(1873-?) Stanley Lathbury first appeared on stage in 1895 when he joined the company of Sarah Thorne at Margate; in the next two years he appeared in almost one hundred parts while still at Margate. His career in Shakespeare began in earnest in 1909 when he was engaged by Gerald Lawrence and Fay Davis who opened their Shakespeare season on April 12 at the Royal Court Theatre, London. After that season – and many other engagements, often in the cityRead more
Posts tagged: #players
Lewis Waller
(1860-1915) Lewis Waller, born in Spain, initially studied to work in the commercial industry. He got his start in the companies of famous Dame Helena Modjeska and J. L. Toole in the 1880s. During his career, he was best known as something of a matinee-idol in the popular romantic plays of his day like The Three Musketeers and his most popular role in Monsieur Beaucaire, a dramatic adaptation of Booth Tarkington’s novel. For his portrayals, he attracted large female audiencesRead more
Gertrude Elliott
(1874-1950) Mary Gertrude Elliott (or Dermot), an American-born actress, first appeared on stage in 1894 when she was twenty. In 1899, she joined Nat Goodwin’s English company, where she met and a year later married the noted Shakespearean actor Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson. From that time on she toured with her husband as his leading lady in many of Shakespeare’s plays, notably Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, and Bernard Shaw’s Caesar & Cleopatra. In 1908, her sister, Maxine, also a famous actress, built herRead more
Constance Collier
(1878-1955) 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.Read more
Margaret Halstan
(1879-1967) Playing first in amateur productions, Margaret Halstan became a professional actress in 1895 at the Haymarket Theatre in a walk-on part in Trilby. Her first part in Shakespeare was a small one; she was the Player Queen Hamlet with Herbert Beerbohm Tree‘s production of the play. In 1897, she played Octavia in Antony & Cleopatra and then that same year appeared as Bianca in an adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew entitled Katherine and Petruchio. In 1900, she joinedRead more