Mary Anderson (actress, born 1859)

Anderson was born in Sacramento, California. Shortly after her birth, her parents moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where her father enlisted in the Confederate States Army in the American Civil War. He was killed in action at Mobile when she was three. Anderson was educated at the Ursuline convent and the all-girl Presentation Academy in Louisville. She was an unenthusiastic pupil except for her interest in reading and acting Shakespeare. She also took private lessons in music, dancing and literature. Encouraged by her stepfather, Dr Hamilton Griffin, at 14 she was sent to New York for ten lessons with the actor George Vandenhoff, her only professional training. ==Stage career==

In 1875, she made her first stage appearance at a benefit performance at Macauley's Theatre in Louisville, Kentucky, in the role of Shakespeare's Juliet The manager, Barney Macauley, was sufficiently impressed to extend the booking to a week as Juliet and further roles including Julia in Sheridan Knowles's The Hunchback, Bianca in Henry Hart Milman's Fazio, and R. L. Sheil's Evadne. Further engagements at St Louis, New Orleans and John McCullough's theatre in San Francisco led to a contract with John T. Ford. Starting as Lady Macbeth in his Washington theatre in 1877, she began an extensive US tour, culminating with a six-week engagement in Edward Bulwer Lytton's The Lady of Lyons at the 5th Avenue Theatre, New York. Critical review was mixed, but she was immediately popular with the public as "Our Mary." In 1883, after starring in an American production of W. S. Gilbert's Pygmalion and Galatea, she went on the London stage at the Lyceum Theatre, remaining in England for six years to perform to much acclaim including at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-on-Avon. Her first season there, she starred in Gilbert's Comedy and Tragedy as well as in Romeo and Juliet in 1884. In 1887 in London she appeared in ''The Winter's Tale'' in the double role of Perdita and Hermione (the first actress to include this innovation). In 1889, however, she collapsed on stage due to severe nervous exhaustion during a performance at Albaugh's Theatre in Washington. Some commentators, particularly in the British press, ascribed this turn of events to hostile press reviews on her return to the U.S. The author Willa Cather went further and blamed a specifically hurtful review from a close friend. For part of her career, Napier Lothian Jr. served as Anderson's talent manager. ==Performances==

File:Mary Anderson as Parthenia by Napoleon Sarony 1883.jpg|As Parthenia in Friedrich Halm's Ingomar the Barbarian, 1883 File:Mary Anderson as Perdita by Henry Van der Weyde 1887.jpg|As Perdita in Shakespeare's ''Winter's Tale'', 1887 File:Mary Anderson as Hermione by Henry Van der Weyde 1887.jpg|As Hermione in Shakespeare's ''Winter's Tale'', 1887 File:Mary Anderson as Galatea by Napoleon Sarony 1883.jpg|As Galatea in W. S. Gilbert's Pygmalion and Galatea, 1883 ==Later life==

Ordered to rest after her breakdown, Mary Anderson visited England. In 1890 she married Antonio Fernando de Navarro. She became known as Mary Anderson de Navarro. They settled at Court Farm in the Cotswolds, Broadway, Worcestershire, where she cultivated an interest in music and became a noted hostess with a distinguished circle of musical, literary and ecclesiastical guests. She also gave birth to three children, one son who died at birth, another son, Alma Jose "Toty" Maria de Navarro and a daughter, Mary Elena de Navarro. A devout Roman Catholic, she had a chapel built in her attic, with stained-glass windows designed by Paul Woodroffe. She has been cited as a model for characters in the Mapp and Lucia novels of E. F. Benson, either the operatic soprano Olga Bracely or Lucia herself, as well as the prototype for the heroine of William Black's novel The Strange Adventures of a House-Boat. She published two books of her memories, the 1896 A Few Memories and the 1936 A Few More Memories, and collaborated with Robert Smythe Hichens on a 1911 New York stage adaptation of his novel, The Garden of Allah. ==Death==

She died at her home in Broadway, Worcestershire, in 1940, aged 80. She was survived by her son and daughter. ==Filmography==

The Mary Anderson Theatre was the oldest theatre on Louisville's 4th Street. It opened in 1907 as a vaudeville house, but two years later began to screen movies. The theatre closed in 1972 and was converted into office space. Land donated by Anderson in Mount St. Francis, Indiana to the Conventual Franciscan Friars is now the Mount Saint Francis Center for Spirituality. The center serves as the headquarters for the Province of Our Lady of Consolation and home to the Mary Anderson Center, an artist colony. In 1989, the portion of US Route 150 that adjoins the donated property was named the Mary Anderson Memorial Highway. The house and farm that Mary and Antonio Navarro purchased and extended in the town of Broadway, Court Farm, is recognised as hosting one of the best preserved Edwardian gardens. It was left to her son, Toty de Navarro, who lived there with his wife, Dorothy, their son Michael and Dorothy's long-time Cambridge friend, Gertrude Caton Thompson. As in the years when Mary lived there, it was often filled with visiting artists and musicians, including Myra Hess and a young Jacqueline du Pré. ==References and sources==

References Sources • Donald Roy, "Anderson, Mary (1859–1940)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 • Winter Stage Life of Mary Anderson (1886) ==External links==