. Whether Irving's relationship with Terry was romantic as well as professional has been the subject of much speculation. According to Michael Holroyd's book about Irving and Terry, A Strange Eventful History, after Irving's death, Terry stated that she and Irving had been lovers and that: "We were terribly in love for a while". Irving was separated, but not divorced from his wife. Terry was separated from Wardell in 1881, and Irving was godfather to both her children. The two travelled on holiday together, and Irving wrote tender letters to Terry.
In London, Terry lived in Earl's Court with her children and pets during the 1880s. She first lived in Longridge Road before moving to Barkston Gardens in 1889, but she kept country homes. In 1900, Terry bought her farmhouse in Small Hythe
Small Hythe
Small Hythe is a hamlet near Tenterden in Kent, England.It stood on a branch of the Rother estuary and was a busy shipbuilding port in the 15th century, before the silting up and draining of the Romney Marshes....
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, England, where she lived for the rest of her life. In 1889, her son joined the Lyceum company as an actor, appearing with the company until 1897, when he retired from the stage to study drawing and produce woodblock engravings. Her daughter, Edith, also played at the Lyceum for several years beginning in 1887, but she eventually turned to stage direction and costume design, creating costumes for Terry and for Lillie Langtry
Lillie Langtry
Lillie Langtry , usually spelled Lily Langtry when she was in the U.S., born Emilie Charlotte Le Breton, was a British actress born on the island of Jersey...
and others early in the twentieth century.
Shaw, Ibsen, Barrie
The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare, first published in 1602, though believed to have been written prior to 1597. It features the fat knight Sir John Falstaff, and is Shakespeare's only play to deal exclusively with contemporary Elizabethan era English middle class life...
, with Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree was an English actor and theatre manager.Tree began performing in the 1870s. By 1887, he was managing the Haymarket Theatre, winning praise for adventurous programming and lavish productions, and starring in many of its productions. In 1899, he helped fund the...
as Falstaff and Madge Kendal
Madge Kendal
Dame Madge Kendal GBE , born as Margaret Shafto Robertson, was an English actress of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, best known for her roles in Shakespeare and English comedies. Together with her husband, W. H...
as Mistress Ford. In the 1890s, Terry had struck up a friendship, and conducted a famous correspondence, with Shaw, who wished to begin a theatrical venture with her. In 1903, Terry formed a new theatrical company, taking over management of the Imperial Theatre with her son, after her business partner, Irving, ended his tenure at the Lyceum in 1902. Here she had complete artistic control and could choose the works in which she would appear, as Irving had done at the Lyceum. The new venture focused on the plays of George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
and 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...
, including the latter's The Vikings
The Vikings at Helgeland
The Vikings at Helgeland is Henrik Ibsen's seventh play.The Vikings at Helgeland was written during 1857 and first performed at Christiania Norske Theater in Oslo on 24 November 1858. The scenes take place during the time of Erik Blood-axe in the north of Norway in historic Helgeland...
in 1903, with Terry as the warlike Hiordis, a misjudged role for her. Theatre management turned out to be a financial failure for Terry, who had hoped the venture would showcase the set design and directing talents of her son and the costume designs of her daughter. She then toured England, taking engagements in Nottingham
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
, Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, and Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. For Eurostat purposes Walsall and Wolverhampton is a NUTS 3 region and is one of five boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "West Midlands" NUTS 2 region...
, and created the title role in 1905 in J. M. Barrie
J. M. Barrie
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...
's Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire at the Duke of York's Theatre
Duke of York's Theatre
The Duke of York's Theatre is a West End Theatre in St Martin's Lane, in the City of Westminster. It was built for Frank Wyatt and his wife, Violet Melnotte, who retained ownership of the theatre, until her death in 1935. It opened on 10 September 1892 as the Trafalgar Square Theatre, with Wedding...
. Irving died in 1905 and, upset by his death, Terry briefly left the stage.
Captain Brassbound's Conversion
Captain Brassbound's Conversion is a play by G. Bernard Shaw. It was published in Shaw's 1901 collection Three Plays for Puritans . The first American production of the play starred Ellen Terry in 1907....
at the Court Theatre and then touring successfully in that role in Britain and America. On 12 June 1906, after 50 years on the stage, a star-studded gala performance was held at the Drury Lane Theatre for Terry's benefit and to celebrate her golden jubilee, at which Enrico Caruso sang, 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...
directed a performance of Trial by Jury
Trial by Jury
Trial by Jury is a comic opera in one act, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was first produced on 25 March 1875, at London's Royalty Theatre, where it initially ran for 131 performances and was considered a hit, receiving critical praise and outrunning its...
, Eleanora Duse, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Lillie Langtry
Lillie Langtry
Lillie Langtry , usually spelled Lily Langtry when she was in the U.S., born Emilie Charlotte Le Breton, was a British actress born on the island of Jersey...
, Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree was an English actor and theatre manager.Tree began performing in the 1870s. By 1887, he was managing the Haymarket Theatre, winning praise for adventurous programming and lavish productions, and starring in many of its productions. In 1899, he helped fund the...
