Maxine Elliott

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Maxine Elliott

Maxine Elliott (born February 5, 1868 in Rockland (Maine) , † March 5, 1940 in Cannes ) was an American stage actress and founder of the Broadway theater of the same name. In her time she was often referred to as the most beautiful woman in the world.

Life

Maxine Elliott, theater poster 1905
Fighting Odds , 1917

Elliott was born Jessie Dermott in 1868 . At the age of 15 she began her studies at the Notre Dame Academy in Roxbury . Shortly afterwards, she became pregnant and was forced to marry a man 25 years her senior. The loss of her baby shaped her. In New York she attended the acting school of Dion Boucicault , who became aware of her talent and in 1889 caused her to adopt the stage name Maxine Elliott .

In November 1890 she had her first stage appearance in the play The Middleman with the theater company of AM Palmer . Elliott had her first breakthrough in 1895 when Agustin Daly hired her for Ada Rehan . She made her debut in London with the piece Two Gentlemen of Verona . After the divorce from her first husband, she married the American actor Nathaniel C. Goodwin (1857-1919) in 1898 , with whose theater company she had given a tour of Australia. The two appeared domestically and internationally for seven years in plays such as Nathan Hale and The Cowboy and the Lady .

In a production of The Merchant of Venice , Elliott agreed a fee of $ 200,000 plus half of the profit. On September 28, 1903, she appeared in the Charles B. Dillingham production Her Own Way on Broadway and became a final star. When the production made a guest appearance in London, it was introduced to King Edward VII . Her younger sister, Gertrude , married the English actor Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson .

In 1908 Elliott divorced again and befriended the financier JP Morgan , through whose advice she became a wealthy woman. Soon after, she returned to New York and, with Morgan's support, opened her own theater, The Maxine Elliott, with a performance of The Chaperon .

In 1913 Elliott tried her hand at acting in various silent films such as Slim Driscoll , Samaritan , When the West Was Young and A Doll for the Baby , but returned to London that same year. During the First World War she volunteered for the Belgian welfare and received the order of the Belgian crown. She made friends with New Zealand tennis star Anthony Wilding , who fell in 1915.

Elliott's last appearance was in Trimmed in Scarlett at her own theater in New York in 1920 when she was 52 years old. Then she retired. As a successful business woman, she owned homes in America and Europe. Elliott died in Cannes at the age of 72. Her life is the subject of the biography My Aunt Maxine The Story of Maxine Elliot , written in 1964 by her niece Diana Forbes-Robertson .

Leading roles

  • 1894 The Voyage of Suzette
  • 1894 To Nemesis
  • 1895 The Heart of Ruby
  • 1895 The Transit of Leo
  • 1896 A House of Cards as Eleanor Cuthbert
  • 1897 To American Citizen as Beatrice Carew
  • 1899 Nathan Hale as Alice Adams
  • 1899 The Cowboy and the Lady as Mrs. Weston
  • 1901 and 1902 When We Were Twenty-one
  • 1901 The Merchant of Venice as Portia
  • 1903 The Altar of Friendship as Sally Sartoris
  • 1905 Her Great Match as Jo Sheldon
  • 1903 Her Own Way as Georgiana Carley
  • 1920 Trimmed in Scarlet as Cordelia

Productions

  • 1908 Under the Greenwood Tree
  • 1908 Myself
  • 1910 The Inferior Sex
  • 1918 Allegiance

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Diana Forbes Robertson: "Maxine. King Edward VII. And the most beautiful woman in the world". Reprinted in the London Sunday Times on March 29, 1964.
  2. ^ Diana Forbes-Robertson: My Aunt Maxine The Story of Maxine Elliot , Viking Press 1964.
  3. ^ Robert McHenry: Famous American Women , Dover Publications Inc., 1980.

literature

  • Block, Maxine, Anna Herthe Rothe, and Marjorie Dent Candee. Current Biography Yearbook. New York: HW Wilson, 1940.
  • Maine League of Historical Societies and Museums (1970)
  • Maine League of Historical Societies and Museums, and Dorris A. Isaacson. Maine, a Guide "Down East." American guide series. Rockland, Me: Courier-Gazette, 1970.

Web links

Commons : Maxine Elliott  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
personal data
SURNAME Elliott, Maxine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dermott, Jessie (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American stage actress and founder of the Broadway theater of the same name
DATE OF BIRTH February 5, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Rockland (Maine)
DATE OF DEATH March 5, 1940
Place of death Cannes