Ellen Terry

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Dame

Ellen Terry

GBE
Ellen Terry at age 16
Portrait by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1864
Born
Alice Ellen Terry

(1847-02-27)27 February 1847
Coventry, Warwickshire, England
Died21 July 1928(1928-07-21) (aged 81)
, Kent, England
Spouses
(m. 1864; div. 1877)
Charles Clavering Wardell
(m. 1877, divorced)
(m. 1907; sep. 1909)
PartnerEdward William Godwin (1868–1875)
Children
Signature

Dame Alice Ellen Terry

GBE (27 February 1847[1]
 – 21 July 1928) was a leading English actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Born into a family of actors, Terry began performing as a child, acting in Shakespeare plays in London, and toured throughout the British provinces in her teens. At 16, she married the 46-year-old artist George Frederic Watts, but they separated within a year. She soon returned to the stage but began a relationship with the architect Edward William Godwin and retired from the stage for six years. She resumed 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, and Terry turned to touring and lecturing. She continued to find success on stage until 1920, while also appearing in films from 1916 to 1922. Her career lasted nearly seven decades.

Early life and career

Charles Kean (left) and Ellen Terry in The Winter's Tale, 1856

Terry was born in Coventry, England, the third surviving child born into a theatrical family.[2] Her parents, Benjamin (1818–1896), of Irish descent, and Sarah (née Ballard; 1819–1892), of Scottish ancestry, were comic actors in a Portsmouth-based touring company,[3][4] (where Sarah's father was a Wesleyan minister) and had 11 children. At least five of them became actors: Kate, Ellen, Marion, Florence, and Fred.[5] Two other children, George and Charles, were connected with theatre management.[6] Kate (the grandmother of Val and John Gielgud) and Marion were particularly successful on stage.[7]

Terry made her first stage appearance at age nine, as Mamillius, opposite Charles Kean as Leontes, in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale at London's Princess's Theatre in 1856.[8] 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.[9] During the theatre's summer closures, 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 Tom Taylor comedy Nine Points of the Law at the Olympic Theatre.[5] For the next two years, Terry and her sister Kate toured the British provinces in sketches and plays, accompanied by their parents and a musician.[4]

Between 1861 and 1862, Terry was engaged by the

Haymarket Theatre in Shakespeare roles as well as Sheridan and modern comedies.[4]

Watts, Godwin and return to acting

Choosing: painting by first husband, George Frederic Watts c. 1864

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 Frederic Watts. His famous portraits of Terry include Choosing, in which she must select between earthly vanities, symbolised by showy but scentless camellias, and nobler values symbolised by humble-looking but fragrant violets. His other famous portraits of her include Ophelia and Watchman, and, with Kate, The Sisters. He proposed marriage to Terry in spite of his being three decades her senior.[5] She was impressed with Watts's art and elegant lifestyle, and she wished to please her parents by making an advantageous marriage. She left the stage during the run of Tom Taylor's hit comedy Our American Cousin at the Haymarket, in which she played Mary Meredith.[5]

Terry and Watts married on 20 February 1864 at St Barnabas,

Aesthetic movements, including Oscar Wilde".[5]

She returned to acting by 1866.[10] In 1867, Terry performed in several Tom Taylor pieces, 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. She would play there later that year for the first time opposite Henry Irving in the title roles of Katherine and Petruchio, David Garrick's one-act version of The Taming of the Shrew.[11]

In 1868, despite her parents' objection, she began a relationship with the progressive architect-designer and essayist

illegitimacy, but their cohabitation and children born out of wedlock were considered scandalous at the time.[5][10]

The relationship cooled in 1874 amid Godwin's preoccupation with his architectural practice and financial difficulties. However, even after their 1875 separation, Godwin continued to design Terry's costumes when she returned to the stage. In 1874 Terry played in several roles in Charles Reade's works: Philippa Chester in The Wandering Heir; Susan Merton in It's Never Too Late to Mend; and Helen Rolleston in Our Seamen. That 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.[12]