, Nellie Melba
Nellie Melba
Dame Nellie Melba GBE , born Helen "Nellie" Porter Mitchell, was an Australian operatic soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian Era and the early 20th century...
, and more than twenty members of Terry's family performed in an act of Much Ado about Nothing with her, among other performances. The benefit raised £6000 for Terry. She next appeared at His Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...
as Hermione in Tree's production of 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 1907 she toured America in Captain Brassbound's Conversion under the direction 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....
. During that tour, on 22 March 1907, she married co-star, American James Carew
James Carew
James Carew was an American actor who appeared in many films, mainly in Britain. He was born in Goshen, Indiana in 1876 and began work as a clerk in a publishing firm...
, who had appeared with her at the Court Theatre. She was thirty years older than Carew. Terry's acting career continued strongly, but her marriage broke up after only two years.
In 1908, she was back at His Majesty's, playing Aunt Imogen in W. Graham Robertson's fairy play Pinkie and the Fairies. She played as Nance Oldfield in a A Pageant of Great Women written in 1909 by Cicely Hamilton and directed by Terry's daughter Edith Craig. In 1910 she toured in the provinces and then in the U.S. with much success, acting, giving recitations and lecturing on the Shakespeare heroines. Returning to England, she played roles such as Nell Gwynne in The First Actress by Christopher St. John (Christabel Marshall; 1911). Also in 1911, she recorded scenes from five Shakespeare roles for the Victor Talking Machine Company
Victor Talking Machine Company
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American corporation, the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. It was headquartered in Camden, New Jersey....
, the only known recordings of her voice. In 1914 to 1915, Terry toured Australasia, the U.S. and Britain, again reciting and lecturing on the Shakespeare heroines. While in the U.S., she underwent an operation for the removal of cataracts from both eyes, but the operation was only partly successful. In 1916, she played Darling in Barrie
J. M. Barrie
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...
's The Admirable Crichton
The Admirable Crichton
The Admirable Crichton is a comic stage play written in 1902 by J. M. Barrie. It was produced by Charles Frohman and opened at the Duke of York's Theatre in London on 4 November 1902, running for an extremely successful 828 performances. It starred H. B. Irving and Irene Vanbrugh...
(1916). 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...
she performed in many war benefits.
Films, last years
Pillars of Society (film)
Pillars of Society is a 1920 British silent drama film directed by Rex Wilson and starring Ellen Terry, Norman McKinnel and Mary Rorke. It was based on the 1877 play The Pillars of Society by Henrik Ibsen. Location shooting was done in Norway.-Cast:...
(1920), Victory and Peace, Potter's Clay (1922), and The Bohemian Girl
The Bohemian Girl (1922 film)
The Bohemian Girl is a 1922 British romance film directed by Harley Knoles and starring Gladys Cooper, Ivor Novello and C. Aubrey Smith. It was inspired by the opera The Bohemian Girl by Michael William Balfe and Alfred Bunn which was in turn based on a novel by Cervantes.-Cast:* Gladys Cooper -...
as Buda the nursemaid, with Ivor Novello
Ivor Novello
David Ivor Davies , better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. Born into a musical family, his first successes were as a songwriter...
and Gladys Cooper
Gladys Cooper
Dame Gladys Constance Cooper, DBE was an English actress whose career spanned seven decades on stage, in films and on television....
(1922). She also continued to lecture on Shakespeare throughout England and North America. She also gave scenes from Shakespeare plays in music halls under the management of Oswald Stoll. Her last fully staged role was as the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
at the Lyric Theatre
Lyric Theatre (London)
The Lyric Theatre is a West End theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster.Designed by architect C. J. Phipps, it was built by producer Henry Leslie with profits from the Alfred Cellier and B. C. Stephenson hit, Dorothy, which he transferred from the Prince of Wales Theatre to open...
in 1919. In 1920 she retired from the stage and in 1922 from film, although she returned to play Susan Wildersham in Walter de la Mare's fairy play Crossings, in November 1925 at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith.
In 1922, St. Andrews University conferred an honorary LLD upon Terry, and in 1925 she was made a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
, only the second actress to be so honoured. In her last years, she gradually lost her eyesight and suffered from senility. Stephen Coleridge
Stephen Coleridge
Stephen William Buchanan Coleridge was a UK author, barrister, opponent of vivisection and co-founder of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children....
anonymously published Terry's second autobiography, The Heart of Ellen Terry in 1928.
Terry died of a cerebral haemorrhage at her home at Smallhythe Place
Smallhythe Place
Smallhythe Place in Small Hythe, near Tenterden in Kent, is a half-timbered house built in the late 15th or early 16th century. The house was originally called 'Port House' and before the sea receded it served a thriving shipyard: in Old English hythe means "landing place"...
, near Tenterden
Tenterden
Tenterden is a Cinque Port town in the Ashford District of Kent, England. It stands on the edge of the Weald, overlooking the valley of the River Rother....
