Irene Vanbrugh

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Irene Vanbrugh as Lady Mary in The Admirable Crichton, 1902

Dame Irene Barnes DBE (2 December 1872 – 30 November 1949), known professionally as Irene Vanbrugh, was an English actress. The daughter of a clergyman, Vanbrugh followed her elder sister Violet into the theatrical profession and sustained a career for more than 50 years.

In her early days as a leading lady she was particularly associated with the plays of

Shakespeare, but she seldom acted in his works later in her career; exceptions were her Queen Gertrude in Hamlet in 1931 and her Meg Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor
, opposite her sister Violet as Alice Ford, in 1937.

Vanbrugh appeared frequently in fundraising shows for various charities. She was active over many years in the support of the

Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, of which her brother was principal. After her death the academy's new theatre was named The Vanbrugh Theatre in honour of her and her sister. She was also a governor of the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital on Euston Road and in June 1918 she organised a matinee concert at the London Palladium to raise funds for the endowment of a bed for the use of any woman connected to the theatrical profession.[1]

Biography

Early years

Vanbrugh was born in

Earls Court recommended by the actress Ellen Terry, a family friend.[2]

It was also at Terry's suggestion that Violet, on starting a theatrical career, had adopted the stage name Vanbrugh.[2] Irene did the same. Violet's early success encouraged Irene to follow her into the theatrical profession. Sir John Gielgud described the two:

The Vanbrugh sisters were remarkably alike in appearance. Tall and imposing, beautifully spoken, they moved with grace ... They were elegantly but never ostentatiously dressed, entering and leaving the stage with unerring authority ... Violet never struck me as a natural comedienne, as Irene was.[5]

As her elder sister had done, Irene enrolled at Sarah Thorne's school of acting, based at Margate, which gave her a thorough practical grounding. She recalled, "We played every kind of play there; comedy, farce, and drama of the deepest dye; while at Christmas there came the pantomime, so that the Juliet of a week ago might be the Prince Paragon of the Yule-tide extravaganza."[6] As a student at the school, her first appearance on stage was in August 1888, as the capricious shepherdess Phoebe in As You Like It at the Theatre Royal, Margate, opposite the Rosalind of her sister Violet.[2][7]

Early roles

H. J. Byron's Uncle Dick's Darling.[2]

Vanbrugh in The Gay Lord Quex

When Toole toured Australia in 1890, Vanbrugh was a member of his company, acting in every play in its repertoire. She later commented, "I think this was even better training than Miss Thorne's school; not only was I constantly playing a new part, but I was constantly playing to a different type of audience. We visited all sorts of Australian cities, large and small, and one was pretty certain before long to find out the weak points in one's method."

James Barrie's, burlesque Ibsen's Ghost (1891),[7] and as Bell Golightly in Barrie's Walker, London (1892).[7]

In 1893, Vanbrugh joined

Haymarket Theatre as Lettice in The Tempter (1893) by Henry Arthur Jones. The play was not popular and was soon taken off, but she had more success in Jones's next play, The Masqueraders, and in 1894 she was engaged by George Alexander at the St James's Theatre where she played a number of secondary parts, and in 1895 created the role of Gwendolen Fairfax in The Importance of Being Earnest.[6]

When

Trelawny of the Wells by Arthur Pinero, and, during the same season, Stella in Robert Marshall's His Excellency the Governor.[6] After a short break she then played the role that made her name, Sophy Fullgarney in Pinero's The Gay Lord Quex (1899).[6] This part, a little Cockney manicurist, was quite different from any she had played before, but Pinero was insistent that she should play it.[6] In the words of the biographer S. R. Littlewood, "Vanbrugh's intelligence, sympathy, and alertness avoided extravagance in a subtle expression of class-contrast. This gave the character an intensity of appeal that was at the time something quite new."[2] The play was regarded as risqué, and one critic commented that had Lewis Carroll still been alive, he would have approved of "Miss Vanbrugh's greatest triumph," but probably not of the play.[6]