Shakespeare, Irving, Lyceum

Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth, by John Singer Sargent, 1889

In 1875, Terry gave an acclaimed performance as Portia in

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."[10] She recreated this role many times in her career until her last appearance as Portia in London in 1917.[13]

In 1876 she appeared as Lady Teazle in

William Gorman Wills at the Court Theatre (an adaptation of The Vicar of Wakefield), where she joined the company of John Hare. In November 1877 she married Charles Clavering Wardell (stage name Charles Kelly; 1839–1885), an actor/journalist she had met while appearing in Reade's plays, but they separated in 1881. After this, she finally reconciled with her parents, whom she had not seen since she began to live out-of-wedlock with Godwin.[5]

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 she was regarded as the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain, and in partnership with Irving,[14] she reigned as such for over 20 years until they left the Lyceum in 1902.[2][15] 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.[4]

In 1879

Diogenes himself."[16] In 1880, at the Lyceum, she played the title role in an adaptation of King René's Daughter called Iolanthe. The Era wrote: "Nothing more winning and enchanting than the grace, and simplicity, and girlish sweetness of the blind Iolanthe as shown by Miss Ellen Terry has within our memory been seen upon the stage. The assumption was delightfully perfect. ... Exquisite ... exercise of the peculiarly fascinating powers of Miss Ellen Terry, who achieved an undoubted triumph ... and was cheered again and again".[17]

As Katherine in Henry VIII

Among her most celebrated roles with Irving were Ophelia, Pauline in

Imogen in Cymbeline (1896), the title character in Victorien Sardou and Émile Moreau's play Madame Sans-Gêne (1897) and Volumnia in Coriolanus (1901).[21]

Terry made her American debut in 1883, playing Queen Henrietta opposite Irving in Charles I. Among the other roles she portrayed on this and six subsequent North American tours with Irving were Jeanette, Ophelia, Beatrice, Viola, and her most famous role, Portia.[22] Her last role at the Lyceum was Portia in 1902, after which she toured in the British provinces with Irving and his company that autumn. Whether Irving's relationship with Terry was romantic as well as professional has been the subject of much speculation. According to Sir 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".[23] Irving was separated, but not divorced from his wife. Terry had separated from Wardell in 1881, and Irving was godfather to both her children. They travelled on holiday together, and Irving wrote tender letters to Terry.[5][24]

In London, Terry lived in

Earls Court with her children and pets during the 1880s, first in Longridge Road, then Barkston Gardens in 1889, but she kept country homes. In 1900, she bought her farmhouse in Small Hythe, Kent, where she lived for the rest of her life.[25] 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 from 1887, but she eventually turned to stage direction and costume design, creating costumes for Terry, Lillie Langtry, and others early in the 20th century.[5][26]

Shaw, Ibsen, Barrie

Terry, c. 1880

In 1902 Terry played Mistress Page in

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 Shaw and Henrik Ibsen, including the latter's The Vikings in 1903, with Terry as the warlike Hiordis, a misjudged role for her.[2] Theatre management turned out to be a financial failure for Terry, who had hoped the venture would showcase her son's set design and directing talents and her daughter's costume designs.[5] 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 the distraught Terry briefly left the stage.[4]

She returned to the theatre in April 1906, playing Lady Cecily Wayneflete to acclaim in Shaw's

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 her co-star, American James Carew, who had appeared with her at the Court Theatre. He was 30 years her junior, and the couple separated after two years, although they never divorced. Her acting career continued strongly.[27][28]

Smallhythe Place, Terry's home from 1900 to 1928

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

Nell Gwynne in The First Actress (1911) by Christopher St. John (a pseudonym for Christabel Marshall), one of the first productions of the Pioneer Players theatre society, founded in 1911 by Craig and for which Ellen Terry served as President.[29] Also in 1911, she recorded scenes from five Shakespeare roles for the Victor Talking Machine Company, which are the only known recordings of her voice.[30] In 1914 to 1915, Terry toured Australasia, the US and Britain, again reciting and lecturing on the Shakespeare heroines. While in the US, 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.[citation needed
]