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, England, at age 81. She was cremated at Golders Green, Middlesex. Her ashes rest in a silver chalice on the right side of the chancel
Chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar in the sanctuary at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building...
of the actors' church, St Paul's, Covent Garden
St Paul's, Covent Garden
St Paul's Church, also commonly known as the Actors' Church, is a church designed by Inigo Jones as part of a commission by Francis Russell, 4th Earl of Bedford in 1631 to create "houses and buildings fitt for the habitacons of Gentlemen and men of ability" in Covent Garden, London, England.As well...
, London, where a memorial tablet was unveiled by Sir John Martin-Harvey.
Legacy
After her death, the Ellen Terry Memorial Museum was founded in her memory at Smallhythe Place, an early 16th century house that she bought at the turn of the 20th century. The museum was taken over by the National TrustNational Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
in 1939. Also following her death, Terry's correspondence with Shaw was published. Over three thousand letters survive.
Terry's daughter Edith Craig
Edith Craig
Edith Ailsa Geraldine Craig was a prolific theatre director, producer, costume designer and early pioneer of the women's suffrage movement in England...
became a theatre director, producer, costume designer and early pioneer of the women's suffrage
Suffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply the franchise, distinct from mere voting rights, is the civil right to vote gained through the democratic process...
movement in England; her son, Edward Gordon Craig
Edward Gordon Craig
Edward Henry Gordon Craig , sometimes known as Gordon Craig, was an English modernist theatre practitioner; he worked as an actor, director and scenic designer, as well as developing an influential body of theoretical writings...
, became an actor, scenery and effects designer, illustrator and director and founded the Gordon Craig School for the Art of the Theatre in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, Italy, in 1913; and her grandnephew was the actor John Gielgud
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
. The singer Helen Terry
Helen Terry
Helen Terry is a British singer, known for her backing vocal work with Culture Club. As a solo performer, she scored a Top 40 hit single in 1984 with "Love Lies Lost", and released one album in 1986, Blue Notes....
and illustrator Helen Craig
Helen Craig
Helen Craig is a British children's book illustrator and author, best known for creating the Angelina Ballerina series of children's books with writer Katharine Holabird....
are also her descendants.
Sources
- Auerbach, Nina. Ellen Terry: Player in Her Time (1987) W. W. Norton; (1997) University of Pennsylvania Press ISBN 978-0-8122-1613-4
- Cockin, Katharine. Edith Craig (1869-1947): Dramatic Lives (1998) Cassell.
- Cockin, Katharine ed. Ellen Terry, Spheres of Influence (2011) Pickering & Chatto.
- "Drama: This Week." The Athenæum. 19 January 1895, p. 93.
- Goodman, Jennifer R. "The Last of Avalon: Henry Irving's King Arthur of 1895." Harvard Library Bulletin, 32.3 (Summer 1984) pp. 239–55.
- Hartnoll, Phyllis and Peter Found, The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. (1992) Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-866136-3
- Holroyd, Michael. A Strange Eventful History, Farrar Straus Giroux, 2008 ISBN 0-7011-7987-2
- Manvell, Roger. Ellen Terry. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1968.
- Parker, J. ed., Who's who in the theatre, 11th edn (1952)
- Prideaux, Tom. Love or Nothing: The Life and Times of Ellen Terry (1976) Scribner.
- Scott, Clement. Ellen Terry (1900) New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1900.
- Shearer, Moira. Ellen Terry (1998) Sutton.
- Stoker, Brame. Personal reminiscences of Henry Irving, 2 vols. (1906)
- Information about Terry and Irving at the People Play UK website
Biographies and correspondence:
- Cheshire, David F. Portrait of Ellen Terry (1989) Amber Lane Press, ISBN 0906399939
- Craig, E. G. Ellen Terry and her secret self (1932)
- Ellen Terry and Bernard Shaw: A Correspondence (1931); and The Shaw-Terry Letters: A Romantic Correspondence (both edited by Christopher St. John)
- The Heart of Ellen Terry (1928) Ed. Stephen Coleridge [anon.] London; Mills & Boon, ltd.
- Fletcher, Constance. Bright Star: Portrait of Ellen Terry (1970)
- Hiatt, C. Ellen Terry and her impersonations (1908)
- Pemberton, Thomas Edgar. Ellen Terry and Her Sisters, London: C.A. Pearson (1902)
- R. Manvell, Ellen Terry (1968)
- St John, Christopher. Ellen Terry (1907) (1908) London: Hutchinson & Co; (1982) Schocken Books
- Cockin, Katharine ed. The Collected Letters of Ellen Terry (2010 onwards) London: Pickering & Chatto.
External links
- Ellen Terry at the Family Records Centre
- Links to descriptions of Terry's performances with photos
- Profile and photos of Terry
- Terry bibliography
- Links to Photos and a review of Terry
- Photos of Terry and of her funeral
- Paintings and other images of Terry
- Drawing of Terry as Portia in The Merchant of Venice
- Drawing of Terry and Irving as Ophelia and Hamlet and information from the People Play website
- Photos of Terry's home at Smallhyth and of Terry
- Photographs, etchings and biographical material relating to Ellen Terry at the Toronto Public Library
- AHRC Ellen Terry and Edith Craig Archive Database