Dame Ellen Terry, GBE (27 February 1847[1] – 21 July 1928) was an English stage actress who became the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain. Born into a family of actors, Terry began acting as a child in Shakespeare plays and continued as a teen, in London and on tour. At sixteen she married the much older artist George Frederick Watts, but they separated within a year. She briefly returned to acting but then began a relationship with the architect Edward William Godwin and retired from the stage for six years. She returned to acting in 1874 and was immediately acclaimed for her portrayal of roles in Shakespeare and other classics. In 1878 she joined Henry Irving's company as his leading lady, and for the next two decades she was considered the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain. Two of her most famous roles were Portia in The Merchant of Venice and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. She and Irving also toured with great success in America. In 1903 Terry took over management of London's Imperial Theatre, focusing on the plays of George Bernard Shaw and Henrik Ibsen. The venture was a financial failure, however, and Terry then toured and later also lectured. She continued to find acting success until 1920, while also appearing in films until 1922. Alice Ellen Terry (she reversed her given names by the time of her first marriage) was born in Coventry, England, the third child born into a theatrical family.[2] Her parents, Benjamin (1818–96) and Sarah (née Ballard, 1819–92), were comic actors in a touring company based in Portsmouth[3] and had eleven children. At least five of them became actors: Ellen, Florence, Fred, Kate and Marion. Two other children, George and Charles, were connected with theater management.[4] Terry's sister Kate was a very successful actress until her marriage and retirement from the stage in 1867. Marion, over a long career, played leading roles in over 125 plays.[5] Terry's great nephew (Kate's grandson), Sir John Gielgud, became one of the twentieth century's most respected actors.[6] Terry's first appearance on stage came at the age of eight, when she appeared opposite Charles Kean as Mamillius in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale at London's Princess's Theatre in 1856.[7] She also played the juvenile roles of Prince Arthur in King John and Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream and continued acting at the Princess Theatre until the Keans' retirement in 1859.[8] For the next two years, Terry and Kate toured in sketches and plays, accompanied by their parents and a musician.[3] Between 1861 and 1862, Terry was engaged by the Royalty Theatre in London, managed by Madame Albina de Rhona, where she acted with the Kendals, among other famous actors. In 1862, she joined her sister Kate in Bristol and began working with J. H. Chute's stock company, 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 A Merchant of Venice.[6] In 1863, Chute opened the Theatre Royal in Bath, where Terry, now aged 15, appeared at the opening as Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream and then returned to London to join the company at the Haymarket Theatre in Shakespearean roles.[3] Terry married three times and was involved in numerous relationships. In London, during an engagement at the Haymarket Theatre, she and her sister Kate had their portraits painted by the eminent artist George Frederick Watts. His famous portraits of Terry include Choosing, in which she must select between earthly vanities, symbolised by showy but scent-less camellias, and nobler values symbolised by humble-looking but fragrant violets. His other famous portraits of her include Ophelia and, together with her sister Kate, The Sisters. Watts soon proposed marriage to Terry. She was impressed with Watts' art and elegant lifestyle and wished to please her parents by making an advantageous marriage. Terry and Watts married on 20 February 1864, seven days before her 17th birthday, when Watts was 46. She was uncomfortable in the role of child bride, however, and they separated after only ten months of marriage, during which she took a break from the stage. She returned to acting by 1866.[9] In 1867 Terry performed in several pieces by John Taylor, including A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing at the Adelphi Theatre, The Antipodes at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and Still Waters Run Deep at the Queen's Theatre. Later that year, she first played opposite Henry Irving in Katherine and Petruchio, David Garrick's one-act version of The Taming of the Shrew, at the Queen's Theatre.[6] In 1868 Terry began a relationship with the progressive architect-designer Edward William Godwin, whom she had met some years before. With him she retreated to a house, Pigeonwick, in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, retiring for six years from acting. They could not marry, as Terry was still married to Watts and did not finalize a divorce until 1877—then a scandalous situation. With Godwin she had a daughter, Edith Craig, in December 1869 and a son, Edward Gordon Craig, in January 1872. The surname Craig was chosen to avoid the stigma of illegitimacy.