A beautiful set of original 1901 periodical portraits of the great Maude Adams, who played the title role in James M. Barrie's Peter Pan, Annie Russell, Sarah Bernhardt sleeping in her coffin, Lillian Russell, Anna Held, at the time the paramour of Florenz Ziegfeld, and more. Mounted to cardboard. Dimensions ten by eight inches. Light wear and edgewear with small loss to backing corners otherwise good.
See Maude Adams, Annie Russell, and Sarah Bernhardt's extraordinary biographies below.
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From Wikipedia:
Maude Ewing Kiskadden (November 11, 1872 – July 17, 1953), known professionally as Maude Adams, was an American stage actress who achieved her greatest success as Peter Pan.[1][2] Adams's personality appealed to a large audience and helped her become the most successful[3][4][5] and highest-paid performer of her day, with a yearly income of more than one million dollars during her peak.[3] She was often referred to simply as "Maudie" by her fans.
Adams was born as Maude Ewing Adams Kiskadden in Salt Lake City, Utah, the daughter of Asaneth Ann "Annie" (née Adams) and James (or John) Henry Kiskadden. Little is known of Adams's father. He died in 1878 when Maude was only six years old. It has been written that he came to Utah from Montana, and that the Kiskaddens originated in Ohio. He was not a Mormon, and Adams herself once wrote of her father as having been a "gentile". The surname "Kiskadden" is Scottish.[6]
Most of what is known of Adams's ancestry traces through her maternal grandmother, Julia Ann Adams (née Banker). The Banker family came from Plattsburgh, New York. Adams's great grandfather Platt Banker converted to Mormonism, and it is said that the family migrated to Missouri with fellow members of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[citation needed] In Missouri, Julia married Barnabus Adams. The family then migrated to Utah, settling in Salt Lake City, where Maude's mother, Asaneth Ann "Annie" Adams was born. Adams was also a descendant of Mayflowerpassenger John Howland. The extent of Adams's connection to the LDS Church is unclear. Adams took long sabbaticals in Catholic rectories, and in 1922 she donated her estates at Lake Ronkonkomato one of these places, the Sisters of St. Regis, for use as a novitiate and retreat house.[7][8]
Adams's mother, Annie Kiskadden, was an actress and, travelling with her, Maude spent her early years in provincial theaters, first appearing in plays at the age of nine months when she was carried onstage in her mother’s arms. At the age of five, Adams starred in a San Francisco theater as "Little Schneider" in Fritz, Our German Cousin and as "Adrienne Renaud" in A Celebrated Case. Often described as shy, Adams was referred to by Ethel Barrymore as the "original 'I want to be alone' woman".[3] She was known as helpful to aspiring young actors and actresses. She was known at times to supplement the salaries of fellow performers out of her own pay.[4] Once while touring, a theater owner doubled the price of tickets knowing Adams's name meant a sold-out house. Adams made the owner refund the difference before she appeared on the stage that night.[4]
Early career in New York
After touring in Boston and California, she made her New York City debut at age 16 in The Paymaster. Remaining in New York after the close of the play, she then became a member of E. H. Sothern's theater company appearing in The Highest Bidder and finally on Broadway in Lord Chumley. Charles H. Hoyt then cast her in The Midnight Bell where audiences, if not the critics, took notice of her. Sensing he had a potential new star on his hands, Hoyt offered her a five year contract, but Adams declined in favor of a lesser offer from the powerful producer Charles Frohman who from that point forward took control of her career.
Association with Charles Frohman
The Masked Ball opened on October 8, 1892. Audiences came to see its star, John Drew, but left remembering Maude Adams. Most memorable was a scene in which her character feigned tipsiness for which she received a two minute ovation on opening night. Drew was the star, but it was for Adams that the audience gave twelve curtain calls, and previously tepid critics gave generous reviews. Harpers Weekly wrote: "It is difficult to see just who is going to prevent Miss Adams from becoming the leading exponent of light comedy in America.