Films and last years

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 Victory and Peace (1918), Pillars of Society (1920), Potter's Clay (1922), and The Bohemian Girl (1922) as Buda the nursemaid, with Ivor Novello and Gladys Cooper. During this time, she 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 on Shaftesbury Avenue in 1919.[31]

In 1920 she retired from the stage and in 1922 from film. She returned to play Susan Wildersham in Walter de la Mare's fairy play, Crossings, in November 1925 at the Lyric Hammersmith.[5][32]

Terry's ashes in St Paul's, Covent Garden, London

In 1922 the

King George V,[33][34] only the second actress, after Geneviève Ward, to be created a dame for her professional achievements.[n 1] In her last years, she gradually lost her eyesight and suffered from senility. Stephen Coleridge anonymously published an annotated volume of his correspondence with Terry, The Heart of Ellen Terry, in 1928.[36]

Death and legacy

On 21 July 1928, Terry died of a

cerebral haemorrhage at her home at Smallhythe Place, near Tenterden, Kent, aged 81. Her son Edward later recalled, "Mother looked 30 years old ... a young beautiful woman lay on the bed, like Juliet on her bier".[37] Margaret Winser created a death mask.[38] Terry was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium. Her ashes are kept 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.[39]

After her death, the Ellen Terry Memorial Museum was founded by Edith Craig in her mother's memory at Smallhythe Place, an early 16th-century house that she bought at the turn of the 20th century.

Terry's daughter Edith Craig became a theatre director, producer, costume designer, and an early pioneer of the women's suffrage movement in England. Terry's son, Edward Gordon Craig, became an actor, scenery and effects designer, illustrator, and director; he also founded the Gordon Craig School for the Art of the Theatre in Florence, Italy, in 1913. The actor John Gielgud was her great-nephew.[41] Illustrator Helen Craig is Terry's great-granddaughter.[42]

An archive of Ellen Terry memorabilia is held by

Odeon cinema in Jordan's Well.[44]

Gallery

  • Terry's son, Edward Gordon Craig
    Terry's son, Edward Gordon Craig
  • An 1868 self-caricature signed "Ellen Terry (Watts)".
    An 1868 self-caricature signed "Ellen Terry (Watts)".
  • Drawing by Sargent for Terry's golden jubilee programme, 1906
    Drawing by Sargent for Terry's golden jubilee programme, 1906
  • With pets Fussie and Drummie in the 1880s
    With pets Fussie and Drummie in the 1880s
  • Portrait photograph of Ellen Terry, 1915
    Portrait photograph of Ellen Terry, 1915
  • In her garden with granddaughter Nelly Gordon, c. 1918.
    In her garden with granddaughter Nelly Gordon, c. 1918.
  • Ellen Terry as Margaret in Faust, Lyceum Theatre, December 1885
    Ellen Terry as Margaret in Faust, Lyceum Theatre, December 1885
  • Terry as Guinevere in the 1895 play King Arthur by J. Comyns Carr in the Lyceum Theatre. Portrait by Sir Edward Burne-Jones.
    Terry as Guinevere in the 1895 play King Arthur by J. Comyns Carr in the Lyceum Theatre. Portrait by Sir Edward Burne-Jones.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The actress May Whitty was created DBE before Ward and Terry, but in her case (1918) it was awarded for her charity work during the First World War.[35]