Early 20th century

Vanbrugh in 1910

In 1901 Vanbrugh married the actor

Charles Hawtrey, Bourchier, Weedon Grossmith and Marie Tempest. This was one of the many charity fund-raising productions in which Vanbrugh appeared throughout her career.[18]

During World War I, Vanbrugh took a succession of leading roles in the West End, beginning with The Spirit of Culture in Barrie's war play Der Tag (1914).[19] Following this, she played Lady Falkland in The Right to Kill (1915); the title role in Caroline (1916); Mrs Lytton in The Riddle (1916); Emily Ladew in Her Husband's Wife (1916); Leonora in Barrie's Seven Women (1917); and the title role in A. A. Milne's Belinda (1918).[4] In 1916, she appeared in her first film, The Real Thing at Last (1916);[20] the following year she made a silent film version of The Gay Lord Quex, as Sophy Fullgarney.[21]

Inter-war years

Dion Boucicault Jr. and Irene Vanbrugh in A. A. Milne's Mr. Pim Passes By

From its early days, Vanbrugh was closely connected with the

Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).[n 1] Her younger brother, Kenneth Barnes, had been its principal since 1909. In 1919, to raise funds for the academy's theatre, then under construction, she had the play Masks and Faces filmed with a star cast, including not only leading actors but the playwrights Shaw, Pinero and Barrie in cameo appearances.[2]

Vanbrugh in Australia, 1924

Vanbrugh's first big stage success of the post-war years was in Milne's Mr Pim Passes By in 1920.[2] She and her husband opened it in Manchester, and such was its reception that they brought it into the West End.[7] From 1927 to 1929, she toured Australia and New Zealand, playing a variety of parts.[4] Her other appearances in the inter-war years included Gertrude to Henry Ainley's Hamlet in 1931, Millicent Jordan in Dinner at Eight (1933), the Duchess of Marlborough in Viceroy Sarah, (1935) and Mistress Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor with her sister Violet as Mistress Ford (1937).[22] In 1939, she created the role of Catherine of Braganza in Shaw's In Good King Charles's Golden Days.[4]

Vanbrugh appeared in ten talkies from 1933 to 1945: Head of the Family; Catherine the Great; Girls Will Be Boys; The Way of Youth; Youthful Folly; Escape Me Never; Wings of the Morning; Knight Without Armour; It Happened One Sunday; and I Live in Grosvenor Square.

In 1938, during the run of

His Majesty's Theatre; Violet Vanbrugh, Coward, Edith Evans, Gladys Cooper, Seymour Hicks[n 2] and many other leading performers took part.[24]

Later years

During the

Strand Theatre.[2] Throughout the war, Vanbrugh appeared in the West End and on tour in new plays, revivals of her earlier successes, and classics. Almost 50 years after her first appearance in a Wilde play, she played Lady Markby in An Ideal Husband in 1943–1944, giving a performance characterised by The Times as "comic perfection".[25] Vanbrugh appeared as Mrs. Mildred Catchpole in the 1945 film I Live in Grosvenor Square, a British romance directed and produced by Herbert Wilcox. Her co-stars were Dean Jagger and Rex Harrison.[26]

Vanbrugh was working to the end of her life. In November 1949, she appeared in Mary Bonaventure in its pre-London run in Birmingham, but she was taken ill before the London opening and died within days, several days before her 77th birthday.[7]

Honours and commemorations

Vanbrugh was created a

Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.[28]

At a matinée marking RADA's golden jubilee in 1954, in the presence of Irene Vanbrugh's brother, Sir Kenneth Barnes, who was still the principal of the academy, Edith Evans read a poem by A. P. Herbert in which Vanbrugh was celebrated among the leading names of British theatre:

All the great names that give our past a glow,
Bancroft and Irving, Barrie and Boucicault,
Vanbrugh and Playfair, Terry, Kendal, Maude,
Gilbert and Grossmith loudly we applaud.[29]

