Dame Alice Ellen Terry GBE (27 February 1847 – 21 July 1928) was a leading English actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
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 Royalty Theatre in London, managed by Madame Albina de Rhona, where she acted with W. H. Kendal, Charles Wyndham and other rising actors. In 1862, she joined her sister Kate in J. H. Chute's stock company at the Theatre Royal, Bristol, where she played a wide variety of parts, including burlesque roles requiring singing and dancing, as well as roles in Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, and The Merchant of Venice. In 1863, Chute opened the Theatre Royal, Bath, where 15-year-old Terry appeared at the opening as Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream, then returned to London to join J. B. Buckstone's company at the Haymarket Theatre in Shakespeare roles as well as Sheridan and modern comedies.[4]