References

  1. ^ Birth certificate is dated 1847 Archived 6 August 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ a b c Howland, David. "Ellen Terry", The Camelot Project, University of Rochester (2001)
  3. ^ Gielgud, p. 222
  4. ^ a b c d e f Biography of Terry at the Stage Beauty website
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Booth, Michael R. "Terry, Dame Ellen Alice (1847–1928)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edn, January 2008, accessed 4 January 2010
  6. ^ Hartnoll, pp. 815–17.
  7. ^ Obituary, Time, 1 September 1930
  8. ^ The photograph of Terry as Mamillius and Kean as Leontes was taken by Martin Laroche.
  9. ^ Hartnoll, p. 816.
  10. ^ a b c Profile of Terry by Amanda Hodges Archived 17 May 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ Hiatt, p. 135
  12. ^ "Dame Ellen Terry", The Argus, 23 July 1928, p. 7
  13. ^ [https://ellenterryarchive.essex.ac.uk/8227?searchid=3CAD8B8794900E898FE469742BEFF3AE489392CFCE4B12225BD4D5D7CDF4D6F7FE99DF4BD4F42FE495A4EB12E69EF8DBD556E9D0DC47CBAB0ED205B2A5C28DE4BEC21F " The Merchant of Venice Programme: Madame Clara Butt's Charity Matinee"], Chiswick Empire,19 June 1917, via War Seal Foundation and University of Essex
  14. ^ Description of the Terry and Irving partnership and link to further information about Terry Archived 4 May 2005 at the Wayback Machine
  15. ^ Information from Schoolnet.com Archived 30 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  16. ^ The Times, 10 April 1879, p. 8, col. B
  17. ^ "Miss Ellen Terry's Benefit", The Era, 23 May 1880, p. 6
  18. ^ "Sullivan's incidental music to Shakespeare's Macbeth, The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, 28 January 2005, accessed 21 August 2016; Hugill, Robert. "Mendelssohnian charm: Sir Arthur Sullivan's Macbeth and The Tempest", PlanetHugill.com, 15 August 2016
  19. ^ Review and drawings of Henry VIII, Punch, Vol. 102, 16 January 1892, p. 33
  20. ^ Information about King Arthur including an image of the program Archived 20 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  21. ^ "Coriolanus", Theatre programme, 15 April 1901, Royal Lyceum Theatre, via University of Essex
  22. ^ "Music and the Drama: Irving's Visit", The Week: a Canadian journal of politics, literature, science and arts, 28 February 1884, vol. 1, issue 13, p. 204, accessed 27 April 2013
  23. ^ Holroyd, p. ?
  24. ^ Irving, John H. B. "Quest for the Missing Letters" Archived 24 December 2011 at the Wayback Machine, The Irving Society; accessed 12 October 2011
  25. ^ Information about Terry's pets and residences
  26. ^ Cockin, Katharine. Edith Craig (1869–1947): Dramatic Lives Cassell (1998).
  27. ^ a b Biography of Terry BBC Coventry
  28. ^ Cockin (2015), p. 164 et. seq.
  29. ^ Cockin (2001), pp. 7, 27–28, 46 and 48–50
  30. ^ Recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Co. Archived 27 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  31. ^ "Programme: Romeo and Juliet", Lyric Theatre, 12 April 1919, via University of Essex
  32. Bedford College for Women
    . See Looser, p. 106
  33. ^ "No. 33007". The London Gazette (Supplement). 30 December 1924. p. 5.
  34. ^ "Ellen Terry Invested as a Dame by King", The New York Times, 13 February 1925, p. 7, accessed 26 September 2022
  35. ^ "War Honours", The Times, 8 January 1918, p. 7
  36. ^ Irving, John H. B. "Quest for Missing Ellen Terry Letters", The Irving Society; accessed 5 March 2016. Archived 7 April 2014 at the Wayback Machine
  37. ^ Holroyd, pp. 508–509
  38. ^ "National Portrait Gallery, Death-mask of Ellen Terry". Retrieved 4 November 2017.
  39. ^ "Ellen Terry's life at Smallhythe Place". National Trust. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
  40. ^ Jansen-Gruber, Marya. "The Authors and Illustrators – Profiles: Helen Craig", Through The Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews website; accessed 1 April 2014
  41. ^ "Discover the archive collections". Archive Collections. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
  42. ^ "Arts and humanities at Coventry University". Coventry University. Retrieved 15 October 2019.

Sources

Biographies and correspondence

External links