The New York Times wrote that "Maud Adams [sic], not John Drew, has made the success of The Masked Ball at Palmer's, and is the star of the comedy. Manager Charles Frohman, in attempting to exploit one star, has happened upon another of greater magnitude." The tipsy scene started Adams on her path to being a favorite among New York audiences and led to an eighteen month run for the play. Less successful plays followed, including The Butterflies, The Bauble Shop, Christopher, Jr., The Imprudent Young Couple and The Squire of Dames. But 1896 saw an upturn with Rosemary. A comedy about the failed elopement of a young couple, sheltered for the night by an older man (Drew), the play received critical praise and box office success. J. M. Barrie (future author of Peter Pan) saw a performance and decided that Adams was the actress to play Miss Babbie in the adaptation of his book The Little Minister.
Stardom
Her greatest triumphs followed with more works of Barrie, including The Little Minister, Quality Street, What Every Woman Knows, A Kiss for Cinderella, The Legend of Leonora, and Peter Pan; or, The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, the latter being the role with which she was most closely identified and which she often reprised. Adams was the first actress to play Peter Pan on Broadway. Only days after her casting was announced, Adams had an emergency appendectomy and it was uncertain whether her health would allow her to assume the role as planned. Peter Pan opened on October 16, 1905 at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. to little success.[15] It soon moved to Broadway, however, where the play had a long run, and Adams appeared in the role on Broadway several times over the following decade.[citation needed] The collar of her 1905 Peter Pan costume, which she had co-designed, was an immediate fashion success and was henceforth known as the "Peter Pan collar".[16]
Other plays
While Adams was mainly associated with the plays of Barrie from 1897 until her retirement in 1918, she also made appearances in other works during that period. The Little Minister was followed in 1899 with her portrayal of Shakespeare's Juliet. While audiences loved her in the role, selling out the sixteen performances in New York, the critics disliked it.
Romeo and Juliet was followed by L'Aiglon in 1900, a French play about the life of Napoleon II of France in which Adams played the leading role, foreshadowing her portrayal of another male (Peter Pan) five years later. The play had starred Sarah Bernhardt in Paris with enthusiastic reviews, but Adams's L'Aiglon received mixed reviews in New York. In 1909, she played Joan of Arc in Friedrich Schiller's The Maid of Orleans. This was produced on a huge scale at the Harvard University Stadium by Frohman.[17] The June 24, 1909 edition of the Paducah Evening Sun (Kentucky) contains the following excerpt:
Joan at Harvard, Schiller's Play reproduced on Gigantic scale. […] The experiment of producing Schiller's "Maid of Orleans" beneath starry skies … was carried out…by ... Adams and a company numbering about two thousand persons … at the Harvard Stadium. … A special electric light plant was installed … a great cathedral was erected, background constructed and a realistic forest created. … Miss Adams was accorded an ovation at the end of the performance.[18]
She appeared in another French play with 1911's Chantecler, the story of a rooster who believes his crowing makes the sun rise.[19] She fared only slightly better than in L'Aiglon with the critics, but audiences again embraced her, on one occasion giving her twenty two curtain calls.[19] Adams later cited it as her favorite role, with Peter Pan a close second.
Retirement and death
Adams last appeared on the New York stage in A Kiss for Cinderella in 1916. Following a thirteen year retirement from the stage, during which she worked with General Electric to develop improved and more powerful stage lighting, she appeared in several regional productions of Shakespeare. It has been suggested that the true reason for her association with General Electric (in developing better lighting instruments) and the Eastman Company (in developing color photography) during the 1920s was because she wished to appear in a color film version of Peter Pan, and this would have required better lighting for color photography.[20]
Adams headed the drama department at Stephens College in Missouri from 1937 to 1943, becoming well known as an inspiring teacher in the arts of acting.[9][21]
After her retirement in 1918, Adams was on occasion pursued for roles in film. The closest she came to accepting was in 1938, when producer David O. Selznick persuaded her to do a screen test (with Janet Gaynor, who would later play the female lead) for the role of Miss Fortune in the film The Young in Heart. After negotiations failed, the role was played by Minnie Dupree, who like Adams had been a girlish whimsical type of actress. The twelve-minute screen test was later preserved by the George Eastman House in 2004.[22]
She died, aged 80, at her summer home, Caddam Hill, in Tannersville, New York, and is interred in the cemetery of the Sisters of the Cenacle, Lake Ronkonkoma, New York.
