Dorothy Green was only fifteen when she made her first professional appearance in 1901 in Henry V, and from that point on she was never far between parts in Shakespeare’s plays. This is partly due to the fact that she had joined Herbert Beerbohm Tree‘s company when she was quite young, and then later played with Frank Benson and became one of the loyal “Bensonians.” Two notable parts during this period were as Beatrice in 1913 and as Hermia in 1915.

In 1921, Green joined the New Shakespeare Company and with them at Stratford she played Viola, Desdemona, Imogen, Ophelia, and Portia in Julius Caesar. Throughout her career she played many different parts in popular, modern plays, but she always found time to return to Shakespeare; between 1922 and 1951 she took roles in at least eighteen Shakespeare plays.

“Miss Darragh” was the stage-name of Letitia Marion Dallas. We are unsure of the date of her birth, but she made her first stage appearance in 1897. She played only one Shakespeare part, Cleopatra in 1908 at the Queen’s Theatre, Manchester. The cards shown here are from this production. She was an accomplished and admired actress; she created the role of Deirdre for William Butler Yeats when the play opened at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in 1907. She also played in Wilde’s Salome (1905) and Shaw’s Man and Superman.

Collier was only three when she made her stage debut in 1881 as Peaseblossom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She was once a show girl—one of the popular “Gaiety Girls”—but she wanted to play more serious parts, so she joined Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s company and started playing in most of his important productions, many of them Shakespeare’s plays, from 1901 until 1908. This was fitting for Collier as she was notably tall and complimented the equally tall Beerbohm Tree. The pinnacle of their work together was Shakespeare’s Antony & Cleopatra which highlighted Tree’s attention to lavishly realistic sets and costumes. Collier, as Cleopatra, was outfitted spectacularly, setting the stage standard for all productions to come. She made her New York debut in 1908 and then played both sides of the Atlantic with equal popularity and success. One of her critical triumphs was as Gertrude in John Barrymore’s London production of Hamlet. In 1916, she and Tree traveled to the US to make four silent films, including the disastrous Macbeth. In 1918, her husband, actor Julian L’Estrange, died from an influenza epidemic. Later in life, she became an influential drama coach and worked with a young Marilyn Monroe on her way to fame. She published her memoirs Harlequinade in 1929.