[9] The relationship with Godwin cooled in 1874 amid financial difficulties, and Terry returned to her acting career, separating from Goodwin in 1875. In 1874, Terry played in a number of Charles Reade's works, including as Philippa Chester in The Wandering Heir, Susan Merton in It's Never Too Late to Mend, and Helen Rolleston in Our Seamen. The same year, she performed at The Crystal Palace with Charles Wyndham as Volante in The Honeymoon by John Tobin and as Kate Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith.[6] In 1875, Terry gave an acclaimed performance as Portia in The Merchant of Venice at the Prince of Wales's Theatre. Oscar Wilde wrote a sonnet, upon seeing her in this role: "No woman Veronese looked upon / Was half so fair as thou whom I behold."[9] She recreated this role many times in her career until her last appearance as Portia at London's Old Vic Theatre in 1917. In 1876, she appeared as Lady Teazle in The School for Scandal and in a play called Olivia by William Gorman Wills at the Court Theatre, among other performances. Terry married again, in November 1877, to Charles Clavering Wardell Kelly, an actor/journalist, but they separated before his death in 1885. In 1878, the 30 year old Terry joined Henry Irving's company at the Lyceum Theatre as its leading lady, beginning with Ophelia opposite Irving's Hamlet. Soon, Terry was regarded as the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain, and in partnership with Irving,[10] reigned as such for over 20 years until they left the Lyceum in 1902.[2][11] Their 1879 production of The Merchant of Venice ran for an unusual 250 nights, and success followed success in the Shakespeare canon as well as in other major plays.[3] In 1879, The Times said of Terry's acting in All is Vanity, or the Cynic's Defeat by Paul Terrier, "Miss Terry's Iris was a performance of inimitable charm, full of movement, ease, and Laughter... the most exquisite harmony and natural grace... such an Iris might well have turned the head of Diogenes himself.[12] Whether Irving's relationship with Terry was romantic as well as professional has been the subject of much speculation. According to Michael Holroyd's book about Irving and Terry, A Strange Eventful History, after Irving's death, Terry stated that she and Irving had been lovers and that: "We were terribly in love for a while".[13] Among her most celebrated roles with Irving were Portia, Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, another of her signature roles (1882 and often thereafter),[14] as well as Pauline in The Lady of Lyons by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1878), Juliet, Cordelia in King Lear, Jeanette in The Lyons Mail by Charles Reade (1883), Margaret in Faust by William Gorman Wills (1885), Lady Macbeth in Macbeth (1888, with incidental music by Arthur Sullivan[15]), Queen Katharine in Henry VIII (1892),[16] Rosamund de Clifford in Becket by Alfred Tennyson (1893), Guinevere in King Arthur by J. Comyns Carr, with incidental music by Sir Arthur Sullivan (1895),[17] Imogen in Cymbeline (1896) and the title character in Victorien Sardou and Émile Moreau's play Madame Sans-Gêne (1897).[6] Terry made her American debut in 1883, playing Queen Henrietta opposite Irving in Charles I. Among the other roles she essayed on this and several subsequent tours with Irving were Jeanette in The Lyons Mail, Ophelia, Beatrice, Viola, and her most famous role, Portia.[18] She lived in Earls Court with her children and pets during the 1880s. She first lived in Longridge Road before moving to Barkston Gardens in 1889.[19] In 1900, Terry bought her farmhouse in Smallhythe, Kent, England, where she lived for the rest of her life. In 1903, Terry formed a new venture, taking over management of the Imperial Theatre with her son, after her business partner, Irving, ended his tenure at the Lyceum in 1902. Here she had complete artistic control and could choose the works in which she would appear, as Irving had done at the Lyceum. The new venture focused on the plays of George Bernard Shaw and Henrik Ibsen, including the latter's The Vikings in 1903, with Terry as Hiordis. During this time, Terry struck up a friendship and a famous correspondence with Shaw.[2] Theatre management turned out to be a financial failure for Terry. She then toured England, taking engagements in Nottingham, Liverpool, and Wolverhampton, and appeared in 1905 in J. M. Barrie's Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire.[6] Irving died in 1905 and, upset by his death, Terry again retired from the stage.[3] She returned to the theatre again in April 1906, playing Lady Cecily Wayneflete to acclaim in Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion at the Court Theatre and then touring successfully in that role in Britain and America. On 12 June 1906, after 50 years on the stage, a star-studded gala performance was held at the Drury Lane Theatre for Terry's benefit and to celebrate her golden jubilee, at which Enrico Caruso sang, W. S. Gilbert directed a performance of Trial by Jury, Eleanora Duse, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Lillie Langtry, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, and more than twenty members of Terry's family performed, among other performances.[3] Terry next appeared as Hermione in Tree's production of The Winter's Tale. In 1907 she toured America under the direction of Charles Frohman. During that tour, on 22 March 1907, she married co-star, American James Carew, who had appeared with her at the Court Theatre. She was thirty years older than Carew. Terry's acting career continued strongly, but her marriage broke up after only two years.[20]