Sarah Bernhardt (French: [saʁa bɛʁnɑʁt];[note 1] born Henriette-Rosine Bernard; 22 or 23 October 1844 – 26 March 1923) was a French stage actress who starred in some of the most popular French plays of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including La Dame Aux Camelias by Alexandre Dumas, fils; Ruy Blas by Victor Hugo; Fédora and La Tosca by Victorien Sardou; and L'Aiglon by Edmond Rostand She also played male roles, including Shakespeare's Hamlet. Rostand called her "the queen of the pose and the princess of the gesture", while Hugo praised her "golden voice". She made several theatrical tours around the world, and was one of the first prominent actresses to make sound recordings and to act in motion pictures.
Anna Held (19 March 1872 – 12 August 1918) was a Polish-born stage performer and singer on Broadway. While appearing in London, she was spotted by impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, who brought her to America as his common-law wife. Her fame seems to have owed more to Ziegfeld's promotional flair than to any intrinsic talent, and she did not gain critical acclaim. But her uninhibited style inspired the long-running series of popular revues, the Ziegfeld Follies.
Annie Ellen Russell (12 January 1864[1] – 16 January 1936) was a British-American stage actress.
Russell was born in Liverpool, England to Irish parents, Joseph Russell and Jane Mount. She moved to Canada when she was a child. She made her first appearance on the stage at eight years old with Rose Eytinge at the Montreal Academy of Music in Montreal, Canada. She visited the West Indies when she was twelve, overseeing her younger brother Tommy, the child actor in a touring production.[2][3]
Career
In 1881, in New York City, she performed in Esmerelda, a play written by Frances Hodgson Burnett and William Gillette.[4] This play would later become one of her most successful and popular performances. Notwithstanding, reviews for the play, and for Russell's performance, were becoming unfavourable by the ninth month of the play's run—the reviewer says of her performance: "If she cares for her future, she will not waste time in spoiling her voice. ...Lacking knowledge and training, she screams in a most unhappy fashion."[5] It ran for a year at the Madison Square Theatre and had over two hundred showings.[6][7]
After Esmerelda, Russell did not perform on a similar scale for a few years. However, she was not completely removed from theatrical life. In 1883, she joined the New York Fifth Avenue Theatre company, with her mother, Jane, and little brother, Tommy.[8] She performed in one of the tour companies of the play Hazel Kirke, in the title role,[9] before leaving to marry her first husband in 1884.[10]
Russell shortly fell ill—the first reported illness of many throughout her career. She returned in 1885, playing Zaire in the play Broken Hearts written by W. S. Gilbert.[11][12] Later in the year, she performed in Young Mrs. Winthrop with the Palmer Company in Philadelphia.[13] She later returned to New York with the same company to perform at Madison Square Theatre as Ada[14] in Sealed Intentions.[15] which received a stellar review on opening night.[16] She performed in Engaged as Maggie McFarland starting in 1886,[17] where acclaim for her performances began to mount. A reviewer in The New York Times said she "Imparts the charm that belongs to her delicate beauty."[18] Other performances in 1886 that Russell performed in with A. M. Palmer's company at Madison Square Theatre include Young Mrs. Winthrop as Edith[19] Our Society[20] and Love's Martyr.
In 1887, Annie Russell earned the title role in the play Elaine by George Parsons Lathrop and Harry Edwards,[21] a play later adopted by Mr. Palmer's company. Also in 1887, she played the role of Sylvia in an adaptation of L'Monde ou l'on ennuie originally by Édouard Pailleron.[22]
After a brief illness, Russell returned to the Madison Square Theatre company on a tour to San Francisco in 1888 in Partners.[23] She continued to appear in more plays afterward including Captain Swift in 1889.[24] This was her last role before an extended illness in 1890.
