Ellaline Terriss
Ellaline Terriss | |
---|---|
Born | Mary Ellaline Lewin 13 April 1871 |
Died | 16 June 1971 | (aged 100)
Occupation | Actress |
Spouse | |
Children | 2 |
Mary Ellaline Terriss, Lady Hicks (born Mary Ellaline Lewin,
The daughter of the actor
In 1897, her father was murdered by a deranged actor. As a result, she received much public sympathy, returning to the stage to star in A Runaway Girl in 1898, one of her most successful shows. In the 1900s, she starred in a series of long-running hits, including Bluebell in Fairyland (1901), Quality Street (1902), The Catch of the Season (1905) and The Beauty of Bath (1906). After 1910, Terriss concentrated on comedy roles and music hall tours. Her unsuccessful return to musical comedy, Cash on Delivery (1917), confirmed the wisdom of this new career course.
Her later career also included film roles. She began in the silent films
Early life
Terriss was born in Port Stanley, Falkland Islands.[2]
Her father, William Lewin, became a well-known actor in London under the name William Terriss. He loved the adventurous, outdoor life, and had previously tried his hand at various professions, including farmer, merchant seaman and silver miner. Shortly after Ellaline's birth, he gave up farming and moved his family back to England where, because of his swashbuckling style, was known as "Breezy Bill".[3] Her brother Tom became an actor and then a well-known film director. Her mother Isabel (née Lewis) also acted under the stage name Amy Fellowes.[2][4]
Early career
Terriss performed from an early age, although she had no real ambition to act professionally.
In 1892, Terriss starred in Faithful James, by
In 1895, Terriss was a replacement in the original London production of George Edwardes's hit,
Tragedy and triumph
In December 1897, while Terriss was still playing in The Circus Girl, two tragedies befell her. Her father was stabbed to death by a deranged and disgruntled unemployed actor, Richard Archer Prince, as he was about to enter the stage door of the Royal Adelphi Theatre. Her mother died shortly afterwards.[2]
The murder, and Prince's trial, filled the country's newspapers for weeks. Already the most popular couple on the London stage, Terriss and Hicks received an outpouring of sympathy. They moved on, becoming even more famous over the next decade.[2] She next starred in the title role of a new show co-authored by Hicks, A Runaway Girl (1898), which became one of the Gaiety Theatre's most successful shows. This was followed by With Flying Colours (1899).[6] The couple adopted a daughter, Mabel, in about 1897, and Terriss gave birth to another child, Betty, in 1904.[2]
In early 1900, the Hickses played in their only
Hicks and Terriss also starred in
Later career
The couple performed constantly, both in London and on tour in America, except when Terriss was pregnant with Betty. In 1905, Terriss took over the role of Angela in her husband's The Catch of the Season, which had been created by Zena Dare during Terriss's pregnancy.[6] Later Terriss ceded the role to Dare's sister, Phyllis.
In 1907, Terriss reduced the grueling acting schedule she had kept up for almost twenty years, although she continued to appear in a limited number of plays, including The Dashing Little Duke (1909; with C. Hayden Coffin, Courtice Pounds and Louie Pounds), which was less successful.[6] She played the title role in that production (a woman disguised as a man). When she missed several performances due to illness, Hicks played the role – possibly the only case in the history of professional musical theatre where a husband succeeded to his wife's role.[12]
After the failure of Captain Kidd (1910),[6] Hicks and Terriss concentrated on comedy roles and music hall tours, including a tour of South Africa in 1911 and later a tour of France following the outbreak of World War I, to give concerts to British troops at the front. Their unsuccessful return to musical comedy, Cash on Delivery (1917), confirmed the wisdom of their new career course.[6] After 1917, Terriss returned to the stage only on special occasions. In December 1925, she appeared at the Lyceum with her husband in The Man in Dress Clothes, a French farce he had translated and in which their daughter made her stage debut.[6] It was intended only to run for a short season, but it was such a success that its run was extended. "The Theatre World" reported in January 1926:
There is little doubt that much of the success of this revival is due to the presence in the cast of our one and only Ellaline Terriss. Of the older generation of actresses there is no more beloved figure than "dear Ella" as the gallery girls used to call her. She has never been a "great" actress, but her charm – a sort of sweet radiance – has made her one of the most popular of living players.
Film career
Terriss appeared in over a dozen British films, generally in which her husband was involved as an actor, writer or director.[2] These included the silent films Scrooge (1913), David Garrick (1913), Flame of Passion (1915), A Woman of the World (1916), Masks and Faces (1918), Always Tell Your Wife (1923), Land of Hope and Glory (1927) and Blighty (1927).[13]
She made a successful transition to
Retirement and death
In 1940, Terriss and Hicks went to the Middle East with "
Terriss died at the Holy Family Nursing Home, Hampstead, London, at the age of 100 as a result of a hip fracture sustained during a fall.[2]
Notes
- ^ "Mary Ellaline Lewin", Results for Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Records, Find My Past; accessed 28 September 2014.
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/40483. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ Bartlett, Steve. "'A fairy, elfish thing' - Ellaline Terriss", The Stage, 16 November 2005; accessed 10 April 2012.
- ^ Smythe, Arthur J. The Life of William Terriss, Actor, Westminster: Archibald Constable, p. 35 (1898); accessed 16 October 2010.
- ^ Broadbent, pp. 319–20
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Terriss, Ellaline. Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2007, accessed 7 January 2012 (subscription required)
- ^ "Court On", Punch, 6 August 1892, accessed 20 November 2009
- ^ "Ellaline Terriss” in "On and off: 35 actresses interviewed by 'The Call Boy'", p. 40, G. Dalziel (1894); accessed 5 August 2010
- ^ Hollingshead, p. 74
- ^ My Daughter-in-law, IBDB, accessed 11 April 2012
- ISBN 0300096755
- ISBN 978-0-415-93747-4
- ^ a b "Terriss, Ellaline", British Film Institute; accessed 7 January 2012.
- ^ Ellaline Terriss, Desert Island Discs, BBC, 24 June 1952
References
- Hicks, Seymour. Between Ourselves. London: Cassell 1930
- Hicks, Seymour. Hail Fellow, Well Met 1949
- Hicks, Seymour. Me and My Missus. London: Cassell 1939
- Hollingshead, John. Good Old Gaiety: An Historiette & Remembrance (1903) London:Gaity Theatre Co
- Terriss, Ellaline. Ellaline Terriss By Herself and with Others. London: Cassell, 1928
- Terriss, Ellaline. Just a Little Bit of String. London: Hutchinson & Co. 1955
External links
- Photos, biography and press
- Photos of Terriss at Old Reigate – A Picture History"
- "Ellaline Terriss" at the IMDB
- Photos and information about Hicks and Terriss's home at "Quality Street" in Merstham
- Views of Gilbert and Sullivan by Terriss
- Recording of Terriss and Hicks song medley on YouTube
- Photo of Terriss as Cinderella, 1893