Mrs Patrick Campbell
Mrs Patrick Campbell (February 9 1865 - April 9 1940) was one of the most successful British stage actresses of her generation.
Early life and marriages
Campbell was born Beatrice Stella Tanner in Kensington, London, of English and Italian parents.
Her first marriage, from which she took the name by which she is generally known, produced two children, Beo and Stella, and ended with the death of her first husband in 1900. He fell in the Boer War. 1
Fourteen years later, Campbell became the second wife of George Cornwallis-West, a dashing writer and soldier previously married to Jennie Jerome, the mother of Winston Churchill.
Stage career
She was well-known as an amateur before she made her stage debut in 1888 at the Alexandra Theatre, Liverpool, four years after her marriage to Patrick Campbell. In March, 1890, she appeared in London at the Adelphi, where she afterward played again in 1891-93. She became successful as a result of starring in Sir Arthur Wing Pinero's play, The Second Mrs Tanqueray, in 1893, at St. James's Theatre where she also appeared in 1894 in The Masqueraders. As Kate Cloud in John-a-Dreams, produced by Beerbohm Tree at the Haymarket in 1894, she made another success, and again as Agnes in The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, at the Garrick (1895). Among her other performances were those in Fédora (1895), Little Eyolf (1896), and her notable performances with Forbes-Robertson at the Lyceum in the rôles of Juliet, Ophelia, and Lady Macbeth (1895-98). Despite her marriage, she continued to use "Mrs Patrick Campbell" as her stage name.
In 1900, Campbell made a Broadway appearance in New York City in Magda, a marked success, The Joy of Living (1902), as Melisande to the Pelleas of Mme. Sarah Bernhardt (1904), in The Whirlwind and the Bondman (1906), Hedda Gabler (1907), The Thunderbolt (1908), Lady Patricia (1911), Bella Donna (1911), and Shaw's Pygmalion (1914). She would return to perform there on a number of occasions until 1930.
In 1914, she played Eliza Doolittle in the original production of Shaw's Pygmalion; though much too old for the part at 49, she was the obvious choice, being by far the biggest name on the London stage, and Shaw would have seen it no other way since he wrote the play for her in particular.
In her later years, Campbell made notable appearances in motion pictures, including One More River (1934), Rip Tide (1934), and Crime and Punishment (1935).
She died in Pau, France, aged 75.
See also
- My Life And Some Letters by Mrs Patrick Campbell.
- Walkley, Drama and Life (London, 1907)
- Shaw, Dramatic Opinions (London, 1907)
- Archer, The Theatrical World (London, 1897)
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905). New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.
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