Russell remained with Mr. Palmer's company at the Madison Square Theatre until 1894, upon joining Charles Frohman's company, Empire Stock.[25] She returned to the stage in 1894, playing the lead female part in The New Woman.[26][27] She reprised her role in Esmerelda in 1894 as well.[28] By 1895, Annie Russell appeared in an increasing number of plays. She performed in a new one-act play called Lethe.[29] Later that year, she appeared in a prelude to Romeo and Juliet called Romeo's First Love[30] and in The Gilded Fool, which earned Russell more critical acclaim.[31] Towards the end of the year, she took a new role in Senator and Ingenue as Ruth.[32]
After an extended stay in Europe, Russell returned to the stage in Bret Harte's play Sue.[33] She later reprised this role in London in 1898 at the Garrick Theatre.[34] In the interim, she appeared in The Mysterious Mr. Bugle as Betty Fondacre,[35][36] A Bachelor's Romance,[37] Salt of the Earth,[38] and Dangerfield '95.[39] She performed many of her popular plays in London, including Sue and The Mysterious Mr. Bugle. She fell ill partway through 1899[40] and in June of that year returned to the United States to rest.[41] She did, however, appear in a few plays, in 1899, Miss Hobbs with Ann Gilbert[42] and in 1900 in A Royal Family.[43]
In 1902, Russell appeared in other plays with Ann Gilbert, in The Girl and the Judge.[44] The play had great success, and ran from December 1901 to the fall of 1902. Subsequently, Russell starred in Mice and Men, still with Frohman's company.[45] On December 30, 1902, Mrs. Roosevelt and other Washington dignitaries saw Russell perform in this play.[46]
In 1903, Annie Russell performed in Boston, playing the title role in The Younger Mrs. Parling.[47] She met her second husband, English actor Oswald Yorke in this play. Shortly after her marriage, Russell starred in a new play Brother Jacques.[48]
Annie Russell returned to London in 1905. Her first play upon her return was the role Barbara Undershaft in Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara in that same year, Shaw having written the part with Annie Russell specifically in mind.[49] Her husband Oswald Yorke played the part of Bill Walker in the same production. She later returned to the United States, appearing in Friend Hannah in 1906.[50] In the same year, she performed in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the newly built Astor Theatre in Boston.[51]
In 1908 she appeared with Robert Drouet in The Stronger Sex. Wagenhals & Kemper, owners of a company that Russell was a part of, bought land to build a $300,000 theatre bearing her name in New York City. It was described to be "state-of-the-art."[52] In 1910, she joined the New Theatre Company, New York, appearing in Twelfth Night (1910) and The Nigger (1909.)[53] She performed Twelfth Night in Washington for President Taft and the first Lady, Helen Taft.[54] She appeared in a number of small plays, one under Charles Frohman's management,[55] and in Gordon's Wife under Leibler Company[56] until 1912, when she organized the Old English Comedy Company. They occupied The Princess Theatre in New York, a small theatre of 299 seats. A special feature of her new theatre company was that special matinées for schoolchildren on Fridays and Saturdays were performed, in addition to performances for private schools.[57]
Personal life
She married playwright and stage manager Eugene Wiley Presbrey (1853–1931) on 6 November 1884, and divorced him in 1897.[58][59] She married English actor Oswald Harker (stage name Oswald Yorke) on 27 March 1904,[58] and divorced him in 1929.[2][60] She had no children from either marriage.
Russell suffered from periodic illnesses throughout her life, contributing to large gaps in her career. In late December 1890, many of her professional friends arranged a testimonial to be performed in February 1891. A. M. Palmer, her company manager, offered free use of his theatre to stage the event. Three prominent theatre companies of the time volunteered to participate: the Madison Square Theatre Company, Daniel Frohman's Lyceum Theatre Company, and Charles Frohman's Twenty-Third Street Theatre Company.[61] The testimonial was performed February 10, 1891, and earned $3,000 to offset medical and other costs.[62]
She also gave several speeches to drama students, the first speech to the graduates of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in March 1902.[63]
Russell was close friends with Mary Louise Curtis Bok Zimbalist, who would later contribute financially to the theatre in Russel's name[64]
Later years and death
Russell officially retired from the stage in 1918 and moved to Winter Park, in Florida.[65] She was encouraged by a friend to teach at Rollins College, and in 1931, the Annie Russell Theatre was founded at the college. She opened the theatre in 1932 with a performance of In a Balcony.[66]
She taught at Rollins College until her death on January 16, 1936.[67] She was seventy-two years old. She was buried in St. Stephen's Cemetery in Millburn, New Jersey.