See also

Notes and references

Notes
  1. ^ Until it received its royal charter in 1920 it was known as the Academy of Dramatic Art
  2. ^ Hicks and his wife Ellaline Terriss also celebrated their golden jubilees in 1938. The London Critics' Circle, which had its silver jubilee in that year, held a dinner to honour all three performers in March 1938.[23]
References
  1. ^ St. Pancras Past and Present, Official Guide (seventh ed.). J.Burrow & Co. p. 69.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Littlewood, S. R., "Vanbrugh, Dame Irene (1872–1949)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 7 January 2011 (subscription required)
  3. ^ "Portraits", The Theatre, August 1897, p. 95
  4. ^ a b c d "Vanbrugh, Dame Irene", Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2007, accessed 8 January 2011 (subscription required)
  5. ^ Gielgud, p. 115
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Bacchus, Reginald, "Miss Irene Vanbrugh: Her Art and Herself," The Ludgate, October 1899, p. 501
  7. ^ a b c d e f "Dame Irene Vanbrugh", The Times, 1 December 1949, p. 7
  8. ^ "Chips", The North-Eastern Daily Gazette, 4 December 1888, unnumbered page
  9. ^ "Duke of York's Theatre", The Times, 5 November 1902, p. 10
  10. ^ "Duke of York's Theatre – The Triple Bill", The Times, 15 October 1912, p. 8
  11. ^ "Duke of York's Theatre", The Times, 9 October 1903, p. 4
  12. ^ "St. James's Theatre – 'His House in Order'", The Times, 2 February 1906, p. 4
  13. ^ "St. James's Theatre – "Mid-Channel'", The Times, 3 September 1909, p. 8
  14. ^ "Duke of York's Theatre – 'Grace'", The Times, 17 October 1910, p. 7
  15. ^ "'The Land of Promise' – Mr. Maugham's Play at The Duke of York's", The Times, 27 February 1914, p. 10
  16. ^ "Wyndham's Theatre – "Passers-By'", The Times, 30 March 1911, p. 10
  17. ^ "St. James's Theatre – 'Open Windows'", The Times, 12 March 1913, p. 10
  18. ^ "'London Assurance' – Royal Visit To St. James's Theatre", The Times, 28 June 1913, p. 10
  19. ^ "'Der Tag' – Sir James Barrie's War Play", The Times, 22 December 1914, p. 11
  20. ^ "A Tragic 'Movie' – Sir J. M. Barrie's Cinema Burlesque", The Times, 8 March 1916, p. 11
  21. ^ Advertisement, The Observer, 9 December 1917, p. 12
  22. ^ "Blackfriars Ring – 'The Merry Wives of Windsor'", The Times, 15 March 1937, p. 12
  23. ^ The Musical Times, February 1938, p. 103
  24. ^ "Jubilee of Irene Vanbrugh – The Queen at a Matinée", The Times, 21 June 1938, p. 14
  25. ^ "Westminster Theatre – 'An Ideal Husband'", The Times, Wednesday, 17 November 1943, p. 6
  26. ^ "I Live in Grosvenor Square". Timeout.com. 10 September 2012.
  27. ^ "A Modern Stage For Students – Vanbrugh Theatre", The Times, 25 November 1954, p. 5
  28. ^ "Vanbrugh Theatre at R.A.D.A. – Opening by the Queen Mother",The Times, 3 December 1954, p. 11
  29. ^ "R.A.D.A. Jubilee Matinée – Sir Alan Herbert's Prologue", The Times, 21 May 1954, p. 2

Sources

  • Gielgud, John (1979). An Actor and His Time. London: Sidgwick and Jackson.
    ISBN 0-283-98573-9
    .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Irene Vanbrugh.

Further reading

  • "Irene Vanbrugh pages". Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Irene_Vanbrugh&oldid